Old MGIV

Does anyone knows of any ways to print with old outdated paper? I’ve been given a couple of large boxes of old MGIV that don’t appear to have been stored all that well. I have tried processing in both PQ and Multigrade, and realised the paper is really lacking in contrast and has an overall grey fog. I have added 50mls of 10% Potassium bromide to the developer and this reduced the background fog, but the paper is still about two grades down on contrast and I don’t think it will produce a decent conventional print. I know MGIV will just about lith, but I don’t like the look. Not wanting to waste free paper, I thought I’d ask if anyone had any ideas?

Once the contrast has dropped that much there's little you can do, a contrast developer like ID-14 might work, it'll help with any fogging as well.

I have a large 127cm X 30m roll of MG)V RC that I bought for work I'd guess around 1997, I made two prints so maybe used about 3 metres, I've not tested it for a while but hopefully it'll be OK (Work paid for it - £327.40 a roll now). I've Multigrade III RC that still works OK and have recently been printing on Kodak Polymax or Polycontrast RC that's a similar age. My problem is rarely printing on RC papers or I'd have used up the 30m roll a long time ago.

Ian

hello david
lumen prints, retina prints, or lith prints ar the best things to do
with old paper, or ,,, fix it all out, and use it as a substrate
for aother emulsion.

have fun !
john

bromoil perhaps? - I remember reading that bromoilist like a flat image with less than pure whites. something to do on cold winter evenings.

Thank you all.

Bernard, I can bleach away the fog, but the real issue is the contrast.

John, Lumens, great idea. thanks.

Not really what your asking, but you could also use it for paper negatives, if you do that sort of thing.

I'm not the most informed on techniques, but a while ago I did find a few sheets of some 20+ years old Agfa MG FB and printed from an HP5+ negative. I had a very limited quantity and cut very, very small test strips and got my exposure up to around 100 seconds or so. I remember having to use some heavy magenta filters and developed for what I normally do with FB papers, and the image came out fairly decent in my opinion. Very likely to be better ways out there but that's my $0.02