C41 Stabilizer goof

[DannyP]

I screwed up.

I just mixed my Unicolor C41 kit, and instead of pouring the soak into the tank first, I poured the stabilizer.

Realizing my mistake, I immediately poured the stabilizer . . . down the sink.

Now I have a tank with two rolls of film soaked in stabilizer.

Questions:

1. Is THIS stabilizer necessary for the process? Or can I develop the negs and stabilize with something else?
2. Did getting stabilizer on the film already screw everything up?
3. If I'm screwed, can I keep the film in the tank for the week or so it'll take me to get another kit?

 

[markbarendt]

It is necessary but can be done a bit later.

For now you could use some photoflo to avoid water spots.

 

[mnemosyne]

I screwed up.

I just mixed my Unicolor C41 kit, and instead of pouring the soak into the tank first, I poured the stabilizer.

Realizing my mistake, I immediately poured the stabilizer . . . down the sink.

Now I have a tank with two rolls of film soaked in stabilizer.

Questions:

1. Is THIS stabilizer necessary for the process? Or can I develop the negs and stabilize with something else?
2. Did getting stabilizer on the film already screw everything up?
3. If I'm screwed, can I keep the film in the tank for the week or so it'll take me to get another kit?

1. Use the search function, this "is stabilizer really necessary"/"can I use x y z in place of stabilizer" question pops up all the time, we just had it a couple of days ago
2. You will know after processing
3. No. Once the film has been in contact with water, I would not leave it in the tank for a week. What you should do now IMHO is rinse the film thoroughly with plain water to remove all traces of the stabilizer, then immediately process film as planned. After the rinse simply use a final bath with some wetting agent (photo flo or similar) to avoid drying marks and let the film dry normally. As soon as you have gotten hold of proper C41 stabilizer bath you can and should re-do the stabilizing part. Good luck.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Try washing for 5 minutes at 20C and then gently raise the temp to the process temp and process as usual. This might be ok with some color shift.

Use photoflo in distilled water at the end of your process for now, and then try to get some real stabilizer or get some formalin and mix up a stabilizer of your own. The formula is here on APUG.

PE