I am fed up with yellow stain!

lloyd said:

...I've wondered what this was all about since I read this, as I've never heard of this 'yellow fog'

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It might be related to dichroic fog, have a look at this (there was a url link here which no longer exists). Now, the interesting fact in Dali's case is that the stain is limited to the edges of the paper. IIRC, I had a case like that, about a year ago, with old paper. I always use indicator stop bath and I never overuse fixer. I also used some of the stained prints to test Kodak's sepia toner, which is a bleach/redevelopment toner. Surprisingly, the stain disappeared. So, as the thread I linked to at the 1st page of this thread says, bleaching and refixing might work. In any case though, using weak fixer as stop bath looks like asking for trouble to me.

Anon Ymous said:

It might be related to dichroic fog, have a look at this (there was a url link here which no longer exists). Now, the interesting fact in Dali's case is that the stain is limited to the edges of the paper. IIRC, I had a case like that, about a year ago, with old paper. I always use indicator stop bath and I never overuse fixer. I also used some of the stained prints to test Kodak's sepia toner, which is a bleach/redevelopment toner. Surprisingly, the stain disappeared. So, as the thread I linked to at the 1st page of this thread says, bleaching and refixing might work. In any case though, using weak fixer as stop bath looks like asking for trouble to me.

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dichroic fog
is a green metallic looking sheen, not a yellowish fog.
it seems that the instructions for the correct processing of the paper
warn about this exact fog.

jnanian said:

dichroic fog
is a green metallic looking sheen, not a yellowish fog.
it seems that the instructions for the correct processing of the paper
warn about this exact fog.

Click to expand...

It can be yellow, more often a dirty yellow which along with the silver can look greenish depending on how bad.

Ian

Look, this is easy. That sort of stain is always caused by carryover of active developer either by not using a stop bath or having dirty finger or tongs. There are a few ways this can happen. Going straight from developer to fix will cause an overall fog, a situation which is exacerbated when the white light is turned on before fixing is complete. Stains at the edges of the print almost always point to developer contaminated tongs or fingers handling a print that's not completely fixed out.

Bottom line, you really need to use a good stop bath, make sure that your fixer is good, and that your hands or tongs are not the cause of cross contamination. There's no getting around it, and it's not a bad batch of paper. If the paper is fogged, the stain woudl be black or grey - not yellow or brown. You can use a water stop, but that takes lots of time and lots of water to ensure that all the active developer is removed from the print. It's not practical, nor is it as effective as using a proper stop bath. The yellow dye in an indicating stop bath will NOT stain your prints.

Hi folks,

I did some prints yesterday with fresh products (Dektol, 2% white vinegar as stop bath and Ilford Rapid Fixer) and everything was OK: no stain anymore!

Thanks all for you comments and suggestions, you were very helpful!

Take care.