Pre-soaking FB paper?

Jonathan R · Apr 8, 2013

As developer carry-over into the fixer, and fixer residues in the finished print, are such problems, what is the reason that no-one pre-soaks FB paper in plain water before immersion in the developer. Would it significantly lessen developer activity in the emulsion? Or is diffusion of chemical into the paper base so fast that it wouldn't make any practical difference?

Ian Grant · Apr 8, 2013

Pre soaking won't help prevent carry over, and yes it will lessen developer activity so you'd need to develop for longer to get similar results, so njo benefit.

Ian

L Gebhardt · Apr 8, 2013

You would gradually be diluting your developer and you would still have the carry-over to the other baths.

cliveh · Apr 8, 2013

So why do some people presoak film?

noacronym · Apr 8, 2013

cliveh said:
So why do some people presoak film?

You presoak film to dissolve the anti-halation backing, and to bring the tank and reel to working temperature. It would be totally pointless to bust your tail to get your developer temperature on the money, and then pour it in to a cold taknk, or a hot one. So you presoak with water of the same temperature as the developer is going to be.

cliveh · Apr 8, 2013

noacronym said:
You presoak film to dissolve the anti-halation backing, and to bring the tank and reel to working temperature. It would be totally pointless to bust your tail to get your developer temperature on the money, and then pour it in to a cold taknk, or a hot one. So you presoak with water of the same temperature as the developer is going to be.

Leaving out the anti-halation backing, why shouldn't you make sure paper is at the correct temperature before development if you do the same with film?

noacronym · Apr 8, 2013

There's no need to pre-soak paper--that's the bottom line. But especially fiber based. FB gets limp when wet, and all that pointless handling of wet paper leaves you prone to crescent-moons in the finish, creases or other damage. Aside from the fact that it takes quite a while for the developer to begin replacing the water that's soaked into it, with the possibility of uneven development, mottling, etc. And just that replacement time will throw your actual effective development times so far off, you may as well not even take your developer temperature at all. No good can come from this. Slip the sheet in to the tray under the surface of the developer and you won't have airbells or anything. I can see no redeeming quality in pre-soaking paper.

Gerald C Koch · Apr 8, 2013

cliveh said:
So why do some people presoak film?

Both Kodak and Ilford do not recommend that you presoak their films.

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger
...

Some people are just contrarian by nature.

L Gebhardt · Apr 8, 2013

Paper simply doesn't matter as much. As long as you follow the same procedure and the developer temp stays the same you will tweak the exposure and contrast to get the image to look correct.

As long as you do things consistently between film runs it also doesn't matter if the film cools off the developer a bit. You would adjust your times to compensate. The key is consistency. I presoak in the Jobo but not in manual tanks because it brings the times between the two methods to almost the same.

noacronym · Apr 8, 2013

Gerald C Koch said:
Both Kodak and Ilford do not recommend that you presoak their films.

Mr Koch--I have come to appreciate the voice of credibility when I see your name, but not presoaking film is something I'm having a hard time swallowing. I realize there's a dilution factor, though of lesser detriment thanFB paper, but it's the best way to get the tank and reel temperatures to speed. And have you ever poured water into a tank of dry t-max film? When you pour it out, its absolutely black with antihalation backing. In my younger days I did not presoak, and ended up with a lot of purple-tinted negatives, not knowing at the time that the purple was from anti-H backing that never got entirely removed. And that purple surely must play havoc when using polycontrast paper. I think I'll keep on pre-soaking.

PKM-25 · Apr 8, 2013

noacronym said:
There's no need to pre-soak paper--that's the bottom line.

Not entirely, I pre-wet FB when I do 20x24's in my Jobo 3063 drum, it has eliminated the developing streak I sometimes had when I did not pre-wet.

cliveh · Apr 8, 2013

PKM-25 said:
Not entirely, I pre-wet FB when I do 20x24's in my Jobo 3063 drum, it has eliminated the developing streak I sometimes had when I did not pre-wet.

Please describe this developing streak and I and others may be able to advise how this can be avoided without pre-wetting.

Gerald C Koch · Apr 8, 2013

I assume the both Kodak and Ilford have a good reason for not recomending pre-soaking.

Both companies recommend you use of a rapid fixer with T-grain films because silver iodide is slower to remove than either the chloride or bromide salts. A dark stain may indicate insufficient fixing and/or washing. Use of aa alkaline HCA will also reduce the amount of dye. Dye retention is more probable with low pH developers.

DREW WILEY · Apr 8, 2013

I can certainly think of an instance where presoaking might be beneficial - when prematurely "snatch"
processing to get the silver only marginally developed. In such cases the dev time tends to be very
short and it's difficult to do it evenly. I put the paper face down and rub it around very quickly to keep
any air bells from staying put, then quickly flip it over. Doing all that in half a minute or so is a bit tricky (thank goodness, I don't snatch develop very often any more, but "lith" printers might). And presoaking might help both with eveness of development and delay it a bit.

AndreasT · Apr 8, 2013

I am not sure what paper it was, either Agfa MCC, or Ilford Fb where you can presoak it to wash out the incorporated developer or what ever is in there.
Then you develope it in Lith Developer. I did this a few years ago.

Pasto · Apr 8, 2013

I have presoaked FB regularly in my Jobo. I did it to prevent loosing my developer solution too fast. A 16x20 soaks up a lot of developer. I extended development and always got good dmax. But yes it does dilute all the solutions. I've since stopped with no noticeable differences, except that my developer disappears very quickly

Roger Cole · Apr 8, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
Ilford doesn't advise against a pre-soak. They say it is simply not required.

Exactly. I don't do it for paper, see no reason for it and in fact never heard of it until now. But I generally do pre-soak film for a couple of reasons. One is the tempering mentioned. The other is with rotary processing in my Jobo. Jobo recommended a pre-soak because they found that with most film developer combinations the slowing of development times for a 5 minute pre-soak just about exactly offsets the increased activity from the continuous agitation. This was recommended in the Journal of Rotary Processing and I have found it to be generally true, allowing me to use the same starting times with the Jobo as for inversion. It certainly does no harm.

I do not use it with Diafine in tanks as the manufacturer specifically recommends against it. Though I haven't tried going against that recommendation it makes sense to me.

Jon Shiu · Apr 8, 2013

Michael R 1974 said:
Ilford doesn't advise against a pre-soak. They say it is simply not required.

Re: pre-rinsing film

In the Ilford instructions it says a pre-rinse is not recommended due to possible uneven development.

Jon

Roger Cole · Apr 8, 2013

Well I don't really care what they say when I get good results doing it. If I didn't I'd look at that, but I take their instructions as advice, noy orders. Works for me.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2013

Jon Shiu said:
Re: pre-rinsing film

In the Ilford instructions it says a pre-rinse is not recommended due to possible uneven development.

Jon

I believe that advice is specific to Rotary Tube processing.

And Simon of Harmann fame just posted today that Ilford doesn't recommend against a pre-rinse, it just is of the opinion that none is required when developing film.

Roger Cole · Apr 9, 2013

I use the presoak with rotary tube processing. The only unevenness I have ever seen was when I was using the slow speed on my CPE2. Jobo later recommended against this speed (for roll film) and removed it from the CPE2+. Even then it was rare and I only saw it in a couple of frames with ocean and sky on one roll. I switched to the fast speed and haven't seen a problem with roll film since.

Ian Grant · Apr 9, 2013

PKM-25 said:
Not entirely, I pre-wet FB when I do 20x24's in my Jobo 3063 drum, it has eliminated the developing streak I sometimes had when I did not pre-wet.

There's always exceptions to general recommendations and it makes sense and has always been recommended by most manufacturers to use a pre-soak with rotary processing.

A pre-soak is also recommended fror colour film processing, more here as a tempering bath to bring the tank/film to the working temperature.

Ian

baachitraka · Apr 9, 2013

noacronym said:
You presoak film to dissolve the anti-halation backing, and to bring the tank and reel to working temperature. It would be totally pointless to bust your tail to get your developer temperature on the money, and then pour it in to a cold taknk, or a hot one. So you presoak with water of the same temperature as the developer is going to be.

Yes, Fomapan 400 in 120 can throw green vomit after two minutes of presoak @ 20°C.

pentaxuser · Apr 9, 2013

AndreasT said:
I am not sure what paper it was, either Agfa MCC, or Ilford Fb where you can presoak it to wash out the incorporated developer.

Can't speak for Agfa MCC but I can say that Simon Galley of Ilford has said that there is no incorporated developer in Ilford FB so whatever you were washing out, it wasn't that. You'd think that if anything needed washing out, Ilford would mention it in its very comprehensive instructions and it doesn't as far as I can recall.

pentaxuser

Ian Grant · Apr 9, 2013

pentaxuser said:
Can't speak for Agfa MCC but I can say that Simon Galley of Ilford has said that there is no incorporated developer in Ilford FB so whatever you were washing out, it wasn't that. You'd think that if anything needed washing out, Ilford would mention it in its very comprehensive instructions and it doesn't as far as I can recall.

pentaxuser

It would be Ilfoprint or Agfa Rapid both RC papers designed for rapid access processing, but not a FB paper.

Ian

Pre-soaking FB paper?

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