Yesterday I did sacrifice a strip from my bulk roll of Retro 80S to see visually what happens when in the prewash stage. Found out that the black AH backing layer washes off after about 15 seconds of constantly agitated distilled water and the next green layer follows it right up, requiring just more of the same to clear... But I could be washing sensitizing dyes off with this too, so I must limit this action as you pointed out...
So I did an experiment or two. Noticed that the AH layers don't dissolve in isopropyl alcohol, so I approached it as a stop/rinse bath, and decided to isolate just the black layer by agitating film in a distilled water for 15 seconds, then doing the 100% isopropyl alcohol bath to take up the remaining halation layer dissolved in water, to stop the washing process exactly where I want it, and to have dry film ready to spool in cassettes literally in minutes.
And judging by the leader, the result is quite even too, because isopropyl alcohol absorbed all the water that carries the dissolved dyes and it just doesn't smudge any further.
Visually didn't observe any damage from this to the film, will shoot and see how it went - if no damage occured from that alcohol bath, it could be golden!
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