Kodak Endura: sickly green/yellow whites

[koraks]

I've been printing quite a lot of RA4 in the darkroom over the past few years, relying mostly on Fuji Crystal Archive Supreme and also Kodak Endura papers. I use Fuji Hunt RA4 chemistry in trays at room temperature. I have also tried processing in a Jobo at official RA4 temperatures, but noted no appreciable difference in print quality, color rendition or the problem explained below, so I stuck with trays (which I find easier and less fussy).

One thing that has bothered me for quite some time and that I haven't been able to solve is the whites of the Kodak Endura paper I sometimes use when I need more saturated/rich colors than Fuji gives. The whites I get on Endura always are slightly off-white, with a sickly yellowish-green tint to them. I would describe it as a dirty lime color. It's slight and does not stand out if a print is viewed on its own, but once held next to a white piece of paper or compared directly to my prints on Fuji paper, the difference is very distinct and bothersome to me.

Things I have tried so far are:
* Developing the paper without exposing it whatsoever to see if it's somehow an optical fogging artifact. Turns out it isn't. Besides, prints on Fuji paper consistently come out perfectly fine.
* Sticking to RA4 specs in terms of development time and temperature, using a Jobo and drums. Didn't make a difference.

I have not tried Kodak chemistry as it's more difficult to get around here.

There are four possible causes I have been able to come up so far:
1: The Kodak paper I use was bought from a reseller in Germany who cut it to sheets from rolls. In this process, some kind of fogging (light or chemical) may have been induced.
2: The paper may be past its use-by date and fogged due to old age.
3: There might be a compatibility problem between the Kodak paper and Fuji RA4 developer. However, I have tried developing the paper in a DIY RA4 developer (made from dry chemicals; i.e. TEA, CD3, carbonate etc.) and the problem persisted.
4: A final possibility is that Fuji paper imparts chemicals to the developer it is developed in, which consequently fog Kodak paper. I would not have thought of this myself, if it weren't for problems with a pack of Mitsubishi paper I acquired a few months ago exhibiting similar problems (although much more severe). I put this down to the paper being fogged due to age, but the seller insists the paper is fresh, fine, and used by many other customers (including professional labs) and that the problem is in the Fuji paper effectively messing up the developer. I find this hypothesis somewhat far-fetched, but who knows?

Has anyone else encountered this problem with Kodak Endura?

Edit: I've tried to capture it in a scan, but that's naturally always a bit deceptive. However, the image below approximates the hue of the fog fairly well. Top layer is the white pressure plate of the scanner, the middle layer is the white of Fuji Crystal Archive Supreme Lustre (which is sometimes a tad cool depending on lighting, but not as blue in person as it is displayed below) and the bottom layer is the 'white' of the Kodak Endura paper (F surface in this case, but I get more or less the same with a pack of N-surface I have lying around). Note that the effect is somewhat exaggerated in this image, but it is very apparent nonetheless in the real print.

Edit 2: I have printed on very old Fuji Crystal Archive (non-Supreme, original/old version) which was fogged by age, but this paper fogged to a cream yellow and not to the greenish tint described above. Then again, I can imagine every paper will fog somewhat differently depending on how the various color layers age.

 

[Lachlan Young]

I've seen yellowish fogging of the whites on expired Kodak paper - my only other immediate thought is whether or not you use a stopbath?

 

[koraks]

Ah yes, forgot to mention; I've tried acetic acid, citric acid and a plain water "stop"; no difference.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Have you tried fresh chems used single shot? I'm essentially inclined towards age related fog or fogging at the cutting down stage - I wonder if they were using a safelight that was 'safe' with Fuji but not Kodak at longer exposure times.

 

[mnemosyne]

In the past I have used Enudra Premier from factory sealed rolls in Kodak chemicals (Ektacolor RT/LU, at 35°C in a roller transport processor). In my experience the paper white of Endura Premier is different from than that of both Fuji CA and Fuji CA DPII. I would describe the white of the FUji papers as slightly brighter and colder. The Kodak paper white is a bit less brillant and has a warm touch to it. It is easy to see when you compare both brands side by side. However, I fail to see any green or cyan tint in the Kodak whites. Unfortunately I don't have any fresh Kodak paper at the moment, else I would send you a couple of sheets for testing purposes.

 

[koraks]

Have you tried fresh chems used single shot? I'm essentially inclined towards age related fog or fogging at the cutting down stage - I wonder if they were using a safelight that was 'safe' with Fuji but not Kodak at longer exposure times.

I'm not completely sure I tried entirely fresh chemistry with this paper (I did with the Mitsubishi paper I also mentioned and it didn't help in that case). I'll give it a spin just to make sure. I'll also order some fresh paper that I'll cut from rolls myself. Indeed, I thought about a safe light issue during cutting; I distrust safelights for color work and don't use any myself, and for that reason also prefer to cut from rolls myself.

 

[koraks]

In the past I have used Enudra Premier from factory sealed rolls in Kodak chemicals (Ektacolor RT/LU, at 35°C in a roller transport processor). In my experience the paper white of Endura Premier is different from than that of both Fuji CA and Fuji CA DPII. I would describe the white of the FUji papers as slightly brighter and colder. The Kodak paper white is a bit less brillant and has a warm touch to it. It is easy to see when you compare both brands side by side. However, I fail to see any green or cyan tint in the Kodak whites. Unfortunately I don't have any fresh Kodak paper at the moment, else I would send you a couple of sheets for testing purposes.

Ah yes, I think you mentioned this a few weeks ago somewhere on the forum, could that be the case? I do recall reading about slightly warmer whites on Endura. However I think that I'm seeing something that shouldn't be there; this is somewhat warm, but also distinctly green.

I'll order some new paper; I also have some other Kodak paper that I got from a friend (an uncut piece still on the roll). It's their thinner minilab paper, Royal if I'm not mistaken. Haven't tried it yet but if it's a chemistry compatibility issue it could give some hints.

 

[Bikerider]

It really is uncanny. I have had almost exactly the self same problem which has now cleared. Not only were the edges yellowing or cyan tinged the resulting prints were similarly affected with a strong colour cast. I am using Tetenal RA4 developer for the prints (I usually use Kodak) and the fresh dilutions were OK at first then the problems started. No matter what I did or tried could not get rid of the edge and picture cast. The negatives were from various dates and developing sessions so that counted out developer errors.

I too had used Fuji paper and now Kodak but had not experienced a problem with either cross contaminating. My Kodak paper was cut from a 12" x 90m roll using a home made light tight dispenser (Made from alloy sheet riveted together and sealed against light entry so that eliminates fumes from plywoodwood. The Fuji paper was from 10x12 cut sheets. The stop bath was acetic acid based and the Blix was from the Tetenal kit

After perhaps 10 - 15 failed prints, I was on the verge of draining the NOVA processor and starting all over again. However I had one more attempt and this time it was perfect with no problem, and has been since then. I actually use a DUKA safelight which has a Sodium Vapour bulb which colour paper is almost blind. Even with the safelight off this made no difference. I still use it now since the printing returned to normal.

It really is a puzzle that I would love to find out what caused the problem.

 

[brbo]

I get pretty much the same whites on Endura Premier (glossy) that expired 2012. I use fresh Kodak chemistry one-shot.

 

[koraks]

Small cyan streaks or edges are sometimes the result of minor contamination of the paper with blix; I've had invisible traces of blix sticking to a finger which showed up as neat cyan fingerprints on the paper. But it doesn't seem to explain the overall cast.

I'll run some more tests when I get round to it. About 95% of my color prints require (imo) Fuji so it's not a very presing issue, but it bugs me obviously.

 

[newcan1]

You could try fresh chemistry, and you could try adding some benzotriazole to the developer. I have found that with RA4 paper, benzotriazole can work virtual miracles in removing base fog.

 

[jtk]

In identical viewing conditions, at the same time, do they look identical un-processed? Do those papers have identical texture?

Inkjet prints can be made well on dozens of different papers ...all sorts of textures and paper white tones ...

Common advice is to evaluate only under 5200K lights (such as Macbeth)...but that's a fools errand because few will ultimately be seen anywhere that way, even in the best of galleries.

Therefore, I appraise each of my prints under multiple kinds of light: various kinds of daylight, household lamps, fluorescent lamps etc.

 

[koraks]

In identical viewing conditions, at the same time, do they look identical un-processed?

Obviously not. Fuji color paper is bright blue while Kodak is bright pink.

@newcan1 interesting thought about the benzotriazole! I may give it a try, although if it's really age related fog, I prefer to just use fresh paper.

 

[GeorgK]

I actually use a DUKA safelight which has a Sodium Vapour bulb which colour paper is almost blind. Even with the safelight off this made no difference. I still use it now since the printing returned to normal.

It really is a puzzle that I would love to find out what caused the problem.

Be careful. The "sensitivity gap" of RA4 paper that allowed the use of relatively bright, monochromatic orange light (sodium vapor lamps) has become history many years ago. Todays papers are extremly sensitive and best handled in total darkness.

Be especially aware of the possibility of a "pre-exposure" effect: the safelight might appear "safe" on an unexposed piece of paper (which remains still white), but after additional exposure through a negative the highlights will be effected (tinted) nevertheless.

 

[Bikerider]

This appears to be a bit of an old wives tale. I have used a DUKA all the time I have been printing colour (since around 1991) and never had a problem. The trick is to turn the light down using the sliding scale on the side (I have it at 9) and reflect the light off the white ceiling. When exposing the paper, I always stand with my back to the safelight so it is in shadow anyway. I can handle Kodak and Fuji paper exactly the same as I have always done in these conditions and never had a trace of fogging.

The problem had a short while ago has gone and it was nothing to do with the DUKA because even the normally white borders were stained. I say stained because I have no idea what it was, and it for an unknown reason the problem whatever it was has now disappeared and the effect has ceased to affect the paper and not returned. The DUKA has not been moved or adjusted in any way. Nor have the chemical baths been changed - It remains one of life's mysteries

The judging of colour balance I have started to use a LED Bulb with a colour balance of 6700 Kelvin and an equivalent power output as a 60watt tungsten bulb. This colour temperature is around that of an average sunlit day at 12 noon in June in UK.

 

[koraks]

A little update; like I mentioned before, I also had some Kodak Royal 'Digital' lying around I was gifted by a friend. I don't know its provenance, but it's likely still within date as he must have acquired it (as a full roll) about a year ago or so. Cut some up last night and made some prints. Apart from the fact that it requires massively different filtering on the yellow/blue channel than the other papers I've used, it seems to print fine. I can confirm what has been said before about the whites of this Kodak paper in comparison with Fuji: they're a fraction warmer, but still qualify as 'white' in my book. Definitely none of the sickly greenish tint I get on the Endura. This was in the same batch of replenished developer I've been using for nearly all of my RA4 printing over the past 2 years. So at least with this Kodak emulsion, there is no weird interaction with Fuji paper having gone through the same developer and somehow wreaking havoc on subsequent non-Fuji prints (hypothesis 4).

Incidentally, I find the colors of this Kodak Royal Digital paper to be somewhat more saturated than Fuji Crystal Archive, but not as much as Kodak Endura, it seems. Kind of a nice in-between option. Despite the paper being labeled as 'Digital', it works just fine with optical printing directly from film (although I do use an RGB LED source as I've been explaining elsewhere on the forum). The only thing that puzzles me is the rather massive amounts of yellow I need to add to get neutral color rendition. With my LED head, Fuji and Kodak Endura tend to end up somewhere around 115/115 for Y/M (on a normal dichroic color head, this would probably be something like 55/55 cc), whereas the Kodak Royal Digital paper required something like 185Y with minor or no change on M. In normal dichroic terms, that would be an addition of something like 40cc of Y. The resulting prints look just fine though and I still have ample room for additional filtration on this LED head if an iffy negative requires it.

It's interesting really how some people have complained over the past few years about a lack of different options for color papers, whereas in reality, there seems to be quite a wide range of options, at least in terms of color rendition. In terms of contrast, it's all bunched together - so far I haven't come across something that could be qualified as a low-contrast 'portrait' paper, although Fuji Crystal Archive comes quite close.

 

[koraks]

Yeah, seems like the retailer I use doesn't list these, although I might be able to order them. However, it's unfortunately not feasible for a home user to sample a wide range of papers. It's almost tempting to set up a cutting operation and start selling a wide selection of color papers in cut sheet. But that ain't my line of business...

 

[perkeleellinen]

It's almost tempting to set up a cutting operation and start selling a wide selection of color papers in cut sheet. But that ain't my line of business...

I've often thought this. I wonder what the minimum order would be for Ilford to cut into boxes...

 

[Lachlan Young]

I've often thought this. I wonder what the minimum order would be for Ilford to cut into boxes...

I asked about FB paper for a couple of specific sizes, the number I heard back was going to be deep into the four figure cost range.

 

[pentaxuser]

Be careful. The "sensitivity gap" of RA4 paper that allowed the use of relatively bright, monochromatic orange light (sodium vapor lamps) has become history many years ago. Todays papers are extremly sensitive and best handled in total darkness.

.

Can I ask: Is this what you have read and if so from what sources or is this what you have experienced with a sodium vapour lamp such as a DUKA suitably shielded i.e. not at its maximum output?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

The only thing I know about the safelight situation is that I tried it with one of those small Jobo safelights with the filter that can be rotated for b&w and color. Don't know what it's called. Anyway, it didn't put out much light and as soon as it reached a level where I could actually see anything, it quite severely fogged ra4 paper. I was skeptical to begin with and now remain so. I can't speak for truly monochromatic light of the right frequency, but looking at the curves of ra4 paper doesn't take away my skepticism at all. Both fuji and kodak papers show a deep dimple in their sensitivity around 595nm, but it's not really a gap - there is some sensitivity for that wavelength, and hence, it will fog at some point. Ra4 paper is pretty fast to begin with, so even at its lowest sensitivity points it's still fairly sensitive.

 

[peoplemerge]

This is all very new and frustrating to me. I print ra4 about once a month, for about 4 years, and I am now also suddenly experiencing this sickly green. Since my printing session last week. It's horrific, especially on the unexposed borders that are only allowed to be white.

I use only Endura paper, and it's the there in various degrees across 3 batches of expired and fresh paper. My chemicals are all Kodak Ektacolor (dev is ra-rt) except fix which is Flexicolor (somewhere on photrio, PE said it was cool) in distilled water and washes are tap water, all in in Jobo at 100F:
1m pre-wet
1m dev
30s stop (acetic acid, 1/4 strength of regular stop)
1m bleach
1m rinse (2 changes of tap water at 100F)
1m fix
1m wash in jobo
1m final wash in tray
dry in Ilford 1050

So far, I've tried mixing fresh dev and bleach, and, as I've mentioned, using different paper.

I also use a Kodak #13 safelight which I need to rule out (I've reorganized my darkroom so it's in a different spot now), but since some of you don't use one at all, maybe it's not that. Maybe I goofed on my previous tests and stop should be stronger, I'll try that next and report back if I get to the bottom of this.

What gives? Are we all using water that's tainted with alien bacteria? Can life on this planet be saved only by our degenerate lot of analog photography geeks?

 

[peoplemerge]

OK I reduced dev/bleach/fix from 1m to 45s.
I also mixed up a fresh batch of fix.
Then, in the same tube, I printed a page with safelight, and a page without.

Results: the sickly greens are gone. Both with the safelight and without have the same white background.
Was it the reduction in time or fix? I'd say 99% it's the time, dev time alone is a good enough explanation.

I think I went with 1m based on what Jobo recommends in their "introduction to specific processes" http://www.jobo-usa.com/images/manuals/introduction_to_processing.pdf
Whereas Kodak docs say 45s (I think in their Minilabs doc). I suspect my previous prints were 45s but I can't remember for the life of me. Scratch that, I did actually have this in my notes. "45 sec at 100F or time/temp conversion [for lower temperatures such as in trays or rain gutters]."

OK I've answered my own query. Hope it helps someone.

 

[koraks]

I don't see how or why shortening bleach/fix times would resolve the problem and I suspect there may be an additional factor in your case that is left out of the equation, but it's an interesting finding. Since you process in tubes, I could imagine that slight contamination of the developer with bleach or fix from a previous development may play a role, but I don't know if that should produce the highlight contamination that you have observed. Since RA4 processing officially always involves blixing, I don't think there will be any accurate information from manufacturers for the timing of separate bleach and fix times, but since both processes essentially should be taken to completion, it follows that bleach, fix and/or blix times are not critical as long as they are sufficiently long to reach completion.

Keep us updated on the situation; I wouldn't be surprised if the problem would rear its ugly head again and that we'd have to take another look at the alien bacteria hypothesis.

In my case, it seems that the green cast to the whites is really related to the paper itself which may be fogged in some way, as the problem does not manifest itself in the Kodak Royal prints on paper that I got from a friend and that is reasonable fresh. I expect that the Endura and Royal emulsions are quite comparable apart from minor differences in color rendition.

 

[Bikerider]

Be careful. The "sensitivity gap" of RA4 paper that allowed the use of relatively bright, monochromatic orange light (sodium vapor lamps) has become history many years ago. Todays papers are extremly sensitive and best handled in total darkness.

Be especially aware of the possibility of a "pre-exposure" effect: the safelight might appear "safe" on an unexposed piece of paper (which remains still white), but after additional exposure through a negative the highlights will be effected (tinted) nevertheless.

Can you say where or what you read or base your statement on? Have you ever actually used a DUKA?

After the problem with the new roll of paper it self cleared and during the time there was the problem, but afterwards I am now able to print normally. I put this down to a paper fault. It is not the chemicals, they have not been changed. I am sure without doubt that the DUKA safelights are 'safe' so long as there is no direct exposure to the light for more than a couple of seconds. There is so much miss-information surrounding colour safelights, that in the end it is almost like Chinese Whispers of miss information!. Used sensibly they are very good. If it had been a fault with the use of the DUKA, then the cast would be towards the cyan or green end of the spectrum. The problem with mine was brownish cast extending into the margins which would have been covered by the masking frame.