White dust after c41

yya · 2025-07-22T18:41:35-0400

koraks said:
So you're getting these white spots after fixing & washing, and you've used both Ilfocolor fix (as in your very first post) as well as Kodak fixer?
Is it possible that the wash is the problem? How are you washing the film exactly? And how about my earlier suggestions about avoiding dust in the drying environment? Has that yielded anything? At least you've now narrowed it down to the final stages of the process.

Yesterday I developed two rolls of 135 film. One was processed with Ilfocolor and rinsed with distilled water before drying. The other was developed with Kodak chemistry. After finishing the bleach step, I did two rounds of water wash and checked the negatives — they were clean without any spots. However, after the fixer step, spots started to appear. I then rinsed the negatives multiple times with warm water, but it didn’t help. This morning, I found that the spots could be rubbed off by hand, which suggests they were some kind of deposit.

From what I’ve researched online, fixer can crystallize at lower temperatures. It’s been pretty cold in Sydney lately, around 5°C at night. I mixed my fixer at room temperature, about 17°C, and while stirring I noticed a lot of tiny bubbles. In contrast, the developer became completely clear once the bubbles settled after stirring. This makes me suspect that the spots might be caused by fixer crystallization leading to deposits on the negatives after fixing.

koraks · 2025-07-23T01:28:06-0400

The components in fixer are very readily soluble. While the fixer itself can crystallize at low temperatures, as soon as you bring it back up to room temperature, everything will go back into solution again.

Do you dilute the fixer with tap water or demineralized? If using tap water, I can imagine how crystallization of the calcium salts in the tap water at low temperatures may play a role, perhaps with some nucleation process taking place that results in unusually big agglomerates. IDK.

There's still the suggestion of the acid wash. Did you follow up on that?

yya · 2025-07-23T01:30:27-0400

koraks said:
The components in fixer are very readily soluble. While the fixer itself can crystallize at low temperatures, as soon as you bring it back up to room temperature, everything will go back into solution again.

Do you dilute the fixer with tap water or demineralized? If using tap water, I can imagine how crystallization of the calcium salts in the tap water at low temperatures may play a role, perhaps with some nucleation process taking place that results in unusually big agglomerates.

The water is ultra pure water, but still slightly inferior to distilled water. Today, I will continue experimenting with real distilled water.

koraks · 2025-07-23T01:31:09-0400

koraks said:
There's still the suggestion of the acid wash. Did you follow up on that?

yya · 2025-07-23T01:35:02-0400

koraks · 2025-07-23T01:36:09-0400

...and....

yya · 2025-07-23T01:37:07-0400

koraks said:
...and....

acid nothing help

koraks · 2025-07-23T01:39:58-0400

What did you do exactly?

yya · 2025-07-23T01:41:28-0400

koraks said:
What did you do exactly?

I want to do an experiment: soak a film leader directly in fixer and take it out to see if there are any spots, because it’s clear that the issue occurs after the bleach step.

koraks · 2025-07-23T02:14:35-0400

Good idea! Although if you dry film with fixer still on it, you will definitely get crystallization of fixer components. So you'll need to rinse the film for the experiment to be meaningful.

yya · 2025-07-23T02:16:13-0400

koraks said:
Good idea! Although if you dry film with fixer still on it, you will definitely get crystallization of fixer components. So you'll need to rinse the film for the experiment to be meaningful.

yes I will

BMbikerider · 2025-07-23T03:22:26-0400

Does or did this happen with one film or more than one? I am playing 'catch up' because of other tasks I have not been around for as often as I can be. The only time I have ever had a residue deposit itself on a colour film was when I overstepped the mark with the bleach stage where the bleach was so exhausted I almost called an undertaker! If I am reading you right, correct me if I'm not but the developer is only used once - like me, but the bleach and fix are used a number of times. If it is the latter, how many films do you process with the same bleach and fix?

yya · 2025-07-23T07:46:15-0400

BMbikerider said:
Does or did this happen with one film or more than one? I am playing 'catch up' because of other tasks I have not been around for as often as I can be. The only time I have ever had a residue deposit itself on a colour film was when I overstepped the mark with the bleach stage where the bleach was so exhausted I almost called an undertaker! If I am reading you right, correct me if I'm not but the developer is only used once - like me, but the bleach and fix are used a number of times. If it is the latter, how many films do you process with the same bleach and fix?

koraks said:
Good idea! Although if you dry film with fixer still on it, you will definitely get crystallization of fixer components. So you'll need to rinse the film for the experiment to be meaningful.

I’ve just finished what must be yet another round of testing, and although it might still be too early to draw a final conclusion, based on my observations, the speckled stains in the image seem to appear only after the film comes into contact with distilled water following the fixing stage. In other words, I don’t see any of these marks when I take the film out after fixing. But after doing the Ilford wash method (5-10-20), the stains suddenly appear. I then hung the film to dry and prepared some Photo Flo diluted with distilled water. I gently wiped each frame with my thumb, then rinsed the film from top to bottom using distilled water. After that, I noticed that most of the stains were basically gone.

koraks · 2025-07-23T07:50:38-0400

I have two explanation for what you're seeing:
1: The distilled water is somehow contaminated, perhaps because it's stored or poured from a container that's not clean and contains debris.
2: The specks are already there during fixing, but you only notice them when you hang up the film to dry.

#2 sounds likely as it's really hard to see this when the film is still wet. But I can't be sure.

Clean, distilled water by itself of course cannot cause a problem like this.

yya · 2025-07-23T08:05:15-0400

koraks said:
I have two explanation for what you're seeing:
1: The distilled water is somehow contaminated, perhaps because it's stored or poured from a container that's not clean and contains debris.
2: The specks are already there during fixing, but you only notice them when you hang up the film to dry.

#2 sounds likely as it's really hard to see this when the film is still wet. But I can't be sure.

Clean, distilled water by itself of course cannot cause a problem like this.

I bought a new bottle of distilled water today, from a different brand and store, but the result was exactly the same as before with the ultra pure water.
I can rule that out, because I didn’t hang the film — I was observing it while it was still on the reel. In other words, I had already seen those stains before hanging it up.

koraks · 2025-07-23T08:14:17-0400

I have no other explanations. It's simply not possible that the crud emerges from clean distilled water. Either the water isn't clean, or the crud was already there.

BrianShaw · 2025-07-23T08:35:31-0400

I’d investigate the “ultra pure” tap water a bit more. When no other answer results from a detailed investigation then it’s often a missed or erroneous assumption. In my area the tap water analysis is published annually so we have a reasonable understanding of quality, if we read those reports. Yet there’s always the disclaimer about how the water is a blend of 7 different sources and that blend can change without notice. What tripped me up once was water line maintenance, cleaning to be exact, that caused our local water to change drastically for a short while.

yya · 2025-07-23T08:36:51-0400

BrianShaw said:
I’d investigate the “ultra pure” tap water a bit more. When no other answer results from a detailed investigation then it’s often a missed or erroneous assumption. In my area the tap water analysis is published annually so we have a reasonable understanding of quality, if we read those reports. Yet there’s always the disclaimer about how the water is a blend of 7 different sources and that blend can change without notice. What tripped me up once was water line maintenance, cleaning to be exact, that caused our local water to change drastically for a short while.

but tonight I’m use distilled water

BrianShaw · 2025-07-23T08:42:50-0400

yya said:
but tonight I’m use distilled water

For all of the chemistry and wash, or just the final wash?

Im suggesting taking the tap water completely out of the equation even if you have a chemical analysis verification of its purity.

yya · 2025-07-23T08:43:31-0400

BrianShaw said:
For all of the chemistry and wash, or just the final wash?

all chemistry

yya · 2025-07-23T08:51:03-0400

BrianShaw said:
And recognizing your post 63 observation… what is your source of distilled water? Im really suspicious of the machines we have locally that dispense purified or distilled water. Can figure out how the purification process happens but not the distillation process.

I can only buy water labeled “distilled water” from the supermarket. Also, I only change the water twice for rinsing between the bleach and fixer steps — I believe this should be sufficient.

BrianShaw · 2025-07-23T08:52:39-0400

You have quite a mystery situation! If I were in your shoes I’d just give up on processing color and send to a lab. Or take up water color painting instead. Hope you figure out a solution. Good luck!

koraks · 2025-07-23T08:52:39-0400

yya said:
Also, I only change the water twice for rinsing between the bleach and fixer steps — I believe this should be sufficient.

Yes, certainly should be. I generally rinse only once, or even not at all if I'm going to use the fixer one shot only.

yya · 2025-07-23T08:54:02-0400

koraks said:
Yes, certainly should be. I generally rinse only once, or even not at all if I'm going to use the fixer one shot only.

Okay fine

yya · 2025-07-23T08:55:25-0400

BrianShaw said:
You have quite a mystery situation! If I were in your shoes I’d just give up on processing color and send to a lab. Or take up water color painting instead. Hope you figure out a solution. Good luck!

I try to give up, if someone in Sydney, please let me know, we can share experiences, or I can show you how to get the stain，and then should be find the result

White dust after c41

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