Strange 'Reticulation' Effect on C41 negs

pentaxpete · Jul 11, 2017

I mixed up a batch of C41 Chemistry and processed am 07/2005 dated 'Tudor' ( Fuji) 100 film and had a strange effect almost like 'Reticulation' in the colour, but i thought it was not possible to get it on C41 as all the Silver has been dissolved out by the Bleach. I DID use up the last of my Kodak Flexicolor III bleach, Parts A, B and Starter -- but I mat have made it too strong as the amount left over in the plastic bottles was over the amount for 500mls I wanted -- but I did make it up to 600mls -- then I used a small amount of left-over FUJI Stabilser in final bath -- maybe it was too strong ? I attach two photos -- i have 'cropped' so maybe you can see the effect I got -- any ideas please ?

pentaxpete · Jul 11, 2017

I can see it on the actual Negative under a x6 magnifier.

georgegrosu · Jul 11, 2017

pentaxpete, kodak when talking about reticulation say the following (see photo Reticulation).
http://www.kodak.com/KodakGCG/uploadedfiles/motion/h24_08.pdf pag. 8-40.
For me, reticulation is linked to the presence of cracks on the emulsion.
What I see in your pictures can not make any connection with reticulation.

George

Photo Engineer · Jul 11, 2017

It looks like seriously bad grain which may be due to the film or due to retained silver by bad bleaching activity. The bad grain may be due to poor keeping as well.

PE

pentaxpete · Jul 11, 2017

I heated the Bleach to 100oF and put the neg strip in with the photo of the Bunker with Graffiti above and left it for 5 minutes, then washed in water at 100oF and dried, then re-scanned and had a look and result was the same as above, so re-Bleaching did nothing.

Photo Engineer · Jul 11, 2017

Ahh, but did you wash, fix, wash and re-stabilize?

PE

pentaxpete · Jul 12, 2017

NO--- just re-bleach then wash out bleach and dry ---- I thought there was no need to re-fix ---

georgegrosu · Jul 12, 2017

To remove the form of ionic silver, resulting from the bleaching phase, you must also use
the fixation phase when the ionic silver from film passes into the fixing solution.

George

pentaxpete · Jul 12, 2017

Just now I went to BOOTS in Brentwood High Street and the technician there Bill put this same strip through his Fuji Frontier C41 machine, bleach and fix and stabiliser and it still looks the same --- he says once the grain is set like that in the dye clouds it cannot be rectified.

georgegrosu · Jul 12, 2017

If bleaching and fixation did not help to improve the image, then you can think at film (storage).
pentaxpete, a question about the negative.
Negative is well exposed (has meat on image)?
Under-exposed negatives give a picture with „noise”, as telecine people say.

George

pentaxpete · Jul 12, 2017

George -- many thanks for your interest in this matter -- YES-- the neg is dense enough -- maybe a bit OVER-dense in fact. Film was donated to me some time ago -- it is in a freezer compartment -- I had about 80 cassettes given . I have had some of the SAME batch processed by machine in BOOTS of Brentwood and negs did not exhibit this effect.

Photo Engineer · Jul 12, 2017

Then it is probably your process!

Kevin Harding · Jul 12, 2017

Over-dense can result in the scanner trying desperately to illuminate enough through the negative that it ends up looking like this, but you say the image on the negative resembles the digital versions above so I'm lost.

afriman · Jul 12, 2017

I agree with the previous posts that this looks a lot more like digital noise than a problem with the film. Are you absolutely sure that what you see on the negatives is the same effect you see in the scans?

pentaxpete · Jul 13, 2017

I had another look under my x6 Leitz magnifier -- when I focus 'in and out' I can see the strange effect even in the rebates, almost as though the film coating had 'reticulated' . I did get a ' Reticulated Cracking effect' on some Ilford XP2 400 Super after using a pre-soak and water rinse between C41 dev and bleach. Ilford advise NOT to use a pre-soak and to go straight into Bleach bath -- but here I did NOT pre-soak or water rinse. I think it must be the Bleach 'mix' too strong or pH wrong , as it was using up the last of my 'gift' Kodak Flexicolor III bleach parts A and B and Starter -- I do not know what the 'Starter' does -- if it adjusts the pH maybe I got it wrong? Film was stored in freezer for years.

Brady Eklund · Jul 14, 2017

This kind of looks like results I got when I shot a roll of Agfa Vista 200 that had been sitting in a drawer for 12 years, only with bigger chunks of color noise. It doesn't look to me like reticulation, but I've never really dealt with that much. It might just be the way this emulsion grains up as it ages?

afriman · Jul 14, 2017

Looking carefully at both images, I can actually see some of the "cracking" you refer to. It's quite evident, for example, in the "V" between the top two petals. So it does seem that there was some damage to the emulsion, but I am not sure that the overall apparent graininess is a result of the same problem, rather than digital noise introduced during scanning.

Neal · Jul 15, 2017

Dear pentaxpete,

If misery loves company, I've had the same look with very outdated 400 film processed at a good lab.

Neal Wydra

Strange 'Reticulation' Effect on C41 negs

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