To pre-wash or not to pre-wash?

[Vaughn]

In the drum going 'round and 'round...just like the wheels on the bus.

 

[BrianShaw]

In the drum going 'round and 'round...just like the wheels on the bus.

Oh don’t get that one going, or I’ll start 99 bottles of beer… or baby shark!

 

[Vaughn]

I've been fighting it ever since I wrote the above! All is lost!

 

[Philippe-Georges]

What about agitation during prewash? Full stand or semistand or Kodak agitation or continuous agitation?

As I said before, I lay down the tank on an electric motor driven roller base for about 10 min.

In the late '70's wen I studied 'Photographic Arts' (don't ask me what this really is) at the overly reputed (and - estimated) Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, I was told to pre wet (not pre wash) the film for three reasons: temperature, evenness and avoid air bulbs.
They, the professors in the Photographic Arts (how can one be a professor in Art?), stressed to rather firmly agitate and to tap the tank.

I never stopped doing that, except when I was in a hurry and then the problems (air bulbs) occurred.
Since then I always pre wet, and by getting older, and lazy (the latter is a quote by my wife) I started to use a motor base.

BTW, this pre wetting stuff is one of the rare things I really learned over there, as I later discovered that the so called 'Art' must be located somewhere in your guts and not on the school bench, but of corse this is a very personal opinion.
I never got my Master in the Arts, and didn't care...

 

[MattKing]

Three minutes of continuous agitation for me.

 

[Ernst-Jan]

But pre-washing regular bw film. It just... Why?

If the "fucking manual" that I read says so...

I only develop my own b/w (E6 and C41 are sent to a lab) and I never ever did a pre-wash. But I found out Adox is stating it for their old CHS-100 film.
"120 and sheetfilms should be prewatered in order to dissolve the supercoating equally and prevent streaks"
https://www.adox.de/Photo/discontinued-chs-100-type-i/

Before I read this, I developed two rolls of it, without pre-wash and with a stop bath. To be honest, nothing happend but in the future I might do a pre wash with this film.

 

[Murray Kelly]

This is all a storm in a developing tank.

 

[Vaughn]

As I said before, I lay down the tank on an electric motor driven roller base for about 10 min.

In the late '70's wen I studied 'Photographic Arts' (don't ask me what this really is) at the overly reputed (and - estimated) Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, I was told to pre wet (not pre wash) the film for three reasons: temperature, evenness and avoid air bulbs.
They, the professors in the Photographic Arts (how can one be a professor in Art?), stressed to rather firmly agitate and to tap the tank...

I took photo classes at university, volunteered in their darkroom for ten years, then got the job of running their photo facilities for 24 years. It was an art-based program, as opposed to an emphasis on commercial photography training...art is in the person, the piece of art is just the physical manifestation of that internal process. The goal in teaching photography as an art form was how to recognize it, nurture it, and bring it forward. The technical aspects of photography are important...but for many artists only as the means to an end.

 

[cliveh]

Because it has consistently worked well for many of us - in some cases for decades.

In what way?

 

[MattKing]

In what way?

As part of a consistent, repeatable process which provides results that satisfy my needs.
I always work at room temperature, including using room temperature pre-rinse.
I also think the colours are pretty.

 

[mshchem]

I got started pre-wetting with color printing in the 70's (high school). I started printing using a Premier brand stainless tank that floated in a water bath. It called for prewet, it wet the paper for consistency and warmed everything up to 100°F (process CP-5). I graduated to a Kodak rapid color processor (I now have both the model 11 and 16) which absolutely required prewet of the paper or transparency material. The key as Matt suggests is to be consistent.
The Zone VI guy, Picker, said we all should find our own true film speed, or something to that effect?
I prewet but I also tend to add a wee bit, maybe 6 or 7 % to black and white development times, color by the book. E6 1st developer times/temperatures are deadly serious, almost everything else has a bit of wiggle room.
MHOFWIW YMMV CONSULT A PROFESSIONAL BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY NEW DIET!

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

BTW, this pre wetting stuff is one of the rare things I really learned over there, as I later discovered that the so called 'Art' must be located somewhere in your guts and not on the school bench, but of corse this is a very personal opinion.
I never got my Master in the Arts, and didn't care...

Interesting! I've heard that some universities in Europe have a PhD program in Photography. I've little idea on what it means do research in and write papers on photography.

 

[alanrockwood]

One thing that I think hasn't been mentioned, or at least not fully discussed, is that some people recommend prewash as a way to use times for conventional processing (i.e. ordinary agitation, not rotary processing) in a rotary processing machine.

In other words, pre-washing slows down development enough to compensate, or at least partly compensate, for the fact that rotary processing machines develop film faster than processing using conventional agitation. Page 110 of John Tinsley's book "The Rotary Processor Manual" more or less says this. I think that is best regarded as a potentially useful rule of thumb, and I don't know how accurate it is. Tinsley recommends this strategy as a starting point for processing in a Jobo.

 

[fs999]

I take dirty photos, so I must pre-wash.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Interesting! I've heard that some universities in Europe have a PhD program in Photography. I've little idea on what it means do research in and write papers on photography.

Hallo Raghu,

Well, they try to learn some kind of artistic interpretation, to develop inspiration, personal awareness and social insight, which isn't a bad idea, but from what I heard and saw, it sometimes make me frown my forehead, but, again, who am I.

In my early professional career, when I worked for the industry (mainly power plants: http://www.photoeil.be/commercial-work/power-plants.html) as a freelancer, I tried to employ some trainees, those wo just finishend the academy and looking for some extra experience in the real world, which was a good idea.
But they wouldn't help me moving my oh so necessarily equipement, stating that they came to take pictures and not as porters... But hauling gear is an important part of the job!

At that time all was done analogically on 4"x5"; I dragged with the necessarily effort a lot of heavy gear in my VW van: 3 Multiblitz 3200 Ws generators (16 kg each), 3 heavy high speed 1000Ws monoblocks (to freeze the running machines), a dozen of different flash heads, a whole collection reflectors of all kinds, about 300m power cable and so many light stands and accessories. Not to mention the Linhof, a bunch of lenses, a case full of sheet film cassettes and a heavy tripod of course.

I couldn't blame these students as they, the professors, never told them that this was a rather important part of the trade, I ended up by doing it all alone.

Now, as I am at rest, the darkroom is bringing me peace...

BTW, I finally got a diploma in graphic techniques, so I was granted a legal allowance do practice photography...

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

“Worked well” doesn’t necessarily mean “worked better”, just that it worked perfectly fine.

Several people have stated from their personal experience that pre-wetting film "worked better" for them than not doing so - e.g. it eliminated the occasional trouble with air bubbles. Curious to know if pre-wet ever done anything bad to film in anybody's experience? Are there users who have found in their experience that pre-wetting film correlated with a significant issue in the developed film?

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Several people have stated from their personal experience that pre-wetting film "worked better" for them than not doing so - e.g. it eliminated the occasional trouble with air bubbles. Curious to know if pre-wet ever done anything bad to film in anybody's experience? Are there users who have found in their experience that pre-wetting film correlated with a significant issue in the developed film?

Never had a bad experience with pre wetting, ever.

 

[mohmad khatab]

It has become clear to me through scientific experiments that pre-washing causes the chemistry to be preserved to live as long as possible and retain much of its strength.
Here I am talking about the chemistry that is used with manual development and not the one-shot development through the JOBO machine

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

As for whether or not a pre-soak could be detrimental - depends on the emulsion. Ilford, for example, generally does not recommend pre-soaking. But again, if you pre-soak and consistently/never have problems, probably no reason to stop pre-soaking.

I know about Ilford's recommendation but has pre-wet been detrimental to Ilford films in people's experience? Do you know of any such instances and the specific problem caused by pre-wet?

 

[Philippe-Georges]

I never ever got a problem pre-wetting (10 min on a roller base) Ilford FP4/120!
Pre-wetting is not forbidden...

 

[Vaughn]

No actual problems with pre-development rinse, just the perception of possible problems. YMMD

 

[Wallendo]

I prewash Fomapan in 120 format to get the bright green dye out to prevent my stop from turning green.
I prewash some old Panatomic X I found in a bulk loader which apparently accumulated debris .
I also prewash films based on Aviphot. Rollei IR 400 recommends it, The black water that comes out almost appears to have particulate matter in it so I feel better washing it out first.
I don't pre-wash any others. I have never noticed any difference in my results whether I pre-wash or not.

 

[Raghu Kuvempunagar]

Hallo Raghu,

In my early professional career, when I worked for the industry (mainly power plants: http://www.photoeil.be/commercial-work/power-plants.html) as a freelancer, I tried to employ some trainees, those wo just finishend the academy and looking for some extra experience in the real world, which was a good idea.
But they wouldn't help me moving my oh so necessarily equipement, stating that they came to take pictures and not as porters... But hauling gear is an important part of the job!

At that time all was done analogically on 4"x5"; I dragged with the necessarily effort a lot of heavy gear in my VW van: 3 Multiblitz 3200 Ws generators (16 kg each), 3 heavy high speed 1000Ws monoblocks (to freeze the running machines), a dozen of different flash heads, a whole collection reflectors of all kinds, about 300m power cable and so many light stands and accessories. Not to mention the Linhof, a bunch of lenses, a case full of sheet film cassettes and a heavy tripod of course.

I checked your power plants pics and they are all exceedingly well-made. I can only imagine how hard it must have been getting such top quality results in an industrial setting, but all your hardwork carrying the equipment and lighting seems to have rewarded you well. Thanks for sharing.

 

[MattKing]

Ilford, for example, generally does not recommend pre-soaking.

When you read this, consider the likelihood that Ilford uses "not recommended" in a very English way:

And as Simon Galley once posted, the reason that Ilford describe it as not recommended, rather than recommended against, is because they consider it harmless, but not necessary.

 

[BrianShaw]

There's no difference, Matt, between what Michael said and what you said that Simon said...