Verichrome Pan presoak produces green run-off

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I have just begun to use Verichrome and I wonder whether my pre-soak technique is less than optimal. I have always used a 2 minute pre-soak for Tri-X and the water (when dumped) has always been clear. The same 2 minute pre-soak with Verichrome produces a light green run-off. Is this a bad thing? Or is this just the way Verichrome works? I would appreciate the thoughts of anyone who uses this film.

-- Jeffrey Krenzel (jkrenzel@lgklaw.com), August 15, 1999

Answers

Jeff- Unless the presoak is doing something specific that you like, why presoak. Current wisdom is that it's better to get the developer evenly into the emulsion, rather than have it trade places with the water from a presoak. As for the color, various films have anti-halo dyes and other dyes that come out during soaking, development, fixing, etc., depending on what and where the stuff is. I'm sure the technology used in Verichrome and Tri-X is quite different, so the run-off color difference isn't suprising.

-- Conrad Hoffman (choffman@rpa.net), August 15, 1999.

It is anti halation dyes. Ilford FP4+ produces a dark blue black run off. As long as you get the negatives you want, don't worry about it.

-- N Dhananjay (ndhanu@umich.edu), August 15, 1999.

Delta films also produce a green runoff with a presoak. Its is anti halation dye. I briefly tried presoaking and saw no advantage.

-- Tim Brown (brownt@ase.com), August 16, 1999.

Coloured run-off is completely normal after pre-soak. HP5+ has nice deep green, APX has purple, some other films have black. Pre-soak is not useless, especially with larger formats. Some report softer development, which is understandable when you see that agitation has impact on contrast, especially in th first half minute. By pre-soaking you postpone the rapid and perhaps uneven absorption of the developer by the emulsion.

-- Lot (lotw@wxs.nl), August 19, 1999.

Yes it is anti-halation dyes, while I am not up on the school of what's happening now, I have been giving my neg's a 5:00 minute pre-soak for years, and have not had any uneven development since I started. I had a friend of mine who had streaking in his development with 2 minute soaks, he switched to 5 min. and had no more problems. Pat

-- pat j. krentz (krentz@cci-29palms.com), August 23, 1999.


Jeff, Kath and I used a lot of Verichrome back in the late 70's and the presoak always came out colored. Not to worry. It's a real nice film. We stopped using it when it disappered, glad to see it's back. If you own an old Kodak Tourist (not the one with 12.5 lens) run a roll through it. Man! talk about sharp negs and a long scale! Soup in Beu

-- Larry Welker (lwelker@turbont.net), August 26, 1999.

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