Drying film in a damp house
Every white speck on a print is a piece of dust that settled while the film was wet. Wet gelatin is soft and sticky for the first half hour, and after that the speck is part of the negative. The cure is not a cleaner house; it is still air.
The bathroom method
- Run the shower hot for two minutes with the door closed, then turn it off. Steam takes the floating dust down with it as it settles.
- Wait five minutes. Hang the film from a line over the bath with a weighted clip at the bottom.
- Close the door and stay out. Opening it to check moves more dust than the checking is worth.
In a house by the sea the air is rarely dry, and drying takes its time: two hours in summer, four in winter, overnight when the heating is off. Film that feels dry at the top can still be tacky at the bottom where the water ran to. Cut it only when the whole strip has the same curl.
To wipe or not
A squeegee removes water and, sooner or later, draws a scratch down thirty-six frames. Two clean fingers, wetted in the final rinse and run once down the strip, do the same job with less risk. Best of all is to touch nothing: a final rinse in distilled water with one drop of wetting agent sheets off on its own.
| Mark on the negative | Cause | Next time |
|---|---|---|
| Round pale spots | Droplets dried in place | Distilled final rinse, wetting agent |
| Streaks along the length | Too much wetting agent | One drop per tank, no more |
| Sharp-edged specks | Dust on wet emulsion | Steam the room, close the door |
| Fine straight scratches | Squeegee or gritty fingers | Stop wiping |
| Strong curl across the width | Dried too fast, air too dry | No hair dryer; let it take hours |
After drying
Cut into strips of six on a clean sheet of paper, not on the table, and sleeve them at once. A strip left curled on a shelf for a week collects what the bathroom was meant to keep away. Roll film curls along its length when the air is dry; a night under a heavy book, inside its sleeve, flattens it enough for the scanner.
If dust got in anyway, do not rub. Re-wash the strip for five minutes, give it the distilled rinse again and hang it once more. Gelatin swells, lets go of most of what was resting on it, and the second drying is usually cleaner than the first.