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fiber print wash time

Gary Grenell

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Workflow question here. On those days that I do not finish my wash cycle until 11PM and have run out of time for toning, how dangerous is it to leave the print in a water bath overnight, or even up to 24 hours? I understand that the print can become oversaturated, but realistically, is it truly problematic to let it soak for 12-24 hours until I can get to my toning?

Thanks in advance.

Gary
 
I really do not recommend leaving prints in the wash overnight. If you run out of time, stand them in a rack then finish washing the next morning. If you use HCA, then the wash times are considerably shorter. You can soak the prints for a short time just prior to toning. I sometimes wait weeks before I get around to toning with no problems.
 
I am not sure this directly addresses your concern, but how long you can soak a print depends a lot on the particular paper.

I used to work for an older fellow and at the end of the day I would leave just after I placed the prints in the wash. He routinely removed them sometime the next day to be squeegeed and rack dried, with great success. The paper was Ilford. Once or twice I would come back the next week to find the prints still in the washer, when most of the emulsion had washed off.

I have been using the new Adox paper (excellent!), and I had some wet yesterday for over 15 hours. It held up just fine, and I am confident I could have gone much longer. It was after midnight at this point, so I definitely understand the desire to "pick it up tomorrow."

I also use Foma paper (beautiful!), but I find that I need to limit wet time to around 6 hours, at which time the emulsion will start to separate, starting at the edges.
 
I would not leave your prints in the wash for extended periods. The florescent brighter can leech out. If it's RC paper, the resin coating may separate. Use a HCA to reduce wash time.
 
In practice, I find that most papers do just fine overnight or 12-15 hours in a water holding bath. I've never had a problem with brighteners washing out in that amount of time.

The most sensitive paper I've found is Agfa Portriga (no longer available) as its wet strength makes it more susceptible to handling damage or squeegee problems.
 
maybe you should
stop your printing a little earlier so you can
wash your prints without having to worry about long wash times
or leaving them in a bath overnight ...

rc paper takes about 10 minutes to wash ...
fiber paper ( double weight ) 5 mins pre wash, 5 mins perma wash 5 mins fil/ dump final wash ...
it isn't that much time ... ( it says on the bottle of perma wash how long wash times are ... )

if you leave your paper soaking over night, your wash water just becomes a dilute fixer bath, and
you over-fix your paper, which isn't good ...

good luck!
john
 
After what John said above, I should add that I exchange the water several times in about 30 minutes IF I have to leave the prints overnight, and I will rinse and exchange several times the next morning.

I don't use HCA.
 
jnanian said:
...

rc paper takes about 10 minutes to wash .....

good luck!
john
Click to expand...

John:

10 minutes is a long time to wash rc paper.

As an example, Ilford recommends a 2 minute wash.
 
Gary Grenell said:
...On those days that I do not finish my wash cycle until 11PM and have run out of time for toning, how dangerous is it to leave the print in a water bath overnight, or even up to 24 hours?...
Click to expand...

Gary

My advice: don't leave prints in the wash overnight, but...

1. two-bath fixing to reduce hypo absorption into the fibers
2. use a hypo clearing agent to aid washing
3. finish the wash
4. leaves prints to dry overnight
5. tone prints the next day
 
I don't expect anybody to subscribe to this, but . . .I routinely leave fiber prints in a holding bath overnight, having gone through the first fixer bath for 30s. Finish fixing, clearing and washing the next day. I suppose if there was a fatal flaw in this process, I would have discovered it in bleaching or toning.
 
I agree with Ralph and the others. Though you do not say what type of toning you are doing, when I am doing selenium, I dry my prints, give them a brief soak the next day, and then tone in the daylight with the Windows open. When I have toned wet prints before, they will occasionally come out uneven. This is rare, but better safe than sorry, right?
 

Rich

I don't see a 'fatal' flaw, other than washing out brighteners, but I don't see much benefit either.
 
Washing of papers overnight is fine. You just have to accept the loss of optical brighteners and a softening of the emulsion surface which tends to make it damage more easily if not handled carefully. Print contrast will appear to be slightly reduced as the optical brighteners are removed because of the reduction in brightness range in the print.
 
Over Night Is SOP


My workflow includes an over night soak. Usually runs 16 hours
+/- some little. I've gone over 20 hours but images came free
while sponge drying. Several papers have had such treatment
with no ill effects. I've not noticed any loss of whites.

My sessions are short; 2, 3, or 4 prints. Tray soaks using
polyester batting bottom and top and twixt each print.
Next day, a short soak with shuffling. Dan
 
Fomatone, washing prosedyre with HCA?

Anyone know the washing prosedyre for Fomatone when using HCA? Can’t see It’s mentioned in the data sheet?
Thanks!
- OMU
 
I do not leave my prints longer as needed in the wash. I found that prints on fiber paper flatten more easily when having shorter washing times. So I fix short in strong fixer and then wash short.

Cheers
Ruediger
 
What Ralph said!

Even if the prints are not completely dry the next day, they are just going into the pre-soak anyway. Do use the HCA! and wash for one hour minimum with fiber-base prints. If you get the prints into the washer before you start cleaning up, you can spend the better part of your wash time doing the dishes ;-)

Alternately, you can do what I do, which is to only give only fix 1 when printing, and then wash and dry (you might even be able to cut the wash time down to 30 min or so if you will be toning the next day). Then you can add fix 2 to your toning sequence (soak, fix 2, tone, HCA, final, full-time wash of min 1 hr). This is perfectly acceptable and might help with your late nights.

BTW, I routinely wash for a lot longer than 1 hour just to get rid of the pesky optical brighteners. I think they make the prints look phony. I read some research somewhere that after one hour, only 5-10% of the original brightener was retained and that after two hours it was negligible (don't quote me on this, I don't have the material handy to verify the numbers...). At any rate, I don't like my print whites to look like neon-white Tide-washed T-shirts. And, have you ever let a freshly-washed white shirt sit for several months without wearing it, only to find that all those "whiteners" have turned the shirt a horrid shade of yellow? Not for my prints!

Best,

Doremus Scudder
www.DoremusScudder.com
 
Last edited by a moderator:

I'd like to hear more about this. What exactly is the purpose of brighteners. And if we're washing for 1 hour after printing, then another hour after toning will that wash out the brighteners?
 
brian steinberger said:
I'd like to hear more about this. What exactly is the purpose of brighteners. And if we're washing for 1 hour after printing, then another hour after toning will that wash out the brighteners?
Click to expand...

Depends on the paper and processing. Get yourself a UV light (face tanning) and check the print in a dark room with the light on. Brighteners give the print a significant blueish glow. Compare a print washed for 30 minutes with another, washed for two hours.

Brighteners have a limited life and will 'die' eventually anyway. The more they get excited by light, the sooner they will come to the end of their activity. A print taped to a window will lose all brightener activity within a years or two.
 
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