{"id":944,"date":"2023-02-08T08:14:49","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/?p=944"},"modified":"2023-02-08T08:14:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:14:49","slug":"to-pre-wash-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/02\/08\/to-pre-wash-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"To Pre Wash or Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post is for users like me who predominantly use 120 rolls film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “To Pre Wash to not” you film before developing discussion bounces back and forth on many internet forums but here I out line my experience recently (2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while not I have been left with 120 negatives having a pronounced “purple” colour and for a little while I thought it was my change over to using FX-55 vitamin C developer<\/a><\/strong> but thankfully it was not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now the next bit of info is not aimed at 35mm films so its up to you if you want to pre-wash 35mm film or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

120 roll film has an anti-halation dye layer with dye, you will know if your chosen film has this if you prewash and see the colour of your spent developer is green (Fomapan) or Pink \/ Purple (TMax, TRI-x, FP4+ and others).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> I prewashed a roll of 35mm HP5+ and not colour change in the spent water was noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I found to my relief was doing a 120 roll film pre wash for a few minutes, just water at 20 degrees C, cleared around 95%+ of the dye before developing the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also noted that when dumping the spent developer there was barley any colour change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> Kodak advise with their B&W films that fixing for an extra few minutes, say 2 or 3, is also helpful clearing any anti-halation layer left and I have found that fixing all my B&W films for a few extra minutes has no negative (sorry) effect on my films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My stop bath and fixer has also been left clearer when dumping back into their bottle for reuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washing also has a positive effect of clearing the dye layer and my wash flow after fixing is now<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 x 3 min under the tap to over flow to flush out most of the fixer left then use the Ilford wash method of 5,10 & 20 agitation washes and then using filtered water leave to soak for a minute or two.
Ilfotol Wetting agent (10ml to 2000ml) using filtered water as a final soak for a minute or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I keep the final Ilfotol bowl under where I am going to hanging the negatives to dry. This allows me to run the negative through my squeegee a couple of times with the waste going back into the bowl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for me the prewash and thorough wash after developing has delivered negatives without the dye of if it is there then it is so minimal I barely see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this deserves a video made to complement this post and I will make this very soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in short. Prewash your film and if the water is coloured by dye in the film, 35mm,120 or sheet, then make a prewash part of your film developing workflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DC x<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “To Pre Wash to not” you film before developing discussion bounces back and forth on many internet forums but here I out line my experience recently (2023).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[164,155],"tags":[159,9,174,175],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-darkroom","category-film-developers","tag-bw","tag-film","tag-prewash","tag-wash"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/waterpouring_0-scaled.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":947,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions\/947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesphoto.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}