Pre soak/pre wash why or why not?

[BrianShaw]

...

Maybe it's time for a new thread with a new debate. Do you tray develop sheet film emulsion up or down? I'm strictly of the emulsion-up persuasion in order to avoid air bell haloes. But this could also apply as a relevant factor in unevenness of development, and hence be one more consideration in the prewet or don't prewet contest itself. One has to factor all of their own personal development protocol variables.

Given that the one situation most seem to agree upon is the value of pre-wetting sheet film when tray developing, an emulsion side uu versus down discussion would be quite appropriate. What did Ansel do? What does DREW do?

 

[MattKing]

Given that the one situation most seem to agree upon is the value of pre-wetting sheet film when tray developing, an emulsion side uu versus down discussion would be quite appropriate. What did Ansel do? What does DREW do?

Two sheets, back to back, of course.

 

[Mr Bill]

Given that the one situation most seem to agree upon is the value of pre-wetting sheet film when tray developing, an emulsion...

FWIW this particular situation is one that Kodak DOES suggest a presoak with Xtol (see publication J109, p.3).

 

[DREW WILEY]

I use oversized dimple-bottom trays, with all the sheets EMULSION UP. Plus pre-wet, of course. Otherwise, I risked air bubble haloes. I learned all that the hard way.

I have no idea how AA did it; I gave away my set of his how-to books long ago - he certainly had more than his fair share of unevenly developed negs! The definition of Purgatory is being a retoucher of AA's prints; I've seen them at work. (Of course, some of those famous old negs were water damaged too, from putting out a studio fire).

For some reason unknown to me, the sheet film which was most susceptible to air bell evidence was Fuji Acros.

 

[Tim Stapp]

And like many prescription medicine bottles, "For oral use only"... as if one would do otherwise.

Unless it's a suppository???

 

[Chuck1]

And like many prescription medicine bottles, "For oral use only"... as if one would do otherwise.

Unless it's a suppository???

Then it wouldn't say for oral use only,
It might say "stick it..."

 

[Tim Stapp]

In LF, I shoot mainly FOMA (Arista EDU) 200 film. I develop in XTOL (I'm on my last packet, before the fiasco). KODAK tech sheets recommend to not pre soak when using XTOL. However, FOMA films are not on their data sheets. Therefore, because I develop using a JOBO processor I presoak, using JOBO's recommended times and FOMA's recommended times. No issues developing rotary. I'll continue to pre soak for JOBO's recommended times. I will probably switch to XT-3 when my XTOL is used up.

 

[Randy Stewart]

Black & white film prewashing was scientifically, controlled and rationally addressed at length by PE. I suggest you do some research and read PE's work.

I have high regard for the many comments left over the years by PE before he left us. I'm not aware of his comments on pre-washing B&W film for development, and I think I'll decline our suggestion that I seek them out. I doubt he'd take exception to my limited observations on the subject, particularly that most of the commentary on the subject here and elsewhere is uninformed nonsense. If you personally disagree with any of the points I raised, I'd be happy to hear your argument and expand on my reasoning if necessary.

 

[Vetus]

I have high regard for the many comments left over the years by PE before he left us. I'm not aware of his comments on pre-washing B&W film for development, and I think I'll decline our suggestion that I seek them out. I doubt he'd take exception to my limited observations on the subject, particularly that most of the commentary on the subject here and elsewhere is uninformed nonsense. If you personally disagree with any of the points I raised, I'd be happy to hear your argument and expand on my reasoning if necessary.

Please explain what scientific/empirical evidence you find is best practice, and clarify what you consider to be uninformed nonsense about presoaking.

 

[koraks]

I'm not aware of his comments on pre-washing B&W film for development

You may find this informative: https://www.photrio.com/forum/search/776184/?q=presoak&c[users]=Photo+Engineer&o=date
Here's a very brief selection of the results of this query,

Presoaking the film before development will help eliminate this problem as will tapping the edge of the tank as you pour the developer or prewet water into it..

The bottom line is that the prewet improves uniformity and helps eliminate streaking.

I presoak everything to prevent unevenness and pinholes due to air bubbles.

I have observed problems with the Jobo or other rotary processors used without presoak, and this covers over 50 years of processing film. With a presoak, the problems vanish for the most part (there can be more than one problem). Jobo recommends it and there is good reason.

A presoak with any film or color paper is quite beneficial.

Presoak works. It gets rid of air bubbles and improves uniformity. I use it all the time with my Jobo and I have done probably thousands of rolls of 120, 220 and 35mm as well as 4x5.

Just a few quotes of PE talking about a pre-soak, in most instances it's in a context of B&W processing, but he's quite explicit here and there on pre-soaking all of his film when processing using a Jobo, also on why he did this and some of the physics involved.

 

[brbo]

So, PE basically said, those who pre-soak don't necessarily need to feel guilty of pretending to know better than Ilford and Kodak engineers?

 

[koraks]

So, PE basically said, those who pre-soak don't necessarily need to feel guilty of pretending to know better than Ilford and Kodak engineers?

I think at this point we run the risk of doing full-fledged hermeneutics on the words of PE if we're not careful! I personally think that what he has said is mostly fairly clear especially if you look at his words in the context he said them. The quotes above include links to the posts I took them from, so I'd invite anyone who would want to interpret what he said to click those links and do some reading. I merely wanted to offer these quotes in response to @Randy Stewart 's remark that he was unaware of PE having said something on the topic.

 

[garry611]

Not looking to extend this even further, but Jobo did do control strip densitometer readings on a number of variations, using Flexicolor and serveral film brands. Their comment is that if you think this sounds like a lot of work for the few lines of conclusions which follow, you are absolutely right. A total of 24 rolls were exposed and over 400 densitometer readings were done.

1) Pre-warm (no water in tank), no stop bath vs. pre-warm with stop bath
No significant differences were seen.
2) Pre-wet (with water in tank), no stop bath vs. pre-wet with stop bath
No significant differences were seen.
3) Pre-warm vs. Pre-wet
Films with pre-wet were 1/8 to 1/3 stop more dense. Fuji films were least affected.
4) Pre-warm with stop bath vs. Pre-wet with stop bath
Films pre-wet were 0 to 1/6 more dense (considered insignificant).
5) Pre-warm, no stop, no rinse vs. pre-warm, no stop, with rinse
Films with a rinse between developer and bleach were 1 to 2 1/2 stops more dense.

This may not cover all the variations and I'm sure not everyone will agree with the above but at least identical densitometer readings were performed to verify the result.