4x5 developing film accindentally stop bath first. How to Save the negatieve.

jaapdijks · Jul 13, 2014

I was in my darkroom yesterday and accidentally put my negatives in the stop bath first.
Stupid, but it was dark in there. Film stayed in the stop bath for about three minutes before
I realised my mistake.

Wash the negatives for a minute and restarted the process in the correct sequence.
The negatives are quite dark. They have developed, the image is there, however
The negative has not cleared, its grey all over, rebate is not showing. Its very dense.

Any wat to Salvage them? Or are they lost?

Jaap

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AgX · Jul 13, 2014

You mean the image is darker than expected, and the signing at the edges is missing?

Or the basic density got so high that you can't differentiate a signing any more?

bdial · Jul 13, 2014

Sounds like a fixer problem now. Try re-fixing with fresh fix, or else you made a second solution error and didn't fix them at all.
Either way, re-fixing may resolve it.

The initial error of using the stop bath first wouldn't make the negatives excessively dark, if anything, they'd be light due to possible reduced developer activity. So the darkness is either too much exposure either in the camera or by fogging, and/or inadequate fixing. If the negatives have an overall milky-grey appearance then it's definitely a fixing problem.

removed account4 · Jul 13, 2014

as bdial said re-fix them in fresh fixer ... then rewash them &c
if they are excessively dense afterwards, you can't do much ..
i have lots of extremely dense film ( you can't see through them
even with a bright light ) i just contact print them on rc paper
and use a 300W light bulb ... 10-15 second exposures usually do the trick
and the prints are beautiful.

good luck !

john

ps. i never use stop bath ...

jaapdijks · Jul 13, 2014

@AgX

The whole negative is incredibly dense all over, the signing at the edges is not discernible.
I have a totally grey negative. When looking through it with a bright light it looks kind of brownish / greenish.

An earlier bunch of negatives in the same chemistry came out well, same exposure time and subjects.
Might have been exhausted Developer, especially when some residu stopbath was left on the negative.

Any harm in redeveloping them?
I will refix some of them with new chemistry first to try whether that works.

Thanks for your answers so far.

Jaap

pdeeh · Jul 13, 2014

If they have been fixed there is no point in putting them back into developer again

bdial · Jul 13, 2014

If your fixing was incomplete due to possibly bad fixer, you would not want to put it back in developer.
That your fix was ok the last time you used it doesn't necessarily mean it's still good, unless you've specifically tested it.

MattKing · Jul 13, 2014

If you mixed things up once, who knows what the gremlins have been doing since.

Mix up fresh fix and re-fix.

rince · Jul 14, 2014

+1 on the re-fix

Xmas · Jul 14, 2014

jaapdijks said:
Any wat to Salvage them? Or are they lost?

No way they are lost.

bdial · Jul 14, 2014

Whether or not they are lost depends on exactly what is wrong, which we can only guess at without seeing them.

Xmas · Jul 14, 2014

There are recipes for monobaths which work quite well but a prebath hypo for a few minutes was not in any I've seen.

One could try Farmers reducer but just as likely to remove any residual image.

Less than 30 seconds maybe ok more than a minute...

But they are sheets if OP wants to try.

jaapdijks · Jul 14, 2014

I consider them lost. I will try a refix anyway. No harm in trying the refix.
Thanks for all the answers, will let you know what happens.

Jaap

removed account4 · Jul 14, 2014

make a contact sheet with your room light not your enlarger.
i will bet the film is fine and far from lost

4x5 developing film accindentally stop bath first. How to Save the negatieve.

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