I am having problems with drying marks, I use a wetting agent, I am not keen on using a sqeegee. any suggestions will be most welcome Charles

-- Anonymous, March 23, 1997

Answers

Have you tried Photo Flo & Hypo Clear? These are meant to keep the negs from drying with any chemicals in them and/or drying stains.

-- Anonymous, March 25, 1997

B+W from color

Aside from the archival issues - and if a commercial photographer is doing the wedding, you are not likely to ever get your hands on the negatives - the quality issue is a real one. Yes you can make nice b+w prints from color negatives, but it is a rare commercial lab that can do it. I've done a fair amount of this as a custom printer out of necessity and here are my observations:

1) It is a shame that Oriental's Panchromatic paper is no longer made - It blew away the other choices.

2) For some reason, I get the absolute best b+w quality from Fuji Reala negatives. I don't know why, but maybe it is the fourth color layer.

3) The typical low contrast films used for color wedding photography, such as Kodak VPH/VPS are much too low in contrast to get a good b+w print without lots of fussing.

4) The grain structure of conventional b+w film such as Tri-X or HP5 Plus (my absolute favorite) are beautiful unto themselves IMHO, ans this is lost in color to b+w.

5) Kodak's b+w paper that develops in color chemistry is just as likely to fade as a color print.

6) Lighting for good b+w photography can be much more contrasty than for color. Most examples of color to b+w I've seen from social photographers look too flat to me.

-- Anonymous, April 02, 1997

I have just starting using a shami leather, which you just softly run over the negatives after devleopment. Which I have found very successful. Also which I have been doing for a long time now is, if you do see any marks, get a lens cloth and breath heavy onto the negatives and lightly rub the negative and this completely gets rid of it.

-- anonymously answered, April 15, 1997

I used to use a wetting agent, which is a gycol. No matter what the dilution, some of the glycol remains, and can affect the surface properties of the film. I suspect that remaining glycol can latch onto small dust particles, and can also cause Newton rings when the negative is used in a glass negative carrier. My soution to drying marks is to use distilled water for my final three rinses. I use a washer, and when I have washed for the recommended time, I return the film (still wound on Nikor spiral reels) to the developing tank, which has been rinsed and then filled with distilled water. I close the tank and agitate for 30 seconds, and then discard the water. I then refill the tank with distilled water, and rinse the film for 2 minutes with agitation at 30 second intervals. I repeat this rinse procedure one additional time. I then hang the negative and let it air dry. Since the distilled water contains no dissolved salts, which are the culprits that cause drying marks, the negative shows no marks. It also shows no scratches from using mechanical means to remove excess water.

-- Anonymous, August 04, 1997