Pesky white dots on prints.....why??

[Brian Stater]

Occasionally, I would get small white pinhead marks on prints. There would be no obvious reason for this (no dust or specks on the negative) and the flaw would not appear on the next, otherwise identical, print.

But I’m getting more of these now and I wonder what’s causing them. They’re not always in the same place on the print, but look very similar…an irritating white dot, always where I don’t want it! Can anyone help?

Here’s what I’m doing. I’m printing from 35m negs, on a Kaiser VP 350 enlarger, using Ilford RC mulitgrade 10 x 8 paper. Typical exposures are f8 or f11, at 12 to 15 seconds

Any thoughts or suggestions gratefully received!

Best wishes

Brian

 

[koraks]

Any chance of putting up an example to illustrate the problem? Maybe that the size, shape and general appearance of the dots gives a clue.

It's odd that you'd have this on one print and not another. 99.99999% of the dots on enlarged prints are due to dust on the negative and you seem to have excluded that, so it's puzzling.

 

[Jim Jones]

The darkroom should be the cleanest room in the house by far. That might well eliminate those pesky white spots. The traditional cure for white spots on prints was a meticulous application of SpoTone, a water based dye.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Dust or debris on the paper itself will result in white spots. Maybe you've got a source of specs somewhere in your paper storage?

Doremus

 

[pentaxuser]

Occasionally, I would get small white pinhead marks on prints. There would be no obvious reason for this (no dust or specks on the negative) and the flaw would not appear on the next, otherwise identical, print.


Brian

Just so I can be clear about this. I think you are saying that one print from negative X shows white dots but the next print from exactly the same negative is clear of any white marks?

An examination of the offending negative reveals no marks whatsoever? Most of the prints are OK but the frequency with which the white dots appear is increasing?

Are all the problem prints from the same 8x10 box or has this been occurring over several boxes?

Do you have any other darkroom paper available that you could try to see if the problem occurs.

Is there anything in your darkroom that might produce minute black specks that settle on the negative once it is in the negative carrier but which are so light in weight terms that once the exposure is made and the the negative removed might be removed by the act of simply removing the negative

If the same negative remains in the carrier and is undisturbed and there is no current of air caused by any close action of your body or limbs and a second print of that same negative has no white dots this might help to establish that the negative is no the cause

Just some questions and ideas to narrow down the possible causes

pentaxuser

 

[DREW WILEY]

I just got a whole 16X20 box of semi-flawed MGWT FB - the expensive stuff, and a product I'm highly familiar with. The consistency of the baryta coating below the emulsion seems to be the issue. I've had the same issue before, but only a few dots on a few sheets of MG Cooltone instead. Now there are all kinds of freckles on most of the sheets. In my case, these are apparent only when the print is wet. They look translucent holding the wet print up to light, or dark gray on the backside when looking toward an opaque surface, and are anywhere from a mm to 4mm in size. They let tiny air bubble slowly through in a water tray. But this does not seem to be an actual emulsion issue because it causes no problem in toning or retouching afterwards, and isn't even visible once the print is dry. I haven't contacted Ilford yet, but plan to do so.

I have no idea if this is related to Brian's problem or not.