How long does paper last? How can i tell if its good?

[darkroommike]

In my experience the papers with the shortest shelf life are developer incorporated papers; RC papers, as a rule, don't last as long as FB; VC papers have shorter lives than graded, etc. Slightly fogged papers can be saved with a restrainer, papers with more fog can still be used for layouts and I will sometimes expose and process a few sheets at the end of a session to make black/white paper for dodging tools and if you have friends into bromoil or lumen printing they can use papers with fog levels beyond what a conventional printer will use.

 

[M Carter]

Well, I was curious so went and had a look at some old prints I made when i first got it. There is grayness there too. I just never noticed it before. So it looks like it arrived fogged. Still no closer to knowing what the root cause of this was but still a disappointment.

As I and others have said, Lith printing can deliver paper-whites with even badly fogged paper. I have some ektalure that seems about 2 stops fogged - trash, basically - but it's holy-grail paper for lith printing and looks stunning. If you have a big stock of old paper, grab some lith dev and google up the techniques. I only do straight printing when I need a paper mask for a lith print nowadays, and for contact sheets, etc.

16x20 Ektalure lith print:

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I know this is a question with many answers, and it's all over the internet. But how long is black and white photo paper good for?

I feel like i hit the jackpot. I scored hundreds and hundreds of sheets of paper from a craigslist ad for only $60. It's mixed sizes and brands, mostly arista, foma and ilford, fiber, RC and VC. I was assured by the seller that they should all work, since they were tested, and he used some for personal work. The story is that a freestyle employee (whom i bought this from) was tasked with testing each batch of paper by processing one sheet from one box. If that sheet was good then, the entire factory order was good since they are cut from master rolls. Problem is that you can't sell an opened box of paper, so he got to keep them all! it got to be too much so he ended up selling it on los angeles craigslist. I asked how old are they and he said it's mixed and that he lost track but no older than 2014. One box says purchased december 2014, and another july 2015. He explained that arista is really just foma, and that the paper really isn't aged enough to matter. He also said that he wants to see examples, and that if anything is fogged ect ect to visit him at his office at freestyle in hollywood and he'd get me other testers for free!

I rent space at a darkroom in los angeles, and time is money so i wonder what is a good and fast way to test one sheet from each pack. There are about 30+ packs. I figure there are two choices:

A. Take a negative that i have printed before on ilford paper that i bought fresh, print it once more with a single sheet from each pack and compare. I have one in mind a well balanced low contrast negative.
B. just expose each sheet to direct light from the enlarger head, and then process and compare
C. Well, APUG is there even a third option? I noticed that there are serial numbers on each pack of ilford, arista, and foma, i couldn't find the same on the adox box.

properly stored(in fridge not freezer) at least ten years. it may lose some contrast and speed but,it's simple to compensate for both.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

As I and others have said, Lith printing can deliver paper-whites with even badly fogged paper. I have some ektalure that seems about 2 stops fogged - trash, basically - but it's holy-grail paper for lith printing and looks stunning. If you have a big stock of old paper, grab some lith dev and google up the techniques. I only do straight printing when I need a paper mask for a lith print nowadays, and for contact sheets, etc.

16x20 Ektalure lith print:

View attachment 160273

very nice.

 

[pentaxuser]

I had hoped that the OP redstarjedi who was going to test the paper in a few weeks after his last post in May 2016 would tell us what his finding were.

pentaxuser

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Silver is a heavy metal and it keeps way longer than just a few years, all B&W papers are made with Silver. Silver is a Nobel metal and has a half life far exceeding that of Cadmium. I have used 20 and 30 year old Ilford RC paper with no issues.

This post is so strange that I would not attempt to answer it. The stable isotopes of silver and cadmium, the ones used in emulsion making, do not have half lives. The post goes down hill from there. Older papers containing cadmium, lead, ... certainly last longer than newer formulations. I cite Simon Galley statement of 7 years for Ilford. Older formulation papers lasted for decades.

 

[Larry the sailor]

I bought up a big darkroom set up last year. Came with a huge pile of higher end FB paper. Most of it late '90s production, some no longer in existence. 8x10, 11x14 and 16x20, factory sealed boxes, the pile filled the front passenger side of my Jeep and a few boxes had to be stashed in the back. It was not stored in temperature controlled environment
I've worked through most of it testing as described here.
I've got a few boxes that show some promise of usability but the majority just went straight to dark grey or black when put in the developer.
Test it to see what you get.