B/W Print turns green

[kerrpanda]

Help! I've had a B/W print (Agfa RC in Agfa Multicontrast developer, not selenium toned) for several years. Recently I had it matted (did not specify "archival mat) and framed under glass. It has been hanging in fluorescent lighting for about 6 months and it has turned a sickly green color. I removed the mat and the print under the mat is NOT green, just the exposed print area. Does anyone know what would cause this? I have had many prints undergo same circumstances and were fine. I am clueless!
Thanks for your help!
Cynthia

 

[Ian Grant]

Can only be due to poor fixing. Usually due to a high silver content in the fixer leaving silver halides in the emulsion. It's rarely happens with RC papers, but I guess it can.

Ian

 

[Erik L]

Cynthia, I am by no means an expert, but if the part that is hidden by the overmat is ok I would think that it must be the light. Again, just a guess
regards
Erik

 

[Ian Grant]

Cynthia, I am by no means an expert, but if the part that is hidden by the overmat is ok I would think that it must be the light. Again, just a guess
regards
Erik

Yes the light acting on a very low level of silver halide left in the emulsion.

Some papers initially go green if you expose them to light without developing them.

Ian

 

[jgjbowen]

Cynthia,

I doubt your print was envious of the other prints, but you never know ;-)

 

[panastasia]

Can only be due to poor fixing. Usually due to a high silver content in the fixer leaving silver halides in the emulsion. It's rarely happens with RC papers, but I guess it can.

Ian

Ian,

I'm curious. Have you seen this often with fiber prints? The reason I ask is because I've been doing photo restoration for a number of years now, and never was presented with a photo that turned green. I usually get photos that are fairly old, some turned various shades of yellow-brown. Many are small older snapshot types that I crop and enlarge.

I wonder what would happen if they were fixed further and then toned even though the damage is done. Not that I would dare do anything to originals.

Paul

 

[Mark Fisher]

Ian is right...it was probably not sufficiently fixed. Try leaving out an unfixed sheet of different papers under a light for a day or two and you'll see a color change very quickly...perhaps in as little as a few hours. I've used papers that turn reddish purple, blue and greenish.

 

[spb854]

This discussion causes me to think just what is going to happen, if anything, when we no longer have incandescent light bulbs. I will miss their warm tones and coseying up with a book next to them.

Now that a law has been passed doing away with incandescent bulbs in a few years, I just wonder what's in store. There will EVENTUALLY no longer be any condenser enlargers.

Steve

 

[Ian Grant]

I'm curious. Have you seen this often with fiber prints? The reason I ask is because I've been doing photo restoration for a number of years now, and never was presented with a photo that turned green.
Paul

Paul, I've only seen the green stain once, and that was with fibre based Forte Polywarmtone. Once these fixer stains appear re-fixing doesn't remove them, but it almost certainly prevents the problem getting worse.

Ian

 

[kerrpanda]

poor fixing

Wow! Thanks for all the responses. I guess at that time in my printing history I wasn't aware that fixer would exhaust after x amount of prints. (In the class I took the whole class fixed for 3 hours and it never seemed an issue). But I am happy all of your responses were a concensus (except for the "envy" one and I would like to THINK that my prints would never have reason to be envious, wouldn't we all...).
I am heading to the darkroom today and I will be paying special attention to "fixing".
Appreciate the input,
Cynthia

 

[Antje]

This discussion causes me to think just what is going to happen, if anything, when we no longer have incandescent light bulbs. I will miss their warm tones and coseying up with a book next to them.

Hey, but you can get warm fluorescent bulbs, too. We have them in our reading lamps and less warm ones as main lighting. I don't miss incandescent lamps at all - I can buy almost any colour temperature I want here.

Antje