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A Word About Purple Negatives

Posted on Friday, 05 March, 2010 at 9:16 AM by Finn

If you ever develop your own black and white negatives, you may have noticed that a roll may come out purple on the odd occasion. This is more prevalent in a community dark room, where the fixer is reused, but still, it happened to me last night. I was developing a roll of 135 and 120 in 2 tanks, and poured the fixer from the 135 to the 120 and regret to say that I didn't leave it in long enough! My negs are purple!

If you ever come across this problem yourself, it's because it isn't properly fixed. Put it back in the fixer for another 2 minutes and have another look. It won't be as good as if you had left it in for long enough to start with, but still...

If you fix it properly a sliver-based (black and white) negative can last more than 100 years, so you'll have plenty of chance for reprints.

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