My uncle swore by pre-washing film before developing. Told me it cuts down on dust spots.

Tried it with a roll of HP5 last weekend and ended up with weird water marks all over the negatives. Has anyone else gotten bad results from rinsing film before the chemicals?

2 comments

2 Comments

ivan_fisher9927d ago

Bet the issue is he was using tap water instead of distilled. I made that mistake once and got gnarly mineral deposits that looked like tiny spiderwebs. Pre washing with distilled water and a drop of Photo Flo works way better for me. Also make sure your tank is totally clean leftover fixer residue can mess with the water.

maxm6327d ago

Tap water is absolutely the culprit most of the time. City water has chlorine and minerals that don't just leave spots, they can actually react with the chemistry on the film. Distilled water is cheap enough at the grocery store that there's no excuse not to use it for final rinsing. I also found that running a final rinse with distilled water and a tiny bit of wetting agent stopped my drying marks completely. Just make sure to mix it fresh each time since Photo Flo goes bad sitting around.