ORWO NP22 sheet film weirdness

[tanner]

I got my hands on a box of said film and since I have no large format equipment yet (well film is 6.5x9cm, but still) I decided to try enlarging onto it. The first sheet is still drying and I'm noticing something weird. Both sides seemed to have emulsion on them. One side dries matte and the other glossy, but when still wet the glossy side is sticky as if there is emulsion on it. Why is this? Even the dry parts of the glossy side feel a bit tender.

I've started my journey into the silver world a few months back and it's intoxicating!

 

[AgX]

Except for some X-ray films there is emulsion coated only to one side of the film base. However for various reasons (flatness, retouching, anti-static etc.) a coating of some kind or other may be coated to the back-side of a film.

 

[Nikola Dulgiarov]

This was common to many ORWO films, in particular the photo-technical ones. The matte layer is supposed to be the emulsion side, whilst the other one is a gelatin layer holding antihalation dyes, which should bleed out in the developer and stop bath. When developed in Rodinal, or other highly alkaline developer, the film releases all of the purplish-blue dye, yet sometimes a cast remains.