is the heat messing with my contrast?

[Chriscc123]

when i print i keep getting wacky (low) contrast, could it be due to the temp of the room witch hovers around 75ish? and it does start to get toasty after a while, anyhow i think its a good chance thats why im getting low contrast.... i think?

 

[David William White]

look elsewhere first

 

[Worker 11811]

Start by looking at the easy things first.

Is your developer fresh and clean?
What temperature is your developer? Should be around 70º F, plus or minus a couple of degrees.
Is your paper fogged?

If that is good and your developer is fresh and clean, try making a photogram.
Put a few objects on top of a piece of fresh paper and expose under the enlarger. No negative or aperture plate, of course.

Develop normally and check how that image turns out. If it's good then your paper and developer are good.

 

[Anon Ymous]

How safe is your safelight? (pdf file) Yes, developer needs to be reasonably fresh, but even oldish developer will give good contrast. Perhaps not ideal, but good. Higher temperature means that development times can get shorter, but even reasonably extended development won't give low contrast. I've printed with chemicals above 25°C (77°F) and had absolutely no problems. So, check your safelight first. BTW, this test should be done with every kind of paper you use. Additionally, you should process a piece of unexposed paper in absolute darkness and compare it to a piece of unexposed, but fixed paper. Your paper could be fogged.

 

[PeterB]

Possibly your MG contrast filters or stale developer

My two recent experiences giving me low/reduced contrast are:
1. Old or stale developer.
2. Faded Ilford multigrade contrast filters (mine were >10 years old !)

rgds
Peter

 

[Ian Grant]

That kind of room temperature will help rather thn hinder you as dev will stay up to temperature, it won't cause a drop in contrast.

As other say llik elsewhere. All the suggestions are possibilities, old dev, old filters, un-safe safelight, stale paper.

Ian

 

[fschifano]

Like Ian wrote, it's not the room temperature. But here's one other thing you can check. Very often, people will over expose the paper. Then in an effort to salvage the print, they'll pull the print from the developer early. Guaranteed to give low contrast, along with other nasty artifacts.

 

[DWThomas]

.... Very often, people will over expose the paper. Then in an effort to salvage the print, they'll pull the print from the developer early. Guaranteed to give low contrast, along with other nasty artifacts.

Amen -- the quick route to a muddy mess. I usually try to get my enlarging exposures to where another ten or fifteen seconds on top of my nominal development time (usually around two minutes) makes only a moderately noticeable difference.

 

[Mark Fisher]

I agree with all mentioned above. It is not temperature. I regularly print with the darkroom in the mid-70s or higher. Fogging, less than complete print development, low contrast negatives, safelight......all more likely suspects.

 

[Bruce Watson]

when i print i keep getting wacky (low) contrast, could it be due to the temp of the room witch hovers around 75ish?

Actually, it could be. Depends on the developer. An MQ developer, for example, could do this. That's because as the temperature goes up, the hydroquinone becomes less active while the metol becomes more active. And the hydroquinone contributes more to higher contrast than does metol. This one reason why there's a recommended temperature for developers -- to balance developer activity.

But it's not *likely* that this is your problem. It's far more likely that your problem lies elsewhere. For example, over exposure and pulling the print out of the developer too soon. If you aren't getting good solid blacks...

 

[Chriscc123]

well i think iv narrowed it down to bad developer, or me pulling out of developer to soon, although i consistently develop for 2 min and have had wonderful results before, im going to go with the former, as reused a batch of developer from my last session, my enlarger bulb blew in the middle of it and didn't have a replacement, so had to pack up, and the bulb is brand new...

 

[tkamiya]

If you are using Dektol and want to use it for more than just one session, cover the tray with Saran wrap but put it in such a way that the wrap is touching the liquid, leaving no air gap. If you do that, it'll be still usable for 2 to 3 days with little change. I do this all the time so I can print my test prints one day and make improvements the next day. Using Dektol and RC paper, my standard development time is 60 to 90 seconds. With fresh (and fully active) developer, there are not much change in tonality (that I can see) after 30 seconds or so.