Potentially exposed paper?

Sooo...tonight after cutting a few sheets of my brand-new MCC 11x14 into 5x7s, I forgot to actually put the paper away. (hey, I was using my extremely dim OC lights and could barely see!) It was still in the black bag, but the bag wasn't folded closed. Of course, the bags are oversized and floppy and a 25-sheet pack is thin so the bag shouldn't have been gaping open either. But still...it was there, quasi-open, as I frequently turned lights on and off in the darkroom as I printed. Have I completely screwed myself on that pack of paper?

I realize I can also find out the next time I go to the darkroom, but I'm not sure yet if that will be Saturday or next week sometime, so I'm anxious.

Was the light you were turning on and off white light or your OC safelight? If it was the safelight, you shouldn't have any problems, but white light would have had an effect.
If it was white light, put a sheet in a tray of developer, you'll see a black strip emerge along the edge closest to the opening of the packet. The top few sheets in the packet will probably be a bit worse than those that only received edge exposure. Suitable for proof prints though.
Try doing it to a 100sh box of 8x10 colour paper, I still have nightmares about it.

You can test the extent of the damage by taking a sheet that's a few down from the top, and cutting it into two parts. Process one part normally with no exposure, the other gets fixed without developing.
If they match within the image area then all is well (the whole pack will probably show a black edge). Otherwise the developed sheet will show some degree of greyness.
If the test sheet shows fogging, go farther down in the stack and see what happens.

It has probably happened to most of us. It has to me. If the black bag was covering the paper but not folded over and effectively sealed then the edge of the sheets are likely to be fogged but apart from the top sheet which is uncovered by the rest, the others might only be fogged on the edge and with luck only a couple of mm's of one side will be spoiled. If your print margins are generous then further trimming on one edge might solve the problem and you'll still have 5x7 prints.

At worst you might be down to a size nearer 6 x 4 or will have plenty of test strips so all is far from lost.

Best of luck

pentaxuser

Thanks, guys. I'll try testing to check the damage next time--and yes, they were both my yellow safelight I was turning off and on (because I can't write notes with my OC lights, they're very dim--I actually had to trim the paper with the yellow light as well but I was doing it very quickly), AND my white lights. The one near the trays is pretty far from where the paper is (and the bag was turned away from it) but there's another light near the enlarger that unfortunately I have to turn on every time I want to change aperture on the lens.

Fleath, fogging a 100-sheet box does sounds awful. But this one also sucks because MCC isn't cheap (this stupidity puts me off ever buying Variotone!) and getting 11x14 paper delivered is kind of a pain because Freestyle puts it in a 25x30x6 box filled with popcorn .

For writing notes I have a small 2 AA cell dollar store flashlight that had a bit of partly fogged film leader trimmed to fit into the lens cover to cut its light output. I used it to write exposure notes on the dry side while prints are in the developer tray.

Actually last night I modified it by feeding it Lee 0.6 ND diffusion gel in lieu of the film leader. I was using this flashlight with a black paper cone to selectively flash an annoying light area darker in a print, and found out that the film leader lens when put thoigh the coblack construction paper snoot gave a nasty view of the bulb non-uniformities. The diffusion helps, and I now have a soft glow to write by as well.

By not turning the white/ any bright lights on, you will find the OC's become quite a bit brighter to work by. Hell for colour I have a very dim green filter that I run at 6' from by dry desk to see which side of the paper is up when putting it on the easel. It has a 7.5 watt bulb, and after a while (like 15-20 minutes) the room starts to look quite light.

On the flashed paper pack issue, I feel your pain; I did this to a 5x7 envelope I was using the last of last week; Lucky for me only 5 sheets down the drain this time. I have built a dark drawer that has cut down this accident most of the time, but last week I was printing out at a secondary enlarger in the laundry room.

I have a big pair of 8x10 print orders coming up that I will be printing in RA-4, so tonight the job is to cut 80 sheets of 8"x12" off of what remains of a 288' x12'" roll.

I do this entirely by feel. I have paper stops set on the paper cutter, and notches filed into the ruler along the top of the cutter bed, to let me confirm where the paper stop has been set in the dark.

I put the radio on, clean up everything that could be knocked out of place, get the roll holder and cutter set where the easel usually lives, and make sure that I can feel where every thing is in the dark.

Only then do I pull the paper out of its storage bags, and start the process. Slitting 70mm lilm down to fit 120/620 spools is much the same process; you build a mental map where everything is, rather than count on seeing where things are. There is a poser restaurant in town that has recently openned whose trick is to feed you in the absolute dark; I think I would do pretty well there from my colour darkroom work.

If you learn to set your lens by counting clicks, you can reduce the times you need white light. Another method is to hold one hand under the lens with the enlarger lamp on, and use the light bounced off your hand to read the scale, your paper will stay safe even if it's in the open.

Funnily, I tried the palm bouncing before and was really disappointed it didn't work. For some reason this lens (don't remember the type) doesn't actually click at the apertures--I don't just mean there's no audible sound, there's also no resistance at each stop. Is this weird, or do some lenses just behave this way? I haven't used another darkroom for 10 years prior to this but I'm pretty sure that wasn't normal before ...in fact I think the enlargers I used in school had backlight on the aperture numbers, it wasn't just counting clicks.

naugastyle said:

For some reason this lens (don't remember the type) doesn't actually click at the apertures--I don't just mean there's no audible sound, there's also no resistance at each stop. Is this weird, or do some lenses just behave this way?

Click to expand...

I have one lens (forget maker, it is packed away) that has a slider on the side. Twist it to one side, and the aperture ring has click-stops. Twist it the other way, and it is a smooth, continuous movement.

So, yes, some lenses behave that way.

Interesting. I'll have to take a closer look to see if I'm able to change to click-stops...would be a huge help. Normally I use my cell phone to light the aperture rather than turning the light off and on but I'd forgotten it that day.

Mike, I actually have a couple small mag lights that I'd completely blanked on. I use them for travel and they do have variable strengths, it just hadn't occurred ot me to use them in the darkroom. Excellent.

I think time spent in the OC lights must be the key to night vision! I was never in only OC lights for more than 10 minutes, and while it seemed plenty bright to get around after the first few minutes, the table where my notebook was always seemed to be completely black (it's between the two OC lights, and one light is pointed towards the ceiling to make it even more faint).

Someone else (this is a shared darkroom) did put some tape markers on the cutting board but I haven't gotten used to them yet. Some I feel aren't quite long enough to line the paper up perfectly (so I still prefer to be able to see the lines, not just feel the tape). I wonder if I can re-tape it, or if that would annoy someone who's been using that darkroom longer than I have.

We have those poser restaurants too, or at least dark dining nights at regular restaurants.

bdial said:

...Process one part normally with no exposure, the other gets fixed without developing...

Click to expand...

This will tell you if the paper is fogged, but it won't tell you if the paper was flashed.

There are two types of non-image exposure, flashing and fogging. Flashing exposes a print to small amounts of uniform non-image forming light, below the paper’s threshold and insufficient to produce a tone by itself. But when added to the image exposure, flashing changes the appearance of the print. Larger amounts of non-image forming light can produce an actual grey tone by itself, and this is referred to as ‘fogging’.