How Bad If a Roll of Color Paper is Exposed to Light?

[RedSun]

A friend of mine received a roll of Fuji PIII color paper. But the seal is broken and he is afraid that the roll was already exposed to room light.

So I just wonder how bad is it if that happened. The roll was never used and the exposure time could be short.

Would the entire roll fogged and ruined? Or it happens only at the edge since the roll is still very tight? I think if the exposure is very brief and the paper was very tight, light should not go in and most of the paper should be still good.

It is amazing that there is no other protection other than the single brown/black bag....

I remember PIII is good for portrait and wedding?

 

[railwayman3]

Only way to know is by testing some of the paper....but, if tightly rolled and only exposed for a short time, any fogging may well be only at the edges (particularly if it's a wide roll). Worth trying before you decide to throw it out.

 

[RedSun]

It is 8" roll. Not going to throw out, but may need to leave some margin if there is any fogging.

 

[Jeff Bannow]

So I just wonder how bad is it if that happened. The roll was never used and the exposure time could be short.

The roll is probably fine except at the edges. But, keep in mind that even 1/2 second of exposure is waaaayyy too much.

 

[RedSun]

But what if this is a 10 second exposure, how much would the light eat into the paper, other than a colored edge? The edge could be just 1/8".

 

[Bob-D659]

Only way to tell if it is fogged is to cut off a strip and process it. Guessing just doesn't work.

 

[Mike Wilde]

If flashed the damage should not hit more than the first two feet of the paper, although the edges of whole rolls I have used are yellow tinged from buying them removed from photo machines and packed in two well wrapped garbage bags when I bought them for $5 each. Still a good deal for about 200' per roll.

 

[RedSun]

Probably. I'll cut it tonight or tomorrow to see how it looks like.

 

[MattKing]

It be a good idea to get to like 5x7 prints.

 

[Mr Bill]

I've seen plenty of 'em over the years; if it was opened long enough for someone to see the edge, then yep, it's all edge-fogged. The only thing that varies is how far in (from the edge) the fog goes in. Generally it's relatively slight, but will almost certainly prevent use as 8" paper. Additionally, the outer wraps of paper will be fogged. It could be as much as 10 to 20 ft of the outer wrap (depending on size of roll).

Hopefully your first test will show it to be unfogged.

 

[Athiril]

If worse comes to worse. You can bleach it, then expose, and develop, or you can pass it over small amounts of chlorine gas to bleach out the fog without wet chemistry, then expose and process.

 

[RedSun]

We opened the color paper and tested it. The paper is totally new, with the start edge taped. The roll is very tight. The blue emulsion side is on the outside. I cut about 15 sheets of 5" each, then cut each into 4x5 sheets.

I used a filter setting of 55Y/38M, slightly higher than the 50Y/33M setting for the Super C paper. The negative is the same one, same size too. I had to increase the exposure time from 10 sec to 18 sec.

From what I can tell, the paper is not fogged. There is no strange color, either inside or on the edges. BUT, compared to the Super C paper, the test print is lacking contrast. The dark blue is not very blue, but has some grey tint to it. The color is just not vivid. I do not know if this is the symptom of fogging, or the PIII paper is just different from Super C paper.

It is known that Super C has more contrast and is a faster paper. I just do not have experience with the PIII paper. It was designed for portrait and wedding.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

That makes sense that the PIII would be lower in contrast if it was designed for portrait and wedding photographers. Especially wedding photos, where preserving detail in the white dresses is very important. The lack of vividness could also be a function of age - how old is this paper, and was it cold-stored, or kept at room temperature?

 

[RedSun]

From what I can tell, the paper was purchased in 2008 by National Archive in DC. I do not know how it was stored, but I figure it was stored properly until it was sold to private party as surplus inventory a couple months ago. I believe it was then stored in a large commercial warehouse for auction.

Also, since I used the cut sheets from both top and bottom, any fogged paper should have been captured. For 15 sheets of 5", it is about 6 feet into the paper. If there is any light exposure, it should be contained within the first 2-3 feet of paper.

I'll play around with color balance. Now it looks like it needs some red color. Overall it has a cold tone to it.

 

[RedSun]

Below are the test print scanned using Epson v700 with dust removal.



First one is original, color is off
2nd one is after Photoshop auto color
3rd one is after Photoshop autoContrast
4th one is after Photoship autoTone
Last one is after all Photoshop auto adjustments

Clearly the color balance is off. Probably it is on the Cyan side. I do not see a lot of changes on the contrast and tone changes.

How do I know the auto adjustments made in Photoshop? Judging by the print after autocolor, the paper looks good. It brings back the vividness.

For comparison, I attached two other photos, one is the original shop print, the other one is my previous test print with Super C paper:


The super C test print is a little red or magenta. But it still acceptable.

What do you think of the color balance I should make on both the PIII and Super C papers? Are the densities ok?

 

[RedSun]

I scanned the color print into Photoshop and played with its color balance tool. I made the auto color adjustment and matched it with my own color adjustments. The auto color balance (change) is -50M and -10Y. This is such a large change and the Kodak viewing filter won't do it. Well a good eye(s) can catch this pretty quickly.

Here is the photo after Photoshop color change:



I'll make some changes with my filters to see this makes the print better.

 

[Prof_Pixel]

For a 'quick and dirty' starting point in color printing, look for some medium density gray area in the image - like the ledge they are sitting on. Notice that in your original shop print it's pretty neutral. None of your other prints come close to being this neutral.