Water spots on my C41 negatives.

darry85

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So I just developed my first roll of c41 last night and it turned out great except for water spots all over the negatives. I want to develop a second roll tonight but I’m worried about more water spots.

So, I didn’t use distilled water to mix the chemicals because I don’t recall the directions saying to do so and all the tutorials I saw people were doing it out of the tap. Would using distilled water to actually develop the roll help? Also, I didn’t use a squeegee. I used my 2 fingers to try to get as much water off and hung vertically to dry in my shower stall. I did do the stabilizer as the last step for 1 minute. Do I do a final rinse after that?

Thanks so much. I just want to figure out what to do about these water spots!
 
Within reason, the water you mix the chemicals with does not matter. What does matter is the final rinse. When you have finished rinsing the film, the film is wet (obviously) and if the rinse water is hard, the wet on the film is also hard and it is that final rinse water which causes the water spots. Two things you can easily do (no need for distilled water) is use a wetting agent in your final rinse so the wetness on the film is evenly spread over the film instead of in drops and the other thing is to use a squeegee to mostly dry the film after the rinse is done..

Some people will tell you horror stories about squeegees causing scratches but if you keep your kit clean and wash the squeegee immediately before using it you will be fine.
 
I've been using tap water and Photo-Flo since 1985 and NEVER used a squeegee, all my negs are fine.
 
Thanks all. I’ll have to get some photo flo. I thought the stabilizer had a wetting agent in it?
 
I use a drop of dish soap in cold tap water. I am on a well too. No spots. I rinse mine for 10:30 minutes in running tap water prior. When that's up, I have a 800 ml of tap water and a drop of dish soap ready to go in, give it a good shake. I squeegee mine with my fingers currently as my hands are pretty well healed up. There are times when my hands get pretty beat up from mechanical stuff and this is not an option so I let them just hang dry, no spots. Photo flo would do the same thing, breaks the surface tension so the water sheets off the film. I forgot to add it once and won't make that mistake again. I ended up carefully using a micro fiber towel and my breath to clean up the negatives, worked well. I also wear powder free nitrate gloves when handling negatives. I found a place that sells box's of 3XL gloves that barely fit but do the trick.
 

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