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Do you pre-wet color negatives C41


Wayne

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Do you use a water bath when preheating color negatives during c41 process?, or, do you simply preheat the negatives, dry, and in the tank, for several minutes prior to beginning chemical process?

 

In past I have used the water bath, as the process instruction provide. I recently read that you should not use water for preheat.

 

I notice that my Kodak film preheat bath always comes out colored; the various other brands, Lomo, Fuji do not.

Edited by Wayne
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When I first started developing film, I did not do a water pre-wet before introducing the developer, but then I was developing E6. 

 

For B&W and C41, I started doing a 30 second pre-wet before developing.  I cannot say that I have noticed a significant difference in my negs but proponents of  pre-wetting say it keeps the emulsion from absorbing too much developer because the emulsion is dry and that pre-wetting promotes more even development. 

Edited by Carlos Danger
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Thanks for the information. I just did 35mm rolls of Ektar and Lomo 400, as well as a 120 roll of Fuji Pro 400H without benefit of water during pre heat. I pre heated, dry, for about 10 minutes. The negatives are not dry yet, but they appear to be OK from a quick glance. More later.

 

I dispensed with the squeegee this time as well. I think it was scratching the negatives.

 

 

Thanks again.

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I always presoak films, although I too have read all sorts of strong opinions both ways. Mostly I like to see the lovely colours that come out with the presoak! Kodak films give the best approximation of the colour of a green garnet, and somehow I find that satisfying!

 

C.

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You don't mention if you use a kit or not.

 

As far as I can recall the Tetenal C41 kit states to pre-warm the Developing Tank but the Fuji Hunt X-press kit states a pre-soak at 38 degrees for 5 minutes.  I use the Fuji Hunt kit mostly and you do see discolouration of the pre-soak water with some films.  I'm not sure if this has an effect on different films if you mix them in the tank, but I now try to develop batches of the same film where possible just in case.

 

Hope that's helpful.

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For rotary processing a pre-wet is not recommended for C-41, but is recommended for B&W. JOBO did extensive testing and found that pre-wet, post dev wash with water or stop, all introduced inconsistencies. They reported that Kodak said that the bleaching step relies on the dev to be present for proper functioning. See JOBO Quarterly number 4 for details.

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Yes, always - I water the color film within the tank with 40-43 deg C  warm water for 2-3 minutes first and rinse off the colored dye before adding the C-41 developer solution. I am using the Unicolor C-41 developer set. IMO it never hurts to pre-equilibrate the film and the inside of the tank with warm water. The color films which I used so far all had an either green or blue dye washing off.

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