Interesting little accident last night. While preparing to make a contact sheet, I dropped a Printfile page (with negs) into the paper developer. I pulled it out within seconds and quickly decided that the best thing to do was throw it in the stop bath. So at this point the outer two frames in each strip of six were quite wet and would not slide out of the sleeve. I very quickly and carefully cut the Printfile page along each negative to remove them, loaded them onto a film reel and washed them for ten minutes, wetting agent, and hung them to dry.

I am not really in a panic about any long term damage that may have been done. They are headshots for a local actress and I could have easily reshot them. The negs looked fine this morning so I scanned them all and I now have a back up.

Any predictions as to what damage may or may not have been done? My darkroom is quite small and the potential to do this again is actually quite high.

Thanks,

Kenneth

-- Kenneth Eckert (kdephoto@yahoo.com), June 19, 2001

Answers

As long as none of the envelope stuck to the negatives, no harm whatsoever was caused. Developer and stop bath are fairly inert as far as a fully processed image is concerned, and a full wash afterwards should have removed any residual from the emulsion. Personally, I don't think 10 minutes wash is enough, I'd have been happier with a 20 to 30 minute wash, but it seems that water has become a damaging substance lately, judging by the some of the responses posted on this BB.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), June 19, 2001.

I have to agree with Pete! Washing more is better... even fixing also if it will ease your mind. Try to keep a dry side (I know you stated that your darkroom is small), a "formal" dry side is important, even if it is in another room. It was wise you pulled them out to wash right away!

-- Scott Walton (f64sw@hotmail.com), June 20, 2001.