Topic: curly negs

[philmorris]

I developed about half a dozen rolls a month or more ago without realising I was out of neg sleeves. So after developing, rightly or most likely wrongly, I wound the rolls back on to the spindles, put them in a bag and forgot about them until the back order of Kenro neg sleeves showed up. As you'd expect, the rolls were tightly curled when I took them off the spindles for cutting and sleeving. That done and for the past three days, the negs in the sleeves have been lying flat under a pile of heavy books. They're still as curly as ever. I'm thinking I need to soak them and then hang them up, but since I've made at least one mistake I don't want to make any more. Should I soak them and if so in what ideally, for how long and is there a recommended temperature? Any one got a better idea? Thanks for any help folks.

[moominsean]

in my experience, curly negs pretty much stay curly negs. they may flatten out a bit, but...
the worst offender currently seems to be the non-Hungary version of arista.edu. drives me bonkers. actually pops out of the neg carrier on my scanner.
40-year-old 620 film drives me nuts, too. come pretty close to freaking out while spooling it for development, it's wound so tight.
anyway, best recommendation is probably just keep it in the neg carriers and in a binder with the 100 other pages of negs...they may eventually at least not curl up into tiny rolls the instant you pull them out.
if you rewet and dry, they will probably still be curly...seems to be film-dependent.
sean

[LT]

are they from a film that usually dries flat for you?  if so, I'd re-wet and dry them.  Your usual wash temperature should do the trick.

It's good to see you here BTW Phil

[philmorris]

Many thanks Moomin, Leon. I'll try out just one roll and see how that goes. Assume it goes OK. If it goes horribly wrong I'll post a message. And thanks for the BTW too Leon!

[al]

I had some old orwo 120 film which refused to stay flat enough to get into the scanner.  After a lot of fiddling about and swearing, I tried the heavy book trick, no luck.

What did work was rolling them against their natural curve, then tucking them inside a 35mm canister to hold them that way for a week or so.  When they came out of that they were much better.

al

[outofcontxt]

I'd definitely re-wet them, preferably in some wetting agent like Photo-Flo. Then cut 'em up after drying, put them in the sleeves and weight them down with a heavy book. That should do the trick.