Final Rinse vs Stabilizer

what's the difference? I've seen both, and seem to remember that Kodak brought out Final Rinse for their re-done color neg films.


PE, can you chime in on this one if you know?

I still have a serious problem with nasty dust particles landing on my 4x5 and 120 negs. Whilst scanning, its a real b!t#h to have to clone all those little dust particles out.

I'll list my order in which i do my processing:

I'm using a Jobo CPP2 with lift arm for 120 and 4x5, also for the small amout of 35mm i do. ALL CHEMISTRY IS KODAK.

1. Heat all chemistry to 39 deg C (102.7 F), the temp that EK recommends for their chemistry and color neg films.

2. Developer for 3:15 (dev is mixed with tap water)

3. Bleach 6:30 (straight use as per Kodak bottle)

4. 1st Wash 4:00 (constant changes of tap water at 95-100 deg F)

5. Fix 6:00 (fix is mixed with tap water)

6. 2nd Wash 4:00 (same as above)

7. Stabilizer 1:30-2:00 (stabilizer is mixed with distilled water)

8. Hang to drip/dry (after 10 mins of dripping, I turn on the drier, which

has a filter)

dry for 45mins or so

leave negs to rest(cool) for 1hr or so and then sleeve


anyone have any pointers?

Concerning the Final Rinse / Stabiliser difference:

-) both terms have been used by Kodak for a similar type of bath, adding to the confusion…

-) both baths contain (or should contain) a surfactant in order to let water run off smoothly in that last processing step.

-) the final rinse/wetting bath can contain some bacteriostats/fungistats or such to prevent the gelatin from deteriorating under adverse archiving conditions. However there is some uncertainty between products to the extend of content of such agents.
Due the the silver content of a processed non-chromogenic b&w film there is some inherent bacteriostatic capacitiy.

-) the stabilizer, by containing formaldehyde, serves as a means to scavenge unused couplers in a chromogenic film to avoid a self-deterioration of the dye-system.
As there is no silver left in a chromogenic-colour film, the stabilizer must contain a longtime bacteriostat or such.

-) with the introduction of more stable chromogenic dye forming systems, the new final rinse for chromogenic films (most probably) does not contain any formaldehyde any more, thus only has to serve the bacteriostatic (and wetting) purpose.

I had the same problem with the E-6 processing (Kodak chemicals too) till I left the film dry at room temp., there was no more crystallisation of the final bath (the 7 Th.). In E-6, the final bath cannot be omitted.

Perhaps, this might help to solve your problem...

Philippe

thanks guys. if anyone else has anything to add, please do!

All Kodak Portra VC, NC, UC, Ektar and all consumer grade negative films made and sold after 2002/2003 should use Final Rinse. You can use Stabilizer on them too. But the Final Rinse is environment friendly. It was introduced to replace the hazardous Stabilizer. All older negatives, such as Kodak VPS-i, ii, and iii should use Final Rinse still.

I used to have the dusty negative problem for years. It would take easily half an hour to Photoshop each image to clean up the dusts. Now I use two pieces of household sponges submerged in the Final Rinse first then squeeze out as much as possible the liquid and use them as a squeegee to squeeze/wipe my wet negatives before hanging them in the air to dry. Not only it speeds up the time to dry the film it eliminates 95% of the dusts. I now can Photoshop each frame of negative to touch up a few dusts in less than a minute or two. What a difference it has made. I suspect that the remaining white spots on my images are actually dusts on my scanner's glass carrier, not the dusts on the negative.

My strategy after running through the final rinse is to hang dry in my laundry room. I mix it up with my tap water. This generally takes 45 minutes - 2 hours depending on the season. Once dry, I generally don't have a problem. I have dealt with the crystalization on some negatives by dampening a paper towel and running it over the base side of the film. Dusting just before the final print will remove any leftover dust on the base side. I find that recently washed finger tips (without so much oil) can pick up some large dust particles on the emulsion side which otherwise don't dust off. It's easier if you have a diligent drying system and use a dust free drying cabinet and sleeve promptly after dry.