Ilford Rant: enlarging paper issues

[Peter Schrager]

this is regarding a batch of Ilford 5x7 Warm Tone paper .I'm busy making a hand made book and making 25 prints of each picture in the the book. several weeks ago I spent half the night trying to print a negative with lots of highlights
I kept getting marks on the paper and was curious about this because the negative was perfect. these are contact prints from 4x5 negatives so it's not an enlargement. today I decided to try and make a test print with a different box of the same paper and it came out perfect. so here I am thinking it's my negative when all the while it's a faulty box of paper. I don't know the emulsion number but I really am surprised at the lousy quality control.
Ilford is sort of cornering the market but there is no excuse for inferior products. sorry I don't have the batch number because I'm definitely owed a refund....
Rant over..boo on Ilford!

 

[kevs]

Is it RC or FB? Finish? The emulsion code should be printed on the box somewhere; usually on the back of the packet. Can you post an example of the problem so others can help?

 

[radiant]

I understand Peter's frustration.

Once you have slept over this, check your process well and contact Ilford / Harman. They are really serious about quality and responsive to any quality issues.

Usually most of rare problems are user errors. Not saying this is, but I try to remind myself of this all the time when I start blaming others.

 

[rst]

I can understand your frustration, but honestly I would rather sleep another night before going into rant mode on a forum. And even before that I would contact the manufacturer first.

I just contacted Harman/Ilford last week about a roll where the film was not glued on the backing paper and that caused a major hickup of my Rolleicord and left me with a roll of exposed film that I could not put on the Jobo reel. Would I blame a lousy quality control? Certainly not. Such things happen and it was the first time ever that I had an issue with Ilford film. But what I did was to contact their technical service and I got a reply the next day. And this week a packet arrived with a replacement. A very generous replacement as I got three rolls of HP5+ for my faulty one and in addition to that some other films to try.

So give them a chance to respond to your issue and I am pretty sure they will give you a refund.

Cheers
Ruediger

 

[LimeyKeith]

................ several weeks ago I spent half the night trying to print a negative with lots of highlights

Rant over..boo on Ilford!

Peter, in the intervening 'several weeks' I'm sure you could have contacted Ilford and had this issue resolved and then you could have posted a warning rather than a rant. It's unfortunate that Ilford didn't choose your box of paper for a quality control check but problems can occur in all manufacturing processes. Just sayin .....

 

[R.Gould]

I agree with all of the above, Ilford QC is second to none, but an rare occasions things can go wrong with the best, but if you have a problem the contact Ilford, they will respond, and if there is a problem they will correct it it and replace the faulty paper/film Ect, rather than rant about them on here
Richard

 

[Lachlan Young]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people reach to blame the manufacturer when it was the end user who stuck their wet/ chemically contaminated hands (only needs to happen once to screw up an entire box) into the black bag and all over the paper.

 

[mooseontheloose]

There's another thread about Ilford paper quality issues here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/ilford-mgiv-rc-portfolio-postcard-paper-quality-issues.179473/

Perhaps you are experiencing the same problems the poster and I both had with the postcard paper?

 

[removed account4]

Peter -

I'm glad you were able to get prints out of another box of paper that worked out for you. Is it marks on the edge of the paper border or inside the print area? I sometimes get emulsion that seems to flake off the edges of Ilford paper ( or I used to ). I haven 't bought new paper in years it seems so my experiences are 10-15 years old.. Ilford was pretty good at trying to help, Simon was here ( is there someone from Ilford here on this site you can contact anymore? ) and he put me in touch with a local CS rep here in the states. After emailing him a picture of the edges he couldn't figure out what it was or why it happened .. but it happened on boxes and boxes of MG FB 5x7 paper... the only solution I found ( which I did before the Ilford CS rep suggested it too ) was trim off the edges...

Good luck with your book !
John

 

[DeletedAcct1]

this is regarding a batch of Ilford 5x7 Warm Tone paper .I'm busy making a hand made book and making 25 prints of each picture in the the book. several weeks ago I spent half the night trying to print a negative with lots of highlights
I kept getting marks on the paper and was curious about this because the negative was perfect. these are contact prints from 4x5 negatives so it's not an enlargement. today I decided to try and make a test print with a different box of the same paper and it came out perfect. so here I am thinking it's my negative when all the while it's a faulty box of paper. I don't know the emulsion number but I really am surprised at the lousy quality control.
Ilford is sort of cornering the market but there is no excuse for inferior products. sorry I don't have the batch number because I'm definitely owed a refund....
Rant over..boo on Ilford!

Is that you have an old batch of paper?

 

[George Collier]

What are "marks"? Need more description, or maybe a scan of the print.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

this is regarding a batch of Ilford 5x7 Warm Tone paper .I'm busy making a hand made book and making 25 prints of each picture in the the book. several weeks ago I spent half the night trying to print a negative with lots of highlights
I kept getting marks on the paper and was curious about this because the negative was perfect. these are contact prints from 4x5 negatives so it's not an enlargement. today I decided to try and make a test print with a different box of the same paper and it came out perfect. so here I am thinking it's my negative when all the while it's a faulty box of paper. I don't know the emulsion number but I really am surprised at the lousy quality control.
Ilford is sort of cornering the market but there is no excuse for inferior products. sorry I don't have the batch number because I'm definitely owed a refund....
Rant over..boo on Ilford!

You should definitely contact them and ask for a replacement box.

 

[MattKing]

Does it say Harman on the back of the package, or Ilford Imaging?
If the latter, it is at least 15 years old.

 

[logan2z]

I sometimes get emulsion that seems to flake off the edges of Ilford paper ( or I used to ).

The only time I've ever had that happen is when I've accidentally left a print in a water bath for much too long - as in hours. It's never happened under 'normal' use.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Is that you have an old batch of paper?

I'd suspect it's fresh product that got squashed in transit/ subjected to excess heat at some point post-factory or similar - much more commonplace than people assume. Many years ago I did encounter a weird sort-of static discharge issue with the internal bag on a few occasions, which in some circumstances would discharge onto the outer sheet. The bag material changed and it went away.

 

[Mike Lopez]

Peter, I'm going to join the chorus of others here in asking to see some examples of what you're referring to. I've recently had problems of my own while contact printing (not on Ilford, but on another paper), and I'd like to see what your issues are relative to mine. Any chance you wouldn't mind posting pictures of your issue? That's assuming you finished the flawed prints and saved them, of course. I typically get mad and don't bother finishing prints that are on paper that turns out to be flawed.

 

[Peter Schrager]

well to answer everyones questions....
the paper was fresh
my processing is second to none...fresh chemical; gloves; etc
unfortunately I only thought it was my negative that was faulty not the paper..not until I used a newer with different emulsion number did I realize that the problem was the emulsion
as far as speaking up here the point is to alert people to potential problems with materials....I had a similar problem with Adox MCC paper several years ago
the paper was totally defective and all I got were some gray tones. paper was fresh and in no way did I ever realize it was the a bad box of paper
I don't have the example anymore...it was tossed out and in the oval filing cabinet yesterday
with covid and everything it could have been the paper was sitting on a hot dock somewhere in Iraq!!

 

[Peter Schrager]

In regard to the postcard paper thread my problems were more like white splotches in the highlight area
I looked at the examples but don't see the black spots he refers to...only lighter spots....

 

[MattKing]

the paper was fresh

I assume freshly purchased by you.
But how do you know that it hadn't been sitting in a corner of a stockroom somewhere at the location you bought it from?
That was the problem in the recent thread about postcard paper - it was 7 year old stock purchased recently.
Did you check the back label for the Harman vs. Ilford Imaging labelling that I referred to earlier?

 

[Peter Schrager]

I assume freshly purchased by you.
But how do you know that it hadn't been sitting in a corner of a stockroom somewhere at the location you bought it from?
That was the problem in the recent thread about postcard paper - it was 7 year old stock purchased recently.
Did you check the back label for the Harman vs. Ilford Imaging labelling that I referred to earlier?

Matt I referenced your point about the paper sitting somewhere
the back of the last 2 boxes say Harmon Technology
these boxes were purchased from B+H and if they don't move inventory no one does!!

 

[removed account4]

The only time I've ever had that happen is when I've accidentally left a print in a water bath for much too long - as in hours. It's never happened under 'normal' use.

you'e lucky !

this happened for 3 big jobs I printed.. did prints in batches, 2 hands back to back front to front.. timed every bath 2 mins dev, rinse 3 mins fix, rinse 3 mins fix, rinse, perama wash-wash 20mins ( residual silver test .. then repeat )... stuff flaked whole boxes of paper. never had problems like that before those boxes of paper ( still have some of it left ) and never had that trouble since. it was really annoying.

 

[Down Under]

All enlarging papers are quirky. I keep mine in a frost-free fridge and I've managed to keep some now ancient Kodabrome RC and Multigrade III RC paper going for several decades with no fog. My stocks of Multigrade IV haven't fared as well and I find I now have to resort to sheet by sheet printing with unexpected results - one sheet will print super well but the next two or three will produce unexpected low contrast, then a few good sheets, and so on.

All of which makes-printing rather unpredictable. The downside is every print I make of any one negative often turn out with varied contrast, which can be annoying, but I never ever two prints of the same negative at the same time...

FB paper seems to do better. In 2000 or 2001 I bought a big stock of Ilford Galerie paper in 16 by 20 format which has stayed well bagged but unrefrigerated in one of my bedroom cupboards. I still have several hundred sheets and I print with this paper two-three times a year when I unearth old and personally valuable negatives. So far my results have been surprisingly good. Contrast varies but so far fog-free. I 'touch wood' whenever I print with FB. My small stocks of Kodak papers from the '80s and two boxes of Multigrade III FB from the mid-'90s still produce okay prints, contrast has dropped maybe one and a half grades but this is easily adjustable by filtering. FB is now so expensive in Australia that it's worth my while to go on printing with my old stocks as long as the paper lasts and I can get fresh chemistry.

These days I regard analog enlarging paper as 'niche' anyway - I see it as a unique product from basically unstable chemistry.

If you bought this paper from one of the big suppliers and it has turned out to be crap, you should contact that supplier to discuss the situation and negotiate something - if the purchase was made recently and not six to twelve months ago.

 

[MattKing]

these boxes were purchased from B+H and if they don't move inventory no one does!!

I would have thought that, but the recent thread about problem postcard paper involved 7 year old paper that B&H sold after being out of stock for a considerable period of time.
If you send the batch number to Harman along with the details about your problem, they can determine how old it actually was.