How to clean/avoid water marks

narigas2006 · Sep 20, 2008

Hi,

how to avoid watermarks in newly developed film. I use photflo and an squeegee but some little marks still remain. I suppose it could be the water of stockholm but is there anyway to minimise it?

Thanks!

richardson

Neil Souch · Sep 20, 2008

Hi,
A final rinse / soak in ionised / distilled water sometimes helps, worth a try I would think. However, remember to not over use the ionised / distilled water and replace it regulary.

Cheers,
Neil.

TomStr · Sep 20, 2008

use demineralised water as last wash bad. if you hang it in a dust free room you should have no dust.
Greetings,

Tom

Dan Henderson · Sep 20, 2008

Les McLean advises to add a little bit of isopropyl alcohol to the distilled water/PhotoFlo final rinse.

reellis67 · Sep 20, 2008

Ockham's razor for me - photoflo and hang, nothing else, and never a water mark ever. The kids at school go through all sorts of contortions, tools, and god knows what else and get all kinds of spots. From what I can tell, and I have not done any scientific testing on this, yet it seems to hold true with the kids, is that trying to dry too fast is the main cause of water spots. I let the film sheet the water off all by it's gravity driven self, and it always dries clean. When the kids do their thing they always try to get it dry as fast as possible and they end up with spots. I don't know if it's just me or not, but the simplest method has always done the best job.

- Randy

patrickjames · Sep 20, 2008

I just started giving the film a final dunk in 90% Isopropyl Alcohol and then after I hang it up I wipe it gently on the non emulsion side with a Kimwipe. The negs are spotless after this. I have always had problems with Photo-Flo so I don't use it. Edwal LFN is also a good solution.

Sportera · Sep 20, 2008

I have had a lot of problems with this since we moved into our new house. As far as I can tell, my problem is water bubbles that when dried leave tiny marks on the film, DI water did not help, some how the film is attracting every tiny microscopic bubble in the rinse.

My solution is to add some Alcohol to the final rinse, no real data to support any of this claim, but my negs are coming out cleaner now. If there are any visible bubbles on the films I wash again, sometimes running my fingers gently over the problem area to dislodge them, and then back into the LFN/Alcohol rinse.

Poohblah · Sep 20, 2008

i've always had issues with photo-flo, but squeegeeing the film with your finger instead of a squeegee helps a ton.

Stoo Batchelor · Sep 21, 2008

narigas2006 said:
Hi,

how to avoid watermarks in newly developed film. I use photflo and an squeegee but some little marks still remain. I suppose it could be the water of stockholm but is there anyway to minimise it?

Thanks!

richardson

I found that I had to use filtered water throughout the while developing process. The quick dip and dunk in filtered water at the end of the process did not work for me.

I second the use of isopropyl alcohol in the final rinse water. It works a treat.

best

Stoo

patrickjames · Sep 21, 2008

By the way, the added benefit to using IA as a final rinse is your negs dry really fast!

GeorgesGiralt · Sep 22, 2008

Hi !
I do not use wetting agent anymore (except for large format film where my method is un-practicable).
I use a salad spining machine to squegeee as much water as I can from my films.
Put a couple of reels in the spinning bowl agains the walls of the bowl, in order for the film to be at right angle from the wall, diametrically opposed and spin them gently.
This will drive all water from the surface of the film out, leaving only the water embedded into the gelatin, which is very little. This way you won't have any marks, spots, and scratches.
Of course, do not use the same device for the films and the salad, otherwise you may have green spots ;-)

How to clean/avoid water marks

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