Black spots on negatives

[mshere]

I would be really grateful for some help.

I did a lot of film photography in the 80s and 90s, developing and printing hundreds of my own black and white films without any problems. I then moved into digital, but have recently restarted black and white film photography.

The problem is that all my negatives have tiny black spots of different shapes and sizes translating into white spots when scanned. I have developed about 12 films so far and have tried changing different things, but it seems to be getting worse rather than better. I sent one film off to be professionally developed and it was fine. Example attached.

The setup is: Ilford Pan-F or FP4 (well in date and from different suppliers) Developer - started with Ilford ID-11, then bought a new packet as I thought that it might be caused by the developer not being dissolved properly then Adox XT-3 which someone recommended, and then Ilford Perceptol, all using distilled water and stock solutions. Ilfostop to stop, but have also tried just a wash with distilled water and fixing with Ilford rapid fixer 1 in 4.
I have kept the temperatures very close to 20 degrees. A wash with many changes of water and a final rinse with Kodak Photo-flo 200 1 in 200.

I then hang up the negatives to dry for a few hours.

The whole thing is driving me mad, as I have yet to develop a usable negative!

 

[koraks]

Welcome aboard @mshere!

There's dust on your negatives. Usually this dust finds its way onto the film when it's drying in a place that's not very clean and/or experiences lots of airflow, depositing airborne dust onto the film. It's also common to see dust land on the film during handling when it's already dry; this is less of a concern because it can generally be simply wiped/brushed off of the film. Dust that embeds itself into the emulsion during drying is usually permanent.

It's worthwhile to do a search on this forum for threads about avoiding and dealing with dust on negatives. You'll find that there are many ways in which people handle this issue; try and see what's best for you.

 

[retina_restoration]

Yeah, that’s a sh*tload of dust on your negs. You must be hanging your negs to dry in a dusty environment, probably with lots of air movement too. Consider building a drying cabinet. It can be as simple as a tall cardboard box.

 

[loccdor]

I hang my negatives up on my shower curtain bar for the first part of drying until they stop dripping, then move them to a window curtain bar for a few hours to finish them off.

I don't get much dust at all, because
1) I regularly vacuum those places with the hose attachment to keep them clean
2) I turn my forced air heater off while they are drying (especially while they are still very wet)
3) I don't disturb any fabrics or pet any animals near the film
4) I try to digitize them same-day rather than leave them hanging for days, which leads to more dust being deposited

In your situation I'd do a thorough vacuum of all surfaces followed by a wet wipe down. Make sure that anything which blows air is turned off while they are drying.