Water Marks from Stabilizer

RedSun · May 16, 2014

At the end of the film processing, I soak the film in stabilizer fluid (in an unused small tank). Then I took out the film and dry it with the clips.

When the film is drying, I can see some water marks on the top surface (not emulsion) side. Not sure if the marks would show in film scan.

Would distilled water make the water marks go away? If so, should I use distilled water for all chemical mixture, or just the stabilizer?

I did not have the same problem with photo-flo for BW film.

I use Jobo to process films.

wildbill · May 16, 2014

I think you've answered you own question.
The final rinse of any film process should always use distilled water.
I mix everything but bleach and fix with distilled when doing color work. City water.

Rudeofus · May 17, 2014

wildbill said:
I think you've answered you own question.
The final rinse of any film process should always use distilled water.
I mix everything but bleach and fix with distilled when doing color work. City water.

The final bath should be STAB, or you lose its bactericidal/fungicidal action, but yes, the STAB must absolutely be mixed with deionized water. I see no reason why any of the previous soups should be mixed with deionized water, unless your tap water is absolutely terrible. I have made the observation that these white spots look nasty in reflected light but have no impact in light going through the film, i.e. they rarely show up in scans, during enlargement or projection. If you feel like they absolutely have to go away, do the bleach/fix/BLIX step again, then after a thorough wash dilute your STAB 1+4 with deionized water, add a dash of Formalin for good measure and rinse again.

The best final rinse I ever made was a good dash of Formalin and a tiny tiny tiny amount of Ilfotol wetting agent in deionized water. The amount of wetting agent was so small that the soup didn't even foam when I shook it, but those negs were the cleanest ones I ever had.

JOR · May 17, 2014

Drying colour fim without marks

Rudeofus said:
The final bath should be STAB, or you lose its bactericidal/fungicidal action, but yes, the STAB must absolutely be mixed with deionized water.

During the sixties and seventies I processed tens of thousands of rolls of E3, E4 and E6 film using unmodified Kodak stabiliser in 3-gallon hand tank kits and bulk packs for rail-and-carriage machines, always diluted with filtered (but not deionised) London water. I never had any problems with drying marks but I paid particular attention to the drying cycle, which must not be rushed. For film in spirals I placed dry top clips in the drying cabinet. The stabiliser solution was in a tank by the drying cabinet. I attached bottom clips to the film and used it draw the film out of the spiral. Then I passed the looped film through the stabiliser, taking care to avoid creating froth, and hung it from the dry top clip. I let the last film to be dried drip dry for at least fifteen minutes before turning on the warm air. Froth, particularly on the back of 35mm film, is the enemy. If you don't have a drying cabinet, don't worry - drying will just take a little longer. Note that, in the procedure above, the spiral was not contaminated by immersion in stabiliser, so it's nice and clean for the next time. Yes,the film was only immersed in the stabiliser for a few seconds. No, image permanence was not impaired - I have numerous family photos of that era, stored in polyester sleeves, that have neither faded nor grown fungus.

mts · May 19, 2014

I have always found some drying spots even when using distilled water to formulate stabilizer. The answer seems to be not to leave water droplets on the film. I use photo sponges to wipe the film before drying and have no problems. The sponges must be kept free of grit and wet with stabilizer before wiping. You may not find wiping to your liking, but it does work.

ziyanglai · May 19, 2014

Hey everyone.. This will be a 50% response and 50% question.. I always use photo flo after the final rinse, so I never had a uneven drying problem.. But lately I've been thinking about stopping to use photo flo. So like the few responses above, would distilled water work like photo flo? Thanks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Xmas · May 20, 2014

ziyanglai said:
Hey everyone.. This will be a 50% response and 50% question.. I always use photo flo after the final rinse, so I never had a uneven drying problem.. But lately I've been thinking about stopping to use photo flo. So like the few responses above, would distilled water work like photo flo? Thanks.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If it is not broke don't fix it.

Tom1956 · May 20, 2014

A drop of Kodak Photo Flo in the final mix, along with clean water in the chemistry in the first place.I don't see how there can be any other answer.

Rudeofus · May 20, 2014

Tom1956 said:
A drop of Kodak Photo Flo in the final mix, along with clean water in the chemistry in the first place.I don't see how there can be any other answer.

To every problem there exists a solution which is simple, easy to understand, and wrong. C41 uses a bactericide/fungicide in its final rinse, and if you wash that away with your suggested final rinse,you may see your film eaten away by bacteria/fungus after some time.

RedSun · May 20, 2014

The C-41 stabilizer is supposed to do what photo-flo does. I have no problem with photo-flo with BW film, but the C-41 stabilizer.

Rudeofus · May 20, 2014

RedSun said:
The C-41 stabilizer is supposed to do what photo-flo does. I have no problem with photo-flo with BW film, but the C-41 stabilizer.

As I have explained, C41 STAB does more than Photoflo. We can bitch and moan about Tetenal's C41/E6 STAB all day long, I don't think they will change their formula, and all our tears will not improve matters one bit. You are by far not the first one to report these issues, so I gave you two recipes for dealing with the issues you described.

mklw1954 · Jun 24, 2014

I use the Unicolor 1-liter powder kit which gave a lot drying marks even though I made the stabilizer with distilled water. The marks were eliminated by adding 1/2 teaspoon PhotoFlo concentrate to 1-liter of stabilizer, repeating after processing 10 rolls.

Wayne · Jun 24, 2014

Rudeofus said:
To every problem there exists a solution which is simple, easy to understand, and wrong. C41 uses a bactericide/fungicide in its final rinse, and if you wash that away with your suggested final rinse,you may see your film eaten away by bacteria/fungus after some time.

But will a drop of P-F wash it away?

AgX · Jun 25, 2014

pdeeh · Jun 25, 2014

The issue is not the Photo-Flo in the rinse, but the washing action of the water in the rinse removing the anti-fungal/bacterial material from the gelatine

Xmas · Jun 25, 2014

If you have the problem you put the photo flow in the stabilizer working solution.

I use a film squeegee as well

- reduces dry time a lot
- avoids drying marks with faucet water

no scratches so far...

Jaf-Photo · Jun 25, 2014

RedSun said:
The C-41 stabilizer is supposed to do what photo-flo does. I have no problem with photo-flo with BW film, but the C-41 stabilizer.

Same here.

The stabiliser will soak up whatever is on the film, so if you are washing the film in water with particles, these will end up in the stabiliser. So you will eventually get drying marks.

I found that my tap water is not suitable for C41, so I use distilled water for mixing the chems and I use bottled drinking water with a very low mineral content for soaking and washing.

Much better results all around.

wombat2go · Jun 25, 2014

Last week I used the same batch of Digibase C41 kit (all with distilled water) for 2 sessions of about 6 rolls each. The second session was 4 days after the first.
In the first session, there were few or no white spots on the shiny side.
In the second session , all rolls dried with white spots on the shiny side and I had to wipe them before scanning.

So I am thinking that the stab mix does not last. Perhaps it gets contaminated with the carry-over fixer?
Next time I will change the stabilizer after each 4 rolls. With the last kit, I purchased an extra bottle of stab.

Rudeofus · Jun 25, 2014

wombat2go said:
So I am thinking that the stab mix does not last. Perhaps it gets contaminated with the carry-over fixer?

This has nothing to do with STAB going bad from old age. Also, assuming you wash well after fixing or BLIXing, there should not be any carry-over fixer to speak of. What most likely happens is that carry-over wash water accumulates in your STAB, and what you see is most likely some sort of drying marks from tap water. Every time you change liquids in your film tank, you carry over about 10-20 ml of previous liquid, so after 10 process runs you have quite a bit of previous liquid (most likely wash water) in every bath.

Either you replace your STAB more often as you already suggested, or you rinse with distilled water before you STAB your film.

Jaf-Photo · Jun 26, 2014

For demonstration purposes I post this photo (Ektar) which I developed the other day in Digibase C41. The stabiliser is well-used and leaves lots of little spots on the negative. There were also some drying streaks on the acetate but the scanner fortunately didn't pick them up.

Xmas · Jun 26, 2014

If you use stock bottles it is desirable to filter them...

MingMingPhoto · Jul 29, 2020

Rudeofus said:
This has nothing to do with STAB going bad from old age. Also, assuming you wash well after fixing or BLIXing, there should not be any carry-over fixer to speak of. What most likely happens is that carry-over wash water accumulates in your STAB, and what you see is most likely some sort of drying marks from tap water. Every time you change liquids in your film tank, you carry over about 10-20 ml of previous liquid, so after 10 process runs you have quite a bit of previous liquid (most likely wash water) in every bath.

Either you replace your STAB more often as you already suggested, or you rinse with distilled water before you STAB your film.

Hey, if you're still around:

So I used a machine to do my work. First day using the machine and I used distilled water to do EVERYTHING. so no chance of leftover tap from a previous session since from out of box brand new, distilled water was sued to clean, and mix chemicals etc. still got streaks. Someone said something about adding some photo flo to the stabilizer. What do you know on this? Will that cause any negative chemical reactions over the years etc.? Also since then have you discovered any other ways to prevent spotting?

Rudeofus · Jul 31, 2020

Sorry for my late reply, I've been out of town with poor signal.

To be honest, I have read about many methods how to avoid drying marks, I may even be guilty of having advertised some of them myself, but the whole thing remains an unsolved puzzle for me. Many times over I tried something new, it more or less worked for a roll or two, only to leave behind nasty marks on the third roll. Photoflo will certainly not damage your film or reduce its archival stability, but it can also leave drying marks. In my book the whole drying mark issue needs to be addressed in depth at some point, hopefully this fall.

foc · Jul 31, 2020

In C41 film processing, modern films ( after 2000 IIRC) do not need stabilazer. You can of course use it no problem or you can use a final rinse, with a conditioning tablet.
(In commercial C41 processing it is the final rinse mentioned above.)
If you are getting drying marks, it is usually because of hard water or too much stabilazor or (for B&W) Photoflo. It is a case of less is more.
I wouldn't recommend mixing stabilazer with Photoflo.

pentaxuser · Jul 31, 2020

foc said:
In C41 film processing, modern films ( after 2000 IIRC) do not need stabilazer. You can of course use it no problem or you can use a final rinse, with a conditioning tablet.
(In commercial C41 processing it is the final rinse mentioned above.)
If you are getting drying marks, it is usually because of hard water or too much stabilazor or (for B&W) Photoflo. It is a case of less is more.
I wouldn't recommend mixing stabilazer with Photoflo.

foc, if any film made after 2000, which is now almost 20 years ago, does not need stabiliser and unless you live in a very hard water area and fail to remove the last wash water with a vigorous shake of the film and squeegeeing it between the inside of the two middle fingers, say, then there shouldn't be any water marks?

It raises two questions for me: 1. If Photoflo can create marks then what is its point as it would seem to be irrelevant at best and a source of problems at worst?
2. Is this Kodak Photoflo we are talking about so not Ilford Ilfotol or other named brands of wetting agents?
3. While there may still be some users of 20+ years colour neg films I suppose it does kind of beg the question - why supply stabiliser in colour film processing kits?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Water Marks from Stabilizer

ziyanglai

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