Water Marks from Stabilizer

pentaxuser said:

2. Is this Kodak Photoflo we are talking about so not Ilford Ilfotol or other named brands of wetting agents?

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For black & white film I use the Tetenal Mirasol product as it seems to work very well. As bottles of wetting agent concentrate tend to last I'm not overly inclined to experiment.

pentaxuser said:

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?

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The product is now a 'final rinse' - which I use similarly to the B&W process wetting agents.

pentaxuser said:

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?

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I have seen people put enough wetting agent (Photoflo or Ilfotol) in their final wash that it looked like a bubble bath.
Yes you are right that in an area without hard water and where the film is squeegeed correctly ( not gauged like most people do) then there should be no drying marks.
When I operated my lab, we had hard water. So to solve this, we filtered and di ionized the water used for processing & washing. The final rinse was conditioned with a Fuji conditioning tablet. ( basically sodium sulfate and boric acid).
Never had drying marks.

foc said:

So to solve this, we filtered and di ionized the water used for processing & washing. The final rinse was conditioned with a Fuji conditioning tablet. ( basically sodium sulfate and boric acid).
Never had drying marks.

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I have often wondered about the water used for the final rinse. I'm in a very hard water area and use steam distilled water for the final rinse.

I remain a little confused. If stabiliser is not needed in films less than 20 years old what is in the "final rinse" that is needed. I am trying to see what is the minimalist approach to washing and drying a C41 film to avoid any drying marks. Does tap water that is "squeegeed" between the fingers and then hung to dry not suffice or is a tiny drop of wetting agent advisable in hard water area and is all that is required?

pentaxuser

this is the final rinse I'm using:

My process (Jobo CPP-3):

• Pre-soak 1 minute tempered water (filtered tap)

• 3min 15secs Kodak Flexicolor - mixed up with filtered tap water

• 6 minute bleach

• 1 minute wash

• 6 minute fix - - mixed up with filtered tap water

• 4 minutes wash - within Jobo process

• final rinse (a few ml mixed up in distilled water)

• hang to dry in cabinet

This is from the MSDS for Flexicolor Final Rinse

3. Composition/information on ingredients Weight % Components - (CAS-No.)

• 15 - 20 Diethylene glycol (111-46-6)
• 1 - 5 Mixture of C12-15 alcohol ethoxylates (68131-39-5)
• 0.1 - 0.6 Isothiazolone derivatives (proprietary)

Can any of the chemists here advise on whether there are any anti-bacterial components in this?

Tom Kershaw said:

My process (Jobo CPP-3):

• Pre-soak 1 minute tempered water (filtered tap)

• 3min 15secs Kodak Flexicolor - mixed up with filtered tap water

• 6 minute bleach

• 1 minute wash

• 6 minute fix - - mixed up with filtered tap water

• 4 minutes wash - within Jobo process

• final rinse (a few ml mixed up in distilled water)

• hang to dry in cabinet

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Sounds like a perfect set up.
Bet you there are no drying marks.

foc said:

Sounds like a perfect set up.
Bet you there are no drying marks.

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No drying marks. I've also found reducing the amount of clutter in my darkroom helps with keeping on top of dust and cleaning, although clutter reduction is an ongoing project...

MattKing said:

This is from the MSDS for Flexicolor Final Rinse

3. Composition/information on ingredients Weight % Components - (CAS-No.)

• 15 - 20 Diethylene glycol (111-46-6)
• 1 - 5 Mixture of C12-15 alcohol ethoxylates (68131-39-5)
• 0.1 - 0.6 Isothiazolone derivatives (proprietary)

Can any of the chemists here advise on whether there are any anti-bacterial components in this?

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Matt, is your typewriter ribbon starting to run out and needs changing? It looks quite faded

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

Matt, is your typewriter ribbon starting to run out and needs changing? It looks quite faded

pentaxuser

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If you wish to space out information in table format on Photrio and have the spacing stay constant, It is a lot easier to just use a fixed spacing font like Courier New rather than struggle with the Table function.
I agree though that it was faint - I've darkened it using the Bold function.

Thanks Matt. This is all new to me. I am unclear why it has to be constant spacing. Is your info taken directly from a publication of some kind and inserted into you post then converted into Courier New or was it already in Courier New in the publication but unless you change the standard Photrio font to Courier New, Photrio would attempt to convert it to its own font and thus screw up the way it appears to readers

Thanks

pentaxuser

MingMingPhoto said:

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.?

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Adding photoflo to the stabilizer will not cause problems in the future. It may or may not help you to avoid drying marks. If the stabilizer you are using has a surfactant in it already, it may worsen the water marks. Too much surfactant is as bad or worse than not enough.

Rudeofus said:

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.

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I agree with you totally. I will look forward to reading about what you learn in the fall!

I will say that I always have had drying marks when using the hexamine stabilizer provided in C-41 powder kits, no matter what I've tried. The marks are on the base side only and can show up in wet printing and scanning. My best success in alleviating water marks in colour (both C41 and E6) processing has been to wash thoroughly, rinse with a small amount of distilled water and finally soak in PE's suggested formalin stabilizer. When hanging to dry I run my gloved fingers down the film to remove excess stabilizer. Even with extensive washing (e.g. 30 mins with 30 changes of water and constant inversions), the stabilizer turns pink. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that it is not necessarily problematic, it's just that some of the dyes just take a long time to wash out. I replace the stabilizer every other batch or so to avoid carryover. I still occasionally get water spots, but usually they are minor enough that they would never show up in the print.

For B&W, adding an alcohol to the final rinse can help, but I would avoid it for colour unless you know what you're doing.

MattKing said:

Can any of the chemists here advise on whether there are any anti-bacterial components in this?

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The isothiazolone derivatives are biocides, however, just because there are biocides present does not necessarily indicate that the biocides will protect the film. Biocide may be present simply to protect the concentrate solution from going off, rather than providing protection in the film. For example, Rudi spoke with Simon and Ilfotol is not designed to offer bacteriostat protection for film, although it does contain biocides.

I don't have any authority on this, but I would say that since this product is designed as a final rinse for modern C41 films by Kodak, it should function well as such. If you store your negatives at the proper temperature and humidity, I don't think there should be much concern as to bugs eating your film.

Tom Kershaw said:

I have often wondered about the water used for the final rinse. I'm in a very hard water area and use steam distilled water for the final rinse.

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I think you have hit the nail on the head.
Use pure water in the final rinse along with your rinse agent, as per instructions, and you won't have any drying marks.
Nothing in the water means nothing will stick and dry into the film.

If you are afraid of the archival quality of your film, then if it is washed correctly, it should be ok.

I think storage, and the conditions, are more important.

foc said:

I think storage, and the conditions, are more important.

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I've only been processing film since the early 00s and colour since around 2010 but my negatives still look good. When revisiting some earlier C-41 film, I now realise my scanning or print technique wasn't up to scratch and that the original negatives are fine.

pentaxuser said:

Thanks Matt. This is all new to me. I am unclear why it has to be constant spacing. Is your info taken directly from a publication of some kind and inserted into you post then converted into Courier New or was it already in Courier New in the publication but unless you change the standard Photrio font to Courier New, Photrio would attempt to convert it to its own font and thus screw up the way it appears to readers

Thanks

pentaxuser

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The information is copied from the MSDS publication found on the internet. If you just copy from there and then paste into here you get this - nothing lines up:
3. Composition/information on ingredients Weight % Components - (CAS-No.)
15 - 20 Diethylene glycol (111-46-6)
1 - 5 Mixture of C12-15 alcohol ethoxylates (68131-39-5)
0.1 - 0.6 Isothiazolone derivatives (proprietary)

So I copy the contents into the Reply box, select everyrhing and then change the font to Courier for that selection.
Then manually line things up.

Thanks Matt

pentaxuser

foc said:

Use pure water in the final rinse along with your rinse agent, as per instructions, and you won't have any drying marks.
Nothing in the water means nothing will stick and dry into the film.

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I have always used deionized water to mix my final rinse, and water marks are still a common occurrence. I have used Tetenal's final rinse for many years and always had water marks. I mixed final rinse from Ron Mowrey's recipe (Ilfotol + Formalin) and got drying marks. I mixed final rinse from Isopropanol and Formalin and got drying marks. I hung some film rolls to dry in my shower, and others in a hot air dryer - no visible and consistent difference. These drying marks would be very visible on some rolls, and barely visible on others processed in the same batch. I've varied the concentration of my final rinse with no visible effect. In many cases these drying marks are visible to the naked eye, yet do not cause any problems during scanning or printing. I have seen residues on both sides of the film.

There are different theories about what happens:

1. the ingredients could contain impurities which show up as drying marks
2. one or more of my ingredients may have deteriorated over time
3. the wash water used before the final rinse leaves behind some residues which won't get removed by the final rinse
4. some previous process steps leave behind hard to dissolve residues which come to the surface during drying

One other thing I have not seen an answer to so far is: why are there even droplets on my film after final rinse? Isn't the wetting agent supposed to reduce surface tension of water such that no droplets form? If droplets still form, has my wetting agent died from old age, or is it less effective than I hoped it would be?

Rudeofus said:

One other thing I have not seen an answer to so far is: why are there even droplets on my film after final rinse? Isn't the wetting agent supposed to reduce surface tension of water such that no droplets form? If droplets still form, has my wetting agent died from old age, or is it less effective than I hoped it would be?

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I still get some water droplets. Suspect one would need to do a practical comparison between wetting agents in order to come to a conclusion. A couple of other points; 1. I'm processing 120 film 95% of the time not 135-36. 2. After see-sawing the film off reel through the wetting agent solution I hold the film at a diagonal which seems to help re surface tension.

I have only had one occasion when after using stabiliser with C41 film was when the stabiliser itself was nearing exhaustion. It happened a couple of time with films developed within a day of each other . I changed the stabiliser and the problem has never returned.