Old-ish paper and developer

I have been working on making some 16x20in b&w prints and am not happy with the results. The blacks seem a bit muddy, and the paper base doesn't seem as white as it should be (maybe a bit warm/yellowy).

I am using Oriental Professional paper that has been sitting around for 8-10 years or so, but it is not fogged. The developer is Arista "Aristadol" which I assume is a Dektol substitute. Also quite old, but it was a powder developer in a sealed pack. I could mix a paper developer from scratch if necessary but I wonder if the developer is the issue. I could also increase the strength of the Aristadol to 1:1 instead of 1:2 if anyone thinks that would help.

Some of my images were a bit underexposed and overdeveloped - would that contribute to the muddiness of the image?

I confess it has been some time since I have attempted excellence in b&w printing. Using old stuff is probably not a way to start, but I think there is more going on, aka my lack of recent experience; it's a lot harder than I thought! I really want deep blacks and white whites and this experience reminds me how much more skill the analog world demands than sitting in front of a computer!

By the way, the negatives are on Polypan F (35mm) and Ultrafine Plus 100 (aka Fomapan 100 I think) and in each case they have very good contrast and depth. Also, I have some Sprint Systems optical brightener that I could use to whiten up the whites if anyone thinks maybe the paper base could have yellowed a bit.

Unless placed in a freezer, paper ages quite quickly loosing some speed, contrast and the base looses it's brightness.

If you wish to persevere with the paper you should choose a hard working developer (such as strong Dektol or, even better, Dokumol at 1 + 6) and add 20ml of working strength Benzotriazole (an anti-fogging agent that also makes the print cooler). Added to this, I would use minimum safelighting and make sure you develop for at least three minutes and only judge your test prints when dry.

Best of luck,

David
www.dsallen.de

Thanks David: I will take your comments and some others I received via PM and put them to the test today! I was going to use 5mg/L benzotriazole based on my experience using it with film; I don't know what concentration your "working strength" is but I can always play around with the amount. Sounds like a day of testing, testing, testing. No pain, no gain toward excellence, I suppose.

Benzotriazole is used as a 1% solution. You can als use the same amount of a 10% solution of potassium bromide which will not cool the image tone.

I think I am making some progress. To my horror, but to my profound benefit, Ian C pointed out to me that a red safelight is not appropriate for modern enlarging papers. I did a test with my Paterson red safelight - that I had been using - and at about 3ft, it fogs the paper after one minute! I have replaced it with a dark amber one, but I do not have a second one to put near the enlarger, so my dry table work will be pretty much in darkness. Maybe I can get away with very low wattage red light there.

I also added 20mg/L benzotriazole to the developer, as there was a bit of base fog on the paper even developed without safelight. I'll do a couple of test prints and will see what transpires. I'm still using the original developer.

OK - thanks to all -- I think my mission is accomplished. I ended up using the Aristadol developer diluted 1:1, with 40mg/L benzotriazole added. An unexposed developed piece of paper still shows a very slight base fog (it is not as white as the reverse of the paper), but not bad at all. I also changed my safelight after Ian C alerted me to possible issues using a red safelight. I replaced it with an Amber one that is very dim indeed. Probably red would be OK if less bright. The combination of these things means that my prints today have deep blacks and very good whites. Not bad at all for straight prints without any dodging and burning. You are all awesome for sharing your expertise and I am very grateful.

Extending development might help, too. Many people underdevelop their photographic paper, in my opinion. Try another 30 seconds and see if it makes any difference. If so, add another 30 and continue until no difference is seen.

PhotoJim, the problem I have with that approach is that paper doesn't really ever stop developing. It's like pushing film, you can go quite a distance. I am comfortable stopping development at about 2 minutes, but may go a bit longer to get the right result, if exposure was not exact. It would help to have a safelight that would actually allow me to see what I am doing -- the amber one I have right now is exceedingly dim, I might as well process in a drum.

I have noticed that paper developer can get exhausted quite easily when doing large prints. Today I had good success with my blacks, but toward the end of the day, the last print I did looked a bit warmer. I will replenish the developer tomorrow.

Paper almost always develops to completion. There will be a point where additional time (within reason) provides no noticeable change in D-Max or highlight detail. If you're not developing to this point, you will tend to have muddy-looking prints. You should be able to develop to double the recommended time without ill effect. This long shouldn't be necessary, but adding 50% to recommended time often results in a slightly higher quality print. In any event, give it a try - there will be a point where adding time stops adding density. The changes become subtle after awhile. I forget the ratio, but there is a multiplier that you can use on the initial time of the image appearing. Multiply this time by the multiplier to get an appropriate development time for your paper, developer, and ambient temperature combination.

I'll give that a try today (if I make it to the darkroom) -- thanks!

newcan1 said:

To my horror, but to my profound benefit, Ian C pointed out to me that a red safelight is not appropriate for modern enlarging papers. I did a test with my Paterson red safelight - that I had been using - and at about 3ft, it fogs the paper after one minute!

Click to expand...

Strange. I have had the exact opposite experience and have always thought red was safer - where does this fact/idea come from? Maybe I am missing something.

Originally Posted by newcan1 (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

To my horror, but to my profound benefit, Ian C pointed out to me that a red safelight is not appropriate for modern enlarging papers. I did a test with my Paterson red safelight - that I had been using - and at about 3ft, it fogs the paper after one minute!

Jerevan said:

Strange. I have had the exact opposite experience and have always thought red was safer - where does this fact/idea come from? Maybe I am missing something.

Click to expand...

I had the same reaction. I am wondering, however, whether it was not the colour of the old Paterson safelight that caused the problem, but rather the age of that safelight.

Safelight filters can fade over time and lose their "safety".

In addition, the older Paterson safelight may (as a result of age and having been designed for older papers) actually transmit light that is only predominantly red. The other components of the light transmitted may include green and/or blue light that is capable of fogging the paper.

As I understand it, a predominantly pure red light source of appropriate intensity (such as a narrow spectrum LED bulb) will be safe with all modern non-panchromatic black and white papers. It will just be less bright than the special purpose amber safelights.

Kodak safelight filter descriptions and uses

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/ti0845/ti0845.pdf


Ilford safelight recommendations for it's enlarging papers

http://ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2011427105150454.pdf


For Oriental paper

http://www.orientalphotousa.com/ns_vc_fbII.htm


The Foma papers I've used have a data sheet indicating that a red safelight filter is appropriate.

I did some research into this, and my guess is that amber safelights are recommended because (a) the modern papers are safe with them, and (b) they are easier on the eye than red so more comfortable to use. I looked at the Kodak data sheet on safelights, and from what I can tell, if a paper is not sensitive to the amber light allowed by an amber safelight, then it would likely be safe with red. My understanding is that most VC papers are sensitive only to blue and to green, and amber safelights emit in higher wavelengths than those colors, in the yellow - red spectrum. Red is really a subset of the permitted spectrum.

That said, my red Paterson safelight failed miserably. It could be that the plastic has faded. But it was also very bright. I did not re-test with it further away. It was OK for one minute and visibly fogged after that. If I moved it away it probably would be OK. But the amber safelight, tested at a distance and very dim, passed with flying colors and I am used to the dimness now. Hat tip to Ian C for bringing this up - as I would have kept adding to base fog if he had not alerted me to the need to test safelight efficacy.

Ian C pointed out to me that a red safelight is not appropriate for modern enlarging papers.

I can only authoritatively comment on Adox Fine Print Vario Classic (it is the only paper that I now personally use) but this statement is totally wrong in relation to this particular paper. The only safelighting that can be successfully used with this paper is a dark red housing with the correct wattage of lamp and at an absolute minimum of 1 meter distance from the paper at any time.

Incidentally, the much repeated advice on testing safelighting, whereby one places a piece of paper on the easel with a coin on it for twice your usual exposure time, is also wrong. Paper has an exposure inertia and safelighting needs to be tested over the entire processing sequence. Therefore, you need to:

1. Place the paper on your easel
2. Expose with light for at least half your normal exposure time
3. Then cellotape a coin on to the paper and leave for at least double your normal exposure time inclusive of the extra time you might require for dodging and additional burning.
4. Develop your piece of paper with coin still attached throughout your complete processing sequence
5. Give a quick rinse and then remove coin
6. Make sure that the piece of paper is totally dry before inspecting for any safelighting fog

Also, a trick that was used in many commercial darkrooms that I worked in (and one that I still use in my current darkroom) was to have all of the safelights on one electrical ring that can be switched on and off via a cord running above head hight across the darkroom. You can then have the safelights on when positioning the paper in the easel, switch them of when exposing/dodging the print (this also makes it easier to see exactly what you are doing), then switch the safelights back on to place in the developer. Once the paper is fully immersed in the developer, switch off the safelighting until shortly before you are due to transfer to the stopbath (important with Adox Fine Print Vario Classic as it requires at least 3 minutes development time) and then switch on for the rest of the processing sequence.

In my experience of helping friends and colleagues to improve their darkroom technique, poor, inappropriate or incorrect safelighting has been (often in combination with inadequate development time) the principal cause of poor quality prints.

Best,

David
www.dsallen.de

All of this is leading me to think that I might just drum process my b&w prints, the same way I do color. The "fun" of watching the print appear is mitigated when one realizes that development should accord with a discpilined regime as to time etc. Not much fun if the print comes out too light or dark, and at any event, in a dim or no safelight one can't see much anyway. Maybe the thing to do is use a drum for dev and stop and then transfer to a tray to fix, so as not to take up drum time with the fix. This would also substantially eliminate any safelight issues.

newcan1 said:

All of this is leading me to think that I might just drum process my b&w prints, the same way I do color. The "fun" of watching the print appear is mitigated when one realizes that development should accord with a discpilined regime as to time etc. Not much fun if the print comes out too light or dark, and at any event, in a dim or no safelight one can't see much anyway. Maybe the thing to do is use a drum for dev and stop and then transfer to a tray to fix, so as not to take up drum time with the fix. This would also substantially eliminate any safelight issues.

Click to expand...

No - safelights just aren't that difficult to set up.

And a properly set up safelight really isn't that dim.

And with a bit of experience, one can judge a lot about one's process under safelight illumination.

Not to mention, throwing a print in the developer is way faster than loading the print in the drum and then tossing in the developer.

Here's a brief article that might be helpful regarding the choice of safelight filters.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/tl_safe_lights.php

I have been playing around more with my old-ish paper. I ended up putting A LOT of benzotriazole in the developer -- I lost track, but maybe as much as 1g/L -- is that odd? It's way more than I would ever use with film, but it really didn't seem to do much at lower quantities.

As for development timing, while I accept that one can indeed get better blacks by developing beyond the published development time, I found that this had an increasing effect on the base fog. With the benzotriazole I found that base fog was manageable at development times up to 2:15 max. Probably best at 2mins, but much below that, with the developer I was using, the blacks could start to get a bit muddy.

I switched my attention to a box of expired Forte VC paper that had some base fog. Using the above parameters, I am able to get pretty mice looking prints with good blacks. It is hard to truly evaluate the effect of the base fog, because the pictures I was working with probably have little in the way of true whites in them. But the light areas do look quite good.

Also, the negatives I had on hand were contrasty (mostly Polypan F that I had never shot before) so I had to print at Grade 1.5, which the Forte paper handled OK, but I am willing to bet it would be easier to get a blacker black if I could move up the contrast scale a bit. I will try to produce some better negatives once I have mastered the development of Polypan F correctly. (I have rather a lot of it).

I have done some separate reading of other threads that led me to believe that if I dilute a little of my C-41 ferri bleach with water, I could reduce the prints slightly, then rewash and refix, to make the highlightsin the prints sing a little more. If so, not a bad extra procedure to save about $350 which is what it would cost to replace my boxes of old-ish paper with absolutely fresh.

Finally - correct me if I am wrong, because it's a while since I did a lot of serious b&w printing -- but I am willing to bet that even "fresh" paper may have some base fog or may quickly develop some, meaning that these techniques may be relevant event with fresher stock.

Today I diluted a little of my C-41 ferri bleach - I mean REALLY diluted, maybe 50cc to a liter of water. I treated a couple of slightly over exposed b&w prints with it, that I had printed with my old-ish paper, where the base fog could just be seen. Even at this dilution the bleach seemed to work very fast. It did certainly brighten up the highlights, but it left the blacks looking warm and the midtones quite browinsh. This also after re-fixing and washing. Is that a ferricyanide stain that would wash out with more prolonged washing, or does the bleach permanently affect the tone of black?

On some images it looks quite Old School and I rather like it, but I don't like not having control over it.