Potential causes of yellowing papers

Grim Tuesday

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I was messing around in the darkroom last night with a large expired paper stock I got from Craigslist (circa 2011-2014, not stored properly) and am finding that most of the Agfa papers are fogged with age. The max highlights are some level of gray. The Ilford papers seem different -- they have no gray but seem to have yellow around the edges. FB paper especially, which is sad because I have 150 sheets of it in 8x10. I then went back to my trusty, almost-in-date Arista paper that I've had success with before, and ended up with a yellow spot on it as well! Which made me think that there might not be anything wrong with the paper, and it is something up in my processing, or something on my tongs! I am using PF Liquidol to develop (the stock solution was a few months old, but seemed to work in every other way), tap water to stop, and a fresh batch of TF-4 to fix. I am going to mix a fresh batch of developer tonight and see if anything changes, but in the mean time any thoughts on what could have gone wrong? One other potential clue: I left a piece of the Arista paper in the developer while I was cleaning up and it developed an odd, black iridescence, in a chemigram kind of way.
 

Dali

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If I were you, I would use a stop bath (2% acetic acid) instead of plain water. I had yellowing issues with Oriental paper until I switched from water to stop bath.
 
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Grim Tuesday

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Dali said:
If I were you, I would use a stop bath (2% acetic acid) instead of plain water. I had yellowing issues with Oriental paper until I switched from water to stop bath.
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Interesting, PF recommends not using an acid stop because TF4 is an alkaline fixer. Worth trying to get an acid fixer and going for acid bath?
 

David Lyga

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Dali said:
If I were you, I would use a stop bath (2% acetic acid) instead of plain water. I had yellowing issues with Oriental paper until I switched from water to stop bath.
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This kind of amazes me, as I had never thought of that before. One wonders what the yellow is: somehow an alkaline that needed to be eradicated by an acid? Interesting. - David Lyga
 
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Grim Tuesday

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David Lyga said:
This kind of amazes me, as I had never thought of that before. One wonders what the yellow is: somehow an alkaline that needed to be eradicated by an acid? Interesting. - David Lyga
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This is a very exciting idea. I'm impatient, and will give acid (a bit of distilled white vinegar should work right?) and then water, then fixer a try tonight.
 

ic-racer

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The most yellowing I have experienced is with some two-sided peel-and-stick mounting paper I used in 1975. Those prints are very , very yellow from the mounting paper.
 

Photo Engineer

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Use a stop bath. TF4 can re-start development if your rinse is not sufficient or is seasoned with developer carryover. Either that or use running water for the rinse.

PE
 
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Grim Tuesday

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Photo Engineer said:
Use a stop bath. TF4 can re-start development if your rinse is not sufficient or is seasoned with developer carryover. Either that or use running water for the rinse.

PE
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Thanks for the advice. I'll find an acidic fix for the future but for tonight will a water bath after the stop be enough to protect the alkalinity of tf-4?
 

Photo Engineer

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If you remain under safelight conditions and use running water, you should be OK. Also, TF4 or TF5 are just fine. You don't need an acid fixer.

PE
 
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Grim Tuesday

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Photo Engineer said:
If you remain under safelight conditions and use running water, you should be OK. Also, TF4 or TF5 are just fine. You don't need an acid fixer.

PE
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Unfortunately I have no running water in my dark room, so I need to adapt to it. I usually just use a water tray in between development and fixing and change it every ten or so prints. It is certainly seasoned by the end. Perhaps I should implement a second one of those "clean rinse" trays, visited in sequence, to better approximate running water...
 
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Grim Tuesday

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Alright, so I think I got it under control. I did institute the acid stop followed by a double water rinse, which seems to cause no harm to my fixer. But I still got some yellow marks. I then fiddled around for a while and got something that seems mostly repeatable. The solution seems to be developing the paper for only 1 minute (very important) and developing it facing down. I guess this means my safe light is not safe enough? I still don't get why it would cause yellow marks instead of gray fogging. Any ideas? It could be also that this is all red herring and I just made it deep enough through this stack of paper that whatever problem there was with the first ten sheets is over.
 
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Doremus Scudder

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Ron,
I'm glad you're participating in this thread. Maybe you can give some insight to my observations as well.

Regarding the yellowing. I've experienced yellowing from quite pronounced to barely noticeable when using Liquidol with some papers (Adox MC-110 seemed particularly susceptible). The fresh developer worked well, but as the developer aged, it seemed to stain the paper. I'm not sure if it is some discoloration staying in the emulsion, or if one of the base layers is somehow affected. In any case, other papers were not affected (Fomabrom). I've seen this often enough that I no longer use Liquidol with the Adox MC-110. I originally thought it was fogged paper, but the same occurred with fresh paper. I seems directly related to the age/exhaustion of the developer somehow. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Attached is a photo of the phenomenon. The two swatches on the top were fixed but not developed, the fan of swatches underneath were all developed in Liquidol (unexposed and processed in total darkness). The paper is Adox MC-110. Note that the yellowing of the paper does not occur in other developers. I used D-72 and Bromophen on the same paper with absolutely no yellowing whatsoever.

Best,

Doremus
 

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Grim Tuesday

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My yellowing looks exactly like that! Especially the staining at the top of the sheet 5 sheets from the left and the mark about half way down the fourth sheet. After some more inspection I have the general cream color as well. This is with fresh developer. I never had this issue with Arista liquid dev.
 

Doremus Scudder

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Grim,

Mix up some other developer and see if you get similar staining on the same batch of paper. Then you'll have a control. I'm eager to hear Ron's take on this.

Doremus
 

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Guys, Liquidol was tested with at least 3 different brands of paper on RC and FB support, and I ran keeping out to several days in open trays. I reported on that in a very old thread here.

The only yellowing I saw was with Liquidol, standing water rinse, and TF-4. No other combination produced it. It took place after the rinse began to season (a few sheets) and it appeared in the fixer or later in the water wash, but only after the lights were turned on in the room. If a stop was used, there was no problem and if TF5 or an F-5 type fix was used, no problem. It seems to have been related to the static rinse and alkaline fix.

Doremus, you did not mention what fixer you used. Can you tell us?

PE
 
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Grim Tuesday

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Ron, there is some possibility that my TF-4 became slightly seasoned after being lazy with the stop/rinse the first night. I used the same the second night. I don't suppose there is any way to test this?

Doremus, I unfortunately have no other developer on hand (besides HC-110), but I will put in an order for something and make a report whenever Adorama can deliver me something!
 

Photo Engineer

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Yes, you can season any fix with insufficient treatment after the developer. The carryover is continuous from rinse to fix to wash AAMOF.

I did an experiment this way.... I developed an unexposed sheet of paper and then put it in a water rinse and then into an alkaline fix. Someone was at the light and turned it on for me. I watched it darken and turn black (and it yellowed around the edges).

PE
 
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Grim Tuesday

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By the way, what dev do you use now that avoids this (potential) issue? I would like to get some of that! I will also grab some different fixer, see if I can't do a double dissociation.

Ron -- I did a similar experiment before you mentioned yours. For me, the paper only turned yellow, no gray fog appeared. Though, I did let it sit in the fixer for about a minute before turning on the light, so I guess that's expected right?
 

Doremus Scudder

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Photo Engineer said:
Was it yellow when you turned the light on or did it yellow after you turned it on?

PE
Click to expand...

Ron,

Here's my workflow:

Developer, 2-2.5 minutes (Liquidol mixed as directed, 1+9 was used when the yellowing occurred)
Stop, 30 seconds minimum (Kodak Indicator Stop mixed as per instructions and discarded at the first hint of color change)
Fix 1, 1.5-2 minutes (Ilford Hypam or Rapid Fixer mixed 1+9) The lights get turned on after one minute or more.
Water rinse
Fix 2 (as above)

The yellowing was evident immediately when turning on the lights during fix 1. There was no developer reactivation that I can imagine since I'm using a slightly acidic fix after an acid stop. The only paper that exhibited the yellowing was Adox MC-110. Other prints made on Fomabrom 111, both graded and VC and Bergger Prestige showed no yellowing.

As mentioned, the yellowing did not occur on the Adox paper when using freshly mixed D-72 or Bromophen. Also, the yellowing was not as pronounced when the developer was fresh; it got worse as the developer aged.

I'm stumped. Maybe developer by-products are collecting in the stop, but really, my throughput wasn't that much when the yellowing started to present. And, other papers were just fine in the same stop and fix.

Best,

Doremus
 
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Photo Engineer

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Doremus, I have never seen this and the developer formulation is not outrageous. It is basically a paper version of HC110 without all of the special treatments that they use. This is the only case I have heard of AAMOF.

Please try this for me. If you have some alkali (Carbonate or Hydroxide will do), make up a tiny amount of saturated alkali and place a drop on the paper in the light. Let me know what happens. It is usually one of the following: (yellowing, browning, blackening or nothing). If it is one of the first 3 try fixing it.

Thanks.

PE
 
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