oops - i overdeveloped. how do I fix my negs?

[angrykitty]

So I overdeveloped a single roll of ilford hp5 plus. Lesson learned: 74 is too warm

so how do I fix 'er up? I've got just the basic chemicals, and not a whole world of cash but I could maybe spare the expense for some special fix it solution.

i'm not super attached to this roll, but there might be a shot or two worth saving on it. The problem is I'm between dark rooms (gettin my own soon) and my negative scanner simply does not compute the overexposure. I've tried various settings.

I can tell I'd be able to save them if I was printing, which I eventually will, but for now I can't even get a contact sheet out of this roll and damn it I wanna see what's on there!

This would be a great roll for me to 'learn' on since it's not too significant.

How do I fix it?

 

[Krzys]

Farmer's Reducer would work but zap your contrast. I have only read about it and personally would not use it myself. There are lots of folks here with experience on the stuff.

 

[Vaughn]

Somewhere on the forum someone described a process where one bleaches the negative back to little or no image, then redevelops the film in the light to the density one wants. Don't use Farmer's Reducer for this process (it has some fixer in it, so you can't redevelop). Sounds interesting, but I have not tried it yet -- though I have a few 8x10 negs that can be used as radioactivity shields...

Vaughn

 

[Ian Grant]

Just bleach the negatives in a Potassium Ferricyanide 10g + Potassium Bromide 10g per litre bleach, same as used for toning, wash well and then redevelop in a normal film developer.

The process is carried out in the light, but must not be done in bright sunlight. In Vaughn's case redevelopment in a soft working developer may be needed

Ian

 

[mts]

Farmer's reducer is your only option. It is a proportional reducer that converts silver to halide in proportion to density. You must fix to remove the Ag-halide that is formed thereby reducing the silver density. Keep in mind that your initial overdevelopment has moved highlights to the shoulder of the characteristic curve and also increased usually significantly gamma (contrast). The result will be a printable negative but you can expect to need a low-contast (soft) paper and you will likely loose detail in the highlights owing to their having been pushed beyond the linear portion of the characteristic curve.

The processing is best done for strips in white enameled tray in good light. Prewet the film before starting to reduce and stop the reduction when inspection shows that the density is reduced sufficiently. Farmer's reducer combines the bleach and fixer in one bath for which the activity is relatively short--perhaps 30 minutes or so if I recall correctly.

 

[Ian Grant]

Farmers reducer is a "Subtractive" reducer

Farmers reducer is a "Subtractive" reducer, not proportional, it takes the same density from the shadows as the high-lights. It cannot convert any Silver to halide as there's no halide - Bromide or Chloride present, the ferricyanide & thiousulphate converts the silver to soluble complexes.

With Farmers reducer you run a huge risk of losing shadow detail in the negatives without really reducing the highlight density sufficiently, a proportional reducer would be better, but redevelopment is far simpler and safer.

Ian

 

[removed account4]

how about before reducing your film ... just try to print them as dense as they are ?
sometimes dense film prints very well ... much better than thin negatives.

 

[Vaughn]

Since the images are "not significant", you might find similar shots on the roll and vary the beaching/redeveloping, including some without any treatment. HP5 might be more forgiving than one might think. If you overdo the redeveloping, I think you can just rinse the negatives off well, and bleach them again.

My understanding of the process agrees with Ian. I have used Farmers Reducer to remove significant basefog on sheet film (out-of-date). I have also used it to knock back the shadow areas, then fix and wash -- and then selenium tone to add density to the higher values. A nice way to increase contrast a little -- I have used this method on camera negatives for carbon printing.

But have fun on your experiment! Vaughn

 

[PhotoJim]

Unless the images are irreplaceable, the best solution is to hold your head in your hands, utter your favourite curse or near-curse, pop another roll of HP-5 Plus into your camera, and shoot again.

74 F is only 23 C, not that warm - there are conversion tables to help you adjust development times intended for 20 degrees. If you meant 74 C, then yes, that is waaaaaay too warm.

 

[kozesluk]

in the beginning, without experience and being dumb&young, you know... i usually haven't paid attention to measure tempreture of anything so i ended with many rolls of hp5+ and tmax3200 in d-76 1+1 developed at cca 24 °C using the recommended times for 20 °C...
well - really overdeveloped. those negatives looked really sexy to me until i bought an enlarger and realized they are not printable at normal grade paper. ilford id-3 helped a lot but it was still not soft enough many times...

nowdays i'm able to print these negatives on multigrade papers without problem.

so my advice is: try to print them first.

 

[Ian Grant]

74 F is only 23 C, not that warm - there are conversion tables to help you adjust development times intended for 20 degrees. If you meant 74 C, then yes, that is waaaaaay too warm.

It's enough to increase development by over 23% which is rather significant.

Ian

 

[PhotoJim]

It's enough to increase development by over 23% which is rather significant.

True, but my point was that it can be compensated for rather easily.

23% error on non-T-grain films isn't wild and crazy, though... enough to result in excessive density but not to the point of unprintability.

 

[mvs]

[/QUOTE]

Just bleach the negatives in a Potassium Ferricyanide 10g + Potassium Bromide 10g per litre bleach, same as used for toning, wash well and then redevelop in a normal film developer.

The process is carried out in the light, but must not be done in bright sunlight. In Vaughn's case redevelopment in a soft working developer may be needed

Ian

Hello Ian, Anchell's cookbook says 35g of ferry and 10g of pottasium bromide/L but that does sound strong. I'm about to start the process (on practice negs first). Could you recommend a low sulfite/high alkali developer (except Ansco 47) for redeveloping after reduction? I'm about to use Diafine thinking it couldn't hurt. Thank you in advance
PS also, how to go about reducing fogged negs -- ferry+thiosulfate in what proportions and then wash and hardening fixer? Should I wash and fix in plain hypo before the procedure?

 

[Ian Grant]

The re-halogenating bleach is from Ilford IT-1 toner, actually ithe formula is 100gm pre litre of Bromide and Ferricyanide but you dilute 1+9 (1:10) for use. It's better to have that balance for re-halogenating.

You should be able to print through fogged negatives . You can use Farmers reducer, the Ilford version is IR-1

ILFORD IR-1

Soln A
Potaassium Ferricyanide 100gm
Water to 1 lire

Soln B
Sodium Thiosulphate (cryst) 200gms
Water to 1 litre

To Use 1 part A and 20 parts B, has a very short tray life so mix immediately before use. You can mix stronger or weaker y adjusting the amount of Ferricyanide depending on how much reduction you're after.

DON'T use commercial Rapid Fixer as this is too aggressive.

Ian

 

[Doremus Scudder]

All the suggestions above are good, but I have a question first for the OP:

A 23% increase in development shouldn't really make your negatives unscannable. I imagine there is something you can do to get good scans, but I'm no expert here. Have you tried all your digital tricks yet? I'd certainly look into that before I went about reducing or bleaching a negative. Certainly, you should be able to make good wet prints from the negatives.

If you must (or just want to) try one of the techniques above, be aware that there are two basic approaches being suggested. One is bleaching the negative a bit, removing some of the image silver and thereby coming up with a less-dense negative. The other is bleach-redevelop, which converts the entire image back into (invisible) silver bromide which you then develop again with the film developer of your choice (to a lesser degree of contrast in your case). The former uses a bleach that removes the image silver entirely; you cannot redevelop it. The latter uses a so-called "rehalogenating" bleach that just changes the silver into another compound. The bleaches for these processes are not interchangeable.

If you decide on bleach redevelopment, be sure and re-fix you negatives after you redevelop.

Best,

Doremus

 

[Arklatexian]

I'm with John on this one. I have several negatives that are very dense, but make lovely prints.

+1

 

[mvs]

thank you Ian, you are the best! I have sodium thio crystals for that so no worries. You think Diafine is fine for redeveloping or can you give me a hand here with a name of an available low sulfite developer?

 

[mvs]

I'm with John on this one. I have several negatives that are very dense, but make lovely prints.

Andrew, yeah and I have some really good old and dense negs printing like, well dense negs. Perhaps, they would print better on Agfa fibre but but but

 

[pentaxuser]

I wonder what the OP,angrykitty, did in the end?. He/she hasn't been seen since July 2011. Then came Act Two, you acted strange and seemed to change and why I'll never know. Gee I'm lonesome tonight ......

A word from our sponsor: "To all you Brits out there who are lonesome tonight, we'll always have 2 hours at Prestwick Airport in 1960 as Humph said on a film lot in Los Angeles or Casablanca as we know it better by

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Curses! Bitten by the old thread syndrome!

 

[pentaxuser]

Curses! Bitten by the old thread syndrome!

Not to worry Andrew. Most such threads end up addressing a new and appreciative audience anyway and make searches easier.
Another anecdote with only scant relevance: A few years ago, two teenage girls asked a friend of mine what was the oldest thing he could remember. He replied that he could just about remember the King dying. They became more interested in this than he had expected, saying it must have been a very sad time and asking if they played much of his songs on TV and radio. My friend replied that they played a few days of sombre music on the BBC radio but he wasn't really aware of any songs. However he had heard that the King enjoyed singing "Underneath the spreading chestnut tree" at a camp sing song. They hadn't heard of this song but asked if it was part of an action/outdoors film that the King had made and they had missed knowing anything about.

He was about to say that in his position as King and Sovereign, it was inconceivable for him to make any action films when it suddenly dawned on him that his King was George VIth and their King was Elvis

pentaxuser

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Not to worry Andrew. Most such threads end up addressing a new and appreciative audience anyway and make searches easier.
Another anecdote with only scant relevance: A few years ago, two teenage girls asked a friend of mine what was the oldest thing he could remember. He replied that he could just about remember the King dying. They became more interested in this than he had expected, saying it must have been a very sad time and asking if they played much of his songs on TV and radio. My friend replied that they played a few days of sombre music on the BBC radio but he wasn't really aware of any songs. However he had heard that the King enjoyed singing "Underneath the spreading chestnut tree" at a camp sing song. They hadn't heard of this song but asked if it was part of an action/outdoors film that the King had made and they had missed knowing anything about.

He was about to say that in his position as King and Sovereign, it was inconceivable for him to make any action films when it suddenly dawned on him that his King was George VIth and their King was Elvis

pentaxuser

 

[mvs]

och, just have a pint and off to bed you go

 

[mvs]

The Kodak Tri-X 400 negative developed in Fomadone LQR wouldn't bleach. I increased the ferry to 35g+10g/L, left the neg in it overnight. The only change is an overall warmish tint. The ferry is working fine on a print -- seconds to bleach it. Will try other negs developed in D76, perhaps. Interesting.

 

[CMoore]

I took a photo class last year. It was typical of what a High School would have taught 30 years ago......beginning B&W film.
One of the kids did something wrong. Either he did not dilute the developer or he did not dilute it enough.. The negs were damn near black. The teacher gave him some Farmers Reducer to try. I watched him a bit, working in "room light" and was amazed at how well it worked. The negs printed quite well, considering, when he finished.