can i save negaivevs.

alright so i guess the coffie idea was nt so good after all for a beginner.Ive finnaly gotten as far as developing paper and I ve a cople of negatives I might have deveoped or exposed wrong as they are very light, barley visable infact ,that Id love to save if I can .Can i redevelope in the tank .I dont know.Ive heard of selenium toning, sepia, and cryptosporridiumosesis,but i dont want to start with too strong a chemical as its hard enough getting back in time to the air supply tube in the wall as it is.

..Are we really alone in the dark room....

This may sound a bit harsh although it's not meant that way: unless they're the most important once-in-a-lifetime negs then I'd chalk them up to experience and try a new roll of film.

Intensification with selenium is only useful for properly exposed but slightly underdeveloped negatives. Otherwise, scrap them, get something plain vanilla like D-76 and shoot again. You will learn nothing from getting into arcane chemistry with bad negatives.

Don't forget about staining developers that add stain to the silver image. If you are going to junk the negative anyway, here's a chance to learn something. Get some potassium ferricyanide, sodium carbonate and pyrogallol. Mix a teaspoon of the ferricyanide and a teaspoon of the carbonate in a pint or half-liter of water. Be sure the negative is well fixed and thoroughly washed. Immerse the negative in this solution and agitate until the image looks milky. It won't hurt to go too long. Wash the negative. Mix a solution of 1 teaspoon of pyrogallol and 1 teaspoon of carbonate in a pint or so of water. Immerse the negative in this solution until the silver part of the image comes back. It will be stained. Some call it green, others call it yellow. Human color vision is not reliable. The contrast of this image when printed on graded paper or VC paper with blue or magenta light will be much higher than it was before treatment.

Do not save the developer. The bleaching solution may be reused.

This treatment may be repeated to add more stain. Too many repetitions may cause cracks in the emulsion due to the tanning of the gelatin by the pyro.

If you wish, you may use the bleach from a sulfide toning kit as the bleach, or find the formula for sulfide toning in the Darkroom Cookbook. Do not use the toning redeveloper. It does not add stain to the silver image, but converts the silver image to a silver sulfide image.

I forgot to include potassium bromide in the developer. Add a teaspoon of it. Better yet, use Solution A of Formula #98 in the Darkroom Cookbook:

Water........................750 ml.
Potassium ferricyanide....50 grams.
Potassium bromide.........10 grams.
Sodium carbonate..........20 grams.
Water to 1 liter.

gainer said:

I forgot to include potassium bromide in the developer. ...

Click to expand...

In the bleach, I hope you mean...

I've used this method to bring a rather anemic 18x24cm negative up to something suitable for POP - that's a full 10 stops contrast range (all 21 steps on my Stouffer step wedge). It really, really works - and unlike selenium toning, it's reversible.

You're right, Ole. It's a bit sad,too. I will not begin my 81st year for another 2 weeks. What ailment of old age causes one to make mistakes in correcting mistakes?