Fogged paper

131802 · Dec 6, 2020

Two 250-sheet boxes of 8x10 Kodak polycontrast iii rc came my way recently, bundled with some other darkroom stuff. It's badly fogged. I developed a couple sheets in fresh Ilford multigrade developer, and a couple more in Dektol, same foggy result. Just to check, I developed a sheet of fresh ilford rc, and it came out fine, no fog.

The question is, what do I do with all of this foggy paper? Is there a way to salvage it? I didn't really pay anything for it, so that's not the point; more of an aversion to waste, I guess.

Mark B

MattKing · Dec 6, 2020

Some people fix out the emulsion and use the substrate for some of the alternative and traditional processes.
The paper may work for lumen prints.

drpsilver · Dec 6, 2020

06 Dec 2020

131802:

If the paper is not too fogged you can add benzotriazole (BZT) to reduce the a,punt of fog. Stephen Anchell ("The Darkroom Cookbook") recommends 15ml of a 0.2% solution for each liter of developer, adding more until fogging is reduced to an acceptable amount. There are caveats though: (1) keep development times under 90 seconds, (2) BZT is sparingly soluble a in water at room temp, so use water at 120F, (3) resulting images may be cooler in tone than normal.

To make a 0.2% solution dissolve 2gm BZT in 1L hot water.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Darwin

winger · Dec 6, 2020

Like Matt wrote, it might work for lumen prints - which are fun to do and can be done by kids, too, if that's something useful. You also might look up chemigrams - they may not work like new paper, but you might get some interesting results.

pentaxuser · Dec 7, 2020

Actually I found that for the right kind of scene and using "benzo" with some Ilford MGIII, it can look OK There's a good chance that the paper has lost some contrast as well but that can be OK for some scenes. The print borders may remain a pale but not unattractive grey.

It is worth giving some benzo a try. You'll never know until you do.

pentaxuser

Rudeofus · Dec 7, 2020

David Lyga has written a comprehensive report, how to resurrect very old photographic paper with different levels of fog.

NB23 · Dec 7, 2020

Polycontrast papers are total garbage. Probably had to do with incorporated developers or something. I have a bunch of boxes that are totally worthless.

I don’t see what alternative method could work.

Peter Schrager · Dec 7, 2020

NB23 said:
Polycontrast papers are total garbage. Probably had to do with incorporated developers or something. I have a bunch of boxes that are totally worthless.

I don’t see what alternative method could work.

It's plastic!!

MattKing · Dec 7, 2020

This may be a solution that makes no sense, but...
I was given a couple of boxes of Agfa multicontrast RC paper that it turns out is badly fogged.
I tried a test strip first, and it looked like this:

For the heck of it, I decided to see whether I could pull anything useful out of the scan of that first test strip.
This is what I ended up with:

Here is some similar results obtained from some heavily fogged, single weight fibre based Forte paper.
Original scan of the print:

Digitally tweaked version of the print scan:

Apologies for the creases and the dust. The creases are there because I didn't put the requisite care into handling the FB prints, and the dust is there because it is a scan with contrast enhanced!

eli griggs · Dec 7, 2020

If you can, save any old papers too bad to use, as well as trash prints, and films on the hope silver will rise to $100 an oz, and you can at least spend a weekend entertaining yourself, trying to recover it in a cheap enough manner to tell yourself, "I did good".

Fogged paper is an opportunity for creative works, so IMO, you should look at it that way and have fun.

Be Well, Be Safe and, Godspeed to all,
Eli

relistan · Dec 7, 2020

I have a whole lot of old paper and some of it works just fine. I have tried restrainers and this does work for the not-very-fogged paper. I have recently been wondering about bleaching the whole print. Is that a thing that works? I guess you might end up with low contrast anyway, but maybe not the fog.

NB23 · Dec 7, 2020

My personal experience is that junk is junk.

When I look at prints that I tried to salvage, I end up frustrated at my own stupidity. Each and every time I ask myself why did I do this to myself. I’d gladly pay 50$ to convert the garbage into gold, but it’s impossible. What I did was the opposite: I paid much more with my time and effort to inflict my eyes with garbage. And there’s no way I’ll reprint those photos, the negatives are too far away.

Just pay the money for fresh paper. You will thank yourself each and every time you will look at a print.

Patrick Robert James · Dec 7, 2020

NB23 said:
My personal experience is that junk is junk.

When I look at prints that I tried to salvage, I end up frustrated at my own stupidity. Each and every time I ask myself why did I do this to myself. I’d gladly pay 50$ to convert the garbage into gold, but it’s impossible. What I did was the opposite: I paid much more with my time and effort to inflict my eyes with garbage. And there’s no way I’ll reprint those photos, the negatives are too far away.

Just pay the money for fresh paper. You will thank yourself each and every time you will look at a print.

Yup.

relistan · Dec 7, 2020

relistan said:
I have a whole lot of old paper and some of it works just fine. I have tried restrainers and this does work for the not-very-fogged paper. I have recently been wondering about bleaching the whole print. Is that a thing that works? I guess you might end up with low contrast anyway, but maybe not the fog.

Replying to myself here, but I followed the link to David Lyga's posts that Rudeofus posted and David does, in fact, bleach the prints back to some effect.

eli griggs · Dec 7, 2020

Over expose the old paper about four or five stops, developer, stop/water and fix, then bleach, etc, tone
Or dev., stop, wash, bleach, wash fix, wash, tone refix, etc.

I made some beautiful fb prints many years ago, but I can no remember if any RC prints could be treated this way and give good results, but that's no reason you should no try to see what you come up with.

Longevity of any print processed this way is always a question iny mind.

Cheers.

Finn lyle · Dec 7, 2020

This paper is total garbage, I also came across a box of 250 8x10 of a similar vintage this summer and have spend probably 36 cumulative hours fussing with it, I've tried BZT, KBr, KI, overexposure, and farmer's reducer. None of them gave good results with any reproducibility, mostly since it seems the paper has such variable amounts of fog throughout the box. The biggest problem for me was that it has such a high speed relative to base fog that "blasting" through the fog just blackens the whole print. The contrast is also very poor, even if you can get the whites to come through, so for a normal negative it gives mushy prints. Best luck I've had was with 30mL of 2% BZT per L and 7-8g/KBr per L, in multigrade developer iirc, which gave results I would expect from a grade 0 or 00 paper (using a grade 5 filter) and acceptable base fog for proof contact sheets. Later Poly-contrast papers have aged like milk to be frank.

piu58 · Dec 21, 2020

Make some developer with the high rate of benzotriazole. Use the paper for contact prints. Give enough light and develop short.
The fog is not such important, but the low contrast may help.

naaldvoerder · Dec 21, 2020

Use it for Lith-printing..

Pat Erson · Dec 24, 2020

Pardon my ignorance but what's the use in shortening the time you bathe the print in the dev tray?

eli griggs · Dec 24, 2020

Pat Erson said:
Pardon my ignorance but what's the use in shortening the time you bathe the print in the dev tray?

You limit the degree of development that takes place, ie, before greys turn black from high exposure from the enlarger/timer set up.

If you go the full length of time required for a 'Normal" exposure, in a developer, with any overexposed paper, your greys turn to blacks, and you loose any highlights you may want in the final image.

IMO.

Fogged paper

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