"Pre-Wet"- Rinse after Development - Importance Of Plain Water

DF · Jul 15, 2016

I'm surprised that at the new darkroom I go to they do not pre-wet film before the "first" step which is developer (D-76), that is in fact harmful to the film. This I've done all along, in fact a good pre-wet with plainwater agitating sometimes for as long as 3 minutes.
They then go directly to stop bath without a rinse - filling your tank W/water than pour out 3-4 times.
After the fixer, again, no rinsing, directly to hypo clear.
I don't know If I need to consult my former mentor, give these new folks a lecture, or become more enlightened by hopefully someone here at APUG.

kenj8246 · Jul 15, 2016

Just curious as to why developer is harmful to the film? Ya gotta break eggs to make an omelette?

DF · Jul 15, 2016

No, the supervisor of the new place said that the "pre-wet" before the developer is harmful, yet I've done it all along.

jimjm · Jul 15, 2016

Actually, if you poll the members here at APUG you'll probably find different opinions on the need to pre-soak film. Some swear by it, others don't do it and have never had any problems. Personally, I pre-soak for about a minute - just as part of my routine and not because of any problem I've seen when I didn't do it.

Kawaiithulhu · Jul 15, 2016

I only pre-soak when doing pyrocat. For Xtol I just toss it all in and learn to live with purple chemicals

At least one film cautions against pre-wet and it gives splotchy development if done, if I remember the emulsion I'll post an addendum.

Altogether you're safest with no pre-wet on all films, whereas some films may react poorly and that distinction is important for a commercial darkroom trying to standardize.

PS: direct to stop guarantees a positive and repeatable end to development, which is probably why they do it.

Doc W · Jul 15, 2016

DF said:
I'm surprised that at the new darkroom I go to they do not pre-wet film before the "first" step which is developer (D-76), that is in fact harmful to the film. This I've done all along, in fact a good pre-wet with plainwater agitating sometimes for as long as 3 minutes.
They then go directly to stop bath without a rinse - filling your tank W/water than pour out 3-4 times.
After the fixer, again, no rinsing, directly to hypo clear.
I don't know If I need to consult my former mentor, give these new folks a lecture, or become more enlightened by hopefully someone here at APUG.

This has debated at length here but I am too lazy to look up the thread(s?). I develop 120 film in Paterson inversion tank and I follow Ilford's fact sheet, i.e., no pre-rinse (the fact sheet says "A pre-rinse is not recommended as it can lead to unevenprocessing.") On the other hand, I develop sheet film in a rotary processor and Jobo recommends a pre-rinse, which I do.

Both work.

With regard to the rest of your post, I go from development straight to stop because water does not work as effectively. It retards development but does not stop it like a stop bath, and stop is very cheap. I do rinse after stop so that my fixer does not get contaminated as quickly and I do rinse before HCA.

Gerald C Koch · Jul 15, 2016

It is always important to remember that Ilford DOES NOT recommend a pre-soak for their films. Kodak's position is neutral. The notion became popular some years ago but certainly has never been traditional. I have never seen a convincing argument for its use and have always considered it a waste of time. There is something to be said however about keeping the wet time for a film as short as possible.

Years ago people learned about photography by either taking a class or reading HOW-TO books. Quirky notions like pre-wetting just had no place. Unfortunately people learn from the internet which certainly does not does foster any sort of accuracy. Should someone set up a site that advocated only developing film on Thursdays I fear that we would soon see questions on that too.

gone · Jul 15, 2016

Never did it, everything looks great w/o doing it.

pentaxuser · Jul 15, 2016

OP, my understanding is that Ilford's position on pre-wet was also fairly neutral in that it believes a pre-wet is unnecessary but not harmful.

Someone here will eventually point out the actual quote from the Ilford man Simon Galley on the subject but you could do a search yourself.

A warning: This may occupy quite a lot of your time and at the end you may conclude that pre-wet and indeed all the other things that you mention in your post may not be worth getting too excited about as they may not amount to a "hill of beans" as H Bogart once said. Some say that was Humphrey's quote but I am sure I heard it first from Harry Bogart who had a black pudding stall in Accrington.

pentaxuser

MattKing · Jul 15, 2016

"To pre-wet or not pre-wet, that is the question".

That is either Shakespeare, or something religious.

One of the Ilford data sheets says it can lead to uneven developing, but the rest just use the phrase that a pre-wet "is not recommended". As that is written in "British" English, it has from time to time required translation. Simon Galley of Ilford fame did post in the past that "is not recommended" was equivalent to "is unnecessary", not "is recommended against".

I use it for all my film. I use replenished developer, FWIW.

DF · Jul 16, 2016

Gees - This is all new to me, in fact, I made sure my pre-wet was atleast 3 minutes because I always thought since my developed film sometimes sits around in a dry brittle sometimes hot apartment for as long as 2-3 months before getting into the lab, a good agitated soak would "condition" it to respond better to developer than without.
Back to the drawing board.
Now for my question on steel reel loading....

R.Gould · Jul 16, 2016

Never pre wet any film, Ilford,Kodak or Foma, in over 50 years of film developing, never had a problem, sometime I use stop bath, sometimes plain water stop, never used Hypo clear after fixing, just develop, stop fix and wash, in over 50 years it has never given me any problems

Rick A · Jul 16, 2016

Ah, folk lore over fact. Doesn't anyone read Kodak developing manuals any more. Reality check, neither Kodak nor Ilford recommend pre-wet, or water rinse after development(prior to stop). You pour the developer into a tank, add the film (so there is no uneven development) then run the steps to completion. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't do either, whatever works for you and gives consistent results that you desire.

pdeeh · Jul 16, 2016

also, if you want your photographs to look like Man Ray's, you must chant a dadaist poem over the tank while developing

mnemosyne · Jul 16, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
It is always important to remember that Ilford DOES NOT recommend a pre-soak for their films. Kodak's position is neutral. The notion became popular some years ago but certainly has never been traditional. I have never seen a convincing argument for its use and have always considered it a waste of time.

Rick A said:
Ah, folk lore over fact. Doesn't anyone read Kodak developing manuals any more. Reality check, neither Kodak nor Ilford recommend pre-wet

Well ... I strongly believe in RTFM and following in manufacturer guidelines and recommendations first, but then, sometimes practical experience shows that one must ignore them to get good results. At least that was the case for me.
I normally do not pre-wet any bw film. But when I started using Ilford/Kentmere films in combination with my favourite developer Xtol, I encountered serious problems with uneven development caused by massive foam buildup during development. I tried about half a dozen possible solutions as recommended here and elsewhere to people with similar problems (changing dilution, overfilling tank, using harder water, changing agitation scheme, cleaning reels with method x or y, adding a tiny amount of surfactant to the developer etc etc) without success. My conclusion was that both the developer and the film contain some type of surfactant that have a kind super-additive effect ... at least in my case. The solution to my problem, after much frustration, was to simply ignore the "film manufacturer recommendations" and add a simple pre-wet of 2x60s with tap water. This seems to get rid of most of the surfactant that sticks to the film. I have never had any problems with foaming Xtol and Ilford films ever since and most importantly, I get very even development. Don't get me wrong: I do not generally recommend pre-wet and I personally do not use pre-wet when developing Kodak or other non-Harman fims in Xtol, nor do I use pre-wet with other developers I sometimes use, as I do not encounter any problems with these combinations.

Ronald Moravec · Jul 16, 2016

Rinse after developer ? Only to extend fix if one uses acid fix.

My tests show grain growth because I think the developer is diluted. I really do not know why, but the result is clearly bigger grain.

Pre wash is for sheet film that is interleaved to prevent sticking. Otherwise no. Immerse the film properly and there is no need. Pouring developer thru the tank top opening is not proper. Immerse by dropping in, capping, invert. Large tanks need a lifting rod.

Plastic tanks fill nicely bottom up so just follow instruction. Stick twist first agitation only. After that invert. Literally plastic tanks is developing for dummies, fool proof.

Ian Grant · Jul 16, 2016

Ronald Moravec said:
Rinse after developer ? Only to extend fix if one uses acid fix.

My tests show grain growth because I think the developer is diluted. I really do not know why, but the result is clearly bigger grain.

Pre wash is for sheet film that is interleaved to prevent sticking. Otherwise no. Immerse the film properly and there is no need. Pouring developer thru the tank top opening is not proper. Immerse by dropping in, capping, invert. Large tanks need a lifting rod.

Plastic tanks fill nicely bottom up so just follow instruction. Stick twist first agitation only. After that invert. Literally plastic tanks is developing for dummies, fool proof.

You need to look elsewhere for your so called grain growth. It's not caused by usinr a water stop-bath.

Like others I never use a pre-soak before processing B&W films of any format. It's never been recommended practice from any manufacturer except for rotary processors.

Ian

Svenedin · Jul 16, 2016

I follow the Ilford instructions and they do not recommend a pre-soak or rinsing before stop. Ilford have doubtless done countless tests over the decades and I'm sure they know what is best for their films. I can't really understand why a pre-soak would be desirable. The only time I pre-soak anything is when toning paper but that is off topic.

darkroommike · Jul 16, 2016

I have rarely (if ever!) seen any film maker recommend a pre-soak. Rotary film processors usually process at elevated temps and use the presoak to raise the temp of both the reels and drum. A water rinse is sometimes recommended between developer and stop bath to extend the life of the stop bath. Sometimes a couple of water rinses is suggested in lieu of an acid stop bath if you are using an alkaline fixer.

It's unclear from your post: your new lab, is it run by professionals that presumably know what they are doing or is it just space that you rent to develop your own film. In the former case, I would hesitate to try to school them on the "right" way to process film since your processing workflow is not standard in any way. I will assume that they have processed a few thousand more films that you have. Their response may range from:

"'Interesting' we'll give it a try"
"We already have a workflow that is optimal for our equipment"
"Extra steps = extra time and time is money"
or lastly "there's the door..."

Ko.Fe. · Jul 16, 2016

How about RTFM? Did OP read datasheet from film, developer manufacturer?
If OP is not aware what it is, I'm happy to provide two examples:

http://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/prod/files/files/resources/j78.pdf
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/f4016/f4016.pdf

iandvaag · Jul 16, 2016

My completely baseless suspecion is that people don't like that their developer turns funny colours from the dyes in the film, so they pre-rinse. The only time I have ever used a presoak (for B&W) is when using Rollei IR400 film. Maco recommends a minimum 30 second presoak due to AH dyes being included in the emulsion . I'm not sure how crucial this is, and I must admit I don't have much confidence in Maco data sheets. I'm all out of Rollei IR400, but I'll try to do a test between a presoak and no presoak on superpan 200 (which is purportedly the same emulsion, although finished differently) within the next couple weeks and post back. Of course my result won't mean anything, but it might be interesting. I agreee with Gerald, and others: for best practices, read the manual, and be skeptical of what you "learn" from the internet. OTOH, if you want to learn something experientially, and are willing to forgo established best practices, then test things out and evaluate the results as best you can, while recognizing you may not have the necessary knowledge, skills and tools (electron microscope, x-ray fluoresence machine, microdensitometer, etc) to evaluate your result . This is speaking generally, not specifically in reference to presoak or not.

Richard S. (rich815) · Jul 16, 2016

I only pre-soak for 5 min in plain water for when I'm developing using continuous agitation. For standard agitation-every-1 min (or 30 seconds) type of developing in SS tanks and reels I've done it both ways and cannot see any difference.

Gerald C Koch · Jul 16, 2016

I've reread the OP and it appears that the darkroom is doing things correctly as most of us understand it. No extra pre-wets, pre-soaks, .... It is the original poster that has these strange notions not the darkroom director. Where he got them or specifically why I haven't a clue. I would be nice if the poster could give a specific reference or website. As I have commented before the web is a poor place to learn photography unless one sticks with Ilford and Kodak. Too many people making erroneous and/or unsubstantiated claims.

pentaxuser · Jul 16, 2016

DF said:
.
I don't know If I need to consult my former mentor, give these new folks a lecture, or become more enlightened by hopefully someone here at APUG.

Having read the posts which of the 3 options above have you chosen?

pentaxuser

Brook Hill · Jul 16, 2016

Prescysol film deveoper instructions call for a 5min presoak before developing.

Tony

"Pre-Wet"- Rinse after Development - Importance Of Plain Water

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