How do YOU pre-soak?

[pbromaghin]

I am determined to continue developing with replenished D-76 because I like how the negatives look. However, the surfactant that Ilford puts on HP5, FP4 and, PanF, eventually causes the developer to foam up like a bubble bath. It has been suggested that a proper pre-soak is one way to prevent this. That leads to the question - How?

For those pre-soakers, how do you do it? What kind of water? Tap? Filtered? Distilled? Something else?

Do you agitate, or let it sit?

How long do you pre-soak?

Anything that I can't think of...

This isn't about whether or not - that dead horse has been beaten to a bloody pulp.

Thanks,
Peter

 

[Paul Howell]

I only pre soake if recommended by the manufacturer of the developer. I generally use tap water at the same temp as the developer, I do not agitate and soak again following recommendations by the manufacture. I do use D76, usually 1:1, I do not replenish and I don't pre soak. When I was using MCM I did pre soak for 1 mint. Currently I use Diafine and Acufine without pre soak. With a divided developer pre soaking is not recommended as less developer A soaks in. I seldom use ILford films, what does ILford recommend.

 

[mshchem]

I don't do to much of this these days. However when I did I used running tap water from a thermostatic mixing valve. Almost like the Paterson Force film washer. I would stick a rubber hose into the tank and let it run for a couple minutes. Primarily to get the tank upto temperature.

Prewashing is very satisfying to see the dyes come out. I don't think it accomplishes much, except in your situation the bubbly stuff. Not sure how to quantify the situation.

In the heyday Prewashing was unheard of in commercial labs.

To the best of my knowledge.

 

[MattKing]

I use room temperature tap water - usually after having allowed it to come to room temperature over time, naturally.
I use it for three minutes of continuous reversing rotary agitation.
Three points:
1) our tap water is quite good, and very "soft";
2) I use T-Max 400 and T-Max 100 roll films almost exclusively; and
3) I use replenished XTol.

 

[logan2z]

I pre-wash using 68°F water (the same temp as my developer) for 3 minutes, agitating continuously for the first 30 seconds and letting the tank stand for the remaining 2.5 minutes. I do it for HP5 and FP4, the only two film stocks I use at the moment.

 

[laingsoft]

I don't really do it. The only real exception is when I'm doing Foma 400 in medium format. In that case I find the dyes take forever to come out after fixing if I don't prewash.

Typically 3-4 minutes, tap water at the same temperature as a dev.

 

[abruzzi]

I fill the tank with tap water straight out of the tap. Then I do a quick agitate, then put the tank down and attend to everything else--I mix the developer then read the temp. Its almost always too warm, so I put the mixed the dev in the freezer. Stop and fix are reused so I pull the bottles for those, loosen the caps and put them in the correct order on the counter. Then I check the developer temp to see if its at 20C. When it is, I pull it from the freezer, dump the presoak and start developing. Given that time to temp can range from 0 minutes to 10 minutes (my cold water runs up to about 32C in the summer) this is all just very approximate. The main reason I do it, is I had a higher chance of bubbles not dislodging when I did no presoak so to improve the likelihood of positive outcomes, I always do at least a little presoak.

 

[Vaughn]

5 minutes at developing temp in a Jobo Expert Drum on a motor base.

 

[mpirie]

5 minutes at developing temp in a Jobo Expert Drum on a motor base.

3 minutes in tap water in Expert drums on a CPA2 for me.

It helps bring the tank and film up to 20 deg before the developer is added, since my darkroom is in the garage and can get cold!

Mike

 

[Sidd]

In the hot Indian summer when the room temperature is above 30 deg C, I do use presoaking to bring down the temperature of the tank and film to development temperature, usually for 2 minutes with agitation for first 30 seconds.

 

[chuckroast]

I am determined to continue developing with replenished D-76 because I like how the negatives look. However, the surfactant that Ilford puts on HP5, FP4 and, PanF, eventually causes the developer to foam up like a bubble bath. It has been suggested that a proper pre-soak is one way to prevent this. That leads to the question - How?

For those pre-soakers, how do you do it? What kind of water? Tap? Filtered? Distilled? Something else?

Do you agitate, or let it sit?

How long do you pre-soak?

Anything that I can't think of...

This isn't about whether or not - that dead horse has been beaten to a bloody pulp.

Thanks,
Peter

3 min in tap water at dev temp.

For open tanks it is continuously running water. For daylight tanks it's a single fill, agitate, and rest.

 

[khh]

I presoak for B&W as I use replenished XTOL. I'm not super scientific about the presoak, just use tap water at process temperature and make sure all the film is equally wetted. I might fill the tank before getting the chemicals ready, or do some dump and fill cycles or if doing rotary run through two cycles of water. As long as it's above a minimum and not completely excessive, I'm pretty sure the details shouldn't matter much.

 

[Rick A]

Everything I process is done on a Unicolor drum on a motor base for a minimum of three minutes at developing temperature.

 

[loccdor]

I presoak always, unless explicitly forbidden by the instructions, I think Adox CMS 20 II was that case if I remember correctly.

Same temperature as developer, so usually 20C for black and white, or 39C for C-41/E-6. This also has the advantage of the cold tank not causing an initial temperature drop for high-temp development.

I agitate with the stick in a 2 or 3 reel manual Paterson tank and change the presoak water 5-10 times. Just running the faucet at the correct temperature, filling, agitating, dumping, repeat. I'm aiming for all the soapy bubbles and remnants of wetting agent to be gone, plus any colored dyes that the film has. This should theoretically help reusable developers last longer.

While presoaking I'm letting the C-41 or E-6 developer come up to temperature in the other half of the dual sink, or mixing up the black and white developer.

I don't alter the development times at all.