What is the best way to dry processed film manually?

Answer 1

In my experience, liquids are always needed in the processing of films. If you consider printing part of the processing, then the negatives (the film after developing) are typically air dried before printing. There would be no reason to want to keep negatives permanently wet. Trying to manually rush the drying of negatives would inevitably lead to occasional damage.

Answer 2

How I wash the film:

After fixing the film properly, I use a Hypo Clearing Agent. I first fill the tank with 70 degree Fahrenheit water and agitate for one minute to get the fixer off the surface of the film. I then fill the tank with hypo clear and agitate continuously for one minute. I put the hypo clear back in the bottle it came from and put the tank under running cold water--in my area, the cold water is about 70 degrees F so I do the whole process at that temperature--for 20 minutes. They sell pressure washing hoses for some brands of tanks that do a good job, but as long as there's a steady, even flow of water you're okay.

Then I dump the tank, fill it with water, add some wetting agent and agitate continuously for one minute. I then remove the film, squeegee off the surface water and hang it to dry in the most dust-free area I can find.