Hello.
I had real issues with dirty 4x5 film negatives.
I'm talking about just checking developed film by scanning it (not making prints in the darkroom, yet.)
The first thing I did was to scrupulously control the putting in of the film into the film holder in the darkroom by spraying everything possible with compressed air, also spraying the film holder before and after putting the holder into the camera. And also spraying the holder before taking the film out. I run a hot tap in the bathroom (darkroom) to create steam to gather dust before starting developing.
Then I filtered my stock solution and fixer with cotton wool and used distilled water for the stop bath and the fixer.
Then I installed a water filter (I have my own well) with a 10 micron nylon coiled type filter for particle filtration.
And I started using Ilfotol wetting agent.
The negatives are now 90% cleaner but they still have white spots on them when I take them out of the fixer.
I have just mixed a new batch of ID11 developer with distilled water and I was wondering if this will solve the white specks problem?
I was also thinking of filtering this developer with cotton wool before use, but will this ruin it's developing properties?
A while back I ran a test on my tap water which showed that I have too much manganese and iron, Could these be the white specks on the negative? In which case, a second filter for iron and manganese would help?
Thanks,
Mark
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