Pretty sure my paper has gone bad, but looking to confirm

[PFGS]

I've been setting up a new darkroom after a few years off. I've got almost 200 sheets of Adorama-branded 5x7 RC glossy multigrade paper that's about 4 years old, purchased shortly before I shut down my old darkroom. There are no dates on the box. My chemistry is fresh.

I've tried a few test prints on it, and they all exhibit serious splotches and uneven development, and a brown tone, as in the attached photos. These show up on two different enlargers, with or without negative in the holder, and even if I work in total darkness, no safelight. They don't show up if I take the paper straight from the box to the developer tray - there has to be some exposure. I used some 20+ years old Kodak paper as a "control" - that paper, though it's d-max is like, dove grey now, shows none of this splotching.

This Adorama paper is shot, yes? I'm thinking it's not good for anything, not even paper negs or photograms with the kids.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Have you got sufficient developer volume in the tray? I've had splotches when not paying attention to how much solution was left in the tray. Other than that, 4 years is not very old for photographic paper. I'm using some at the moment which is much older without any trouble.

 

[glbeas]

How long are you leaving it in the developer? Only time Ive seen such results is with overexposed paper pulled from the developer before completion.

 

[PFGS]

Have you got sufficient developer volume in the tray? I've had splotches when not paying attention to how much solution was left in the tray. Other than that, 4 years is not very old for photographic paper. I'm using some at the moment which is much older without any trouble.

At least 1 inch of developer in the tray; these are just little 5x7s so it's pretty easy to make sure they are fully submerged. And yeah, 4 years is far from ancient. As above, the Kodak I used for comparison is at least 20 years old, and I've often played with 5- to 25- years expired paper from yard sales and the like, without seeing this. I'm wondering if there was some other kind of contamination? Also it's very cheap paper...

 

[PFGS]

How long are you leaving it in the developer? Only time Ive seen such results is with overexposed paper pulled from the developer before completion.

These would have been left in my standard 60 seconds (developer is nice and warm here in the south in summer, even in AC) - I never snatch early. Images would have started to "come up" within half that time.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

At least 1 inch of developer in the tray; these are just little 5x7s so it's pretty easy to make sure they are fully submerged. And yeah, 4 years is far from ancient. As above, the Kodak I used for comparison is at least 20 years old, and I've often played with 5- to 25- years expired paper from yard sales and the like, without seeing this. I'm wondering if there was some other kind of contamination? Also it's very cheap paper...

The paper may not be one that I've used, I have experienced quality issues with Foma in the past.

 

[PFGS]

The paper may not be one that I've used, I have experienced quality issues with Foma in the past.

The box has a small "made in Europe" so given the price, I'm pretty sure it's Foma, and probably not their best stuff. Anyway, I think I'm good to toss it out and not waste any more time with it?

 

[pentaxuser]

It's a longshot but if all the 200 sheets are from the same box have you tried a sheet say 20 sheets down, a sheet say 80 sheets down and so forth until you find one that is OK? Once you have found an OK one then you can either work back up the pile in much smaller intervals or if the OK sheet is quite near the top then just discard those before it.

It might be worth getting as small a box as you can buy of fresh paper and try those as well then 1. you have good paper for prints and 2. if might be that if the original paper has deteriorated to some extent even further down the box, fresh paper might be useful as a comparison. If your old paper is just about OK then a check against new paper will show how much"just about OK" is below par

Depending on your storage conditions I'd expect 4 year old paper to still be good. That of course assumes that your paper supplier was not selling paper as fresh that was already several years old and hoping buyers would use it all before there were any signs of deterioration

pentaxuser

 

[PFGS]

It's a longshot but if all the 200 sheets are from the same box have you tried a sheet say 20 sheets down, a sheet say 80 sheets down and so forth until you find one that is OK? {snip} It might be worth getting as small a box as you can buy of fresh paper and try those {snip} Depending on your storage conditions I'd expect 4 year old paper to still be good. {snip}
pentaxuser

I tried sheets from both the paper safe where some had been stored, and from far down the stack in the box. There is an additional stack in a second bag in the box, that I could try. I think holding on to this paper just a bit longer, until I can compare with some fresh, quality paper just as a last check of the overall chain, sounds like a good idea. Storage was on the slightly humid, slightly larger temperature-swing side of normal indoor conditions, in a closet with various old photo chemistry, all tightly sealed.

 

[Luckless]

You mentioned you did a control from an older stock of aged photo paper - Did you use the exact same developer as with the problem paper?

I don't have enough experience in the darkroom to state anything with real confidence, but two points make me suspicious of the processing rather than the paper itself:

The swirl patterns look similar to the effect you would get in water with a few drops of dye barely mixed in, which would make me wonder about how well the developer was mixed [or contaminated/exhausted]

Your third photo also shows areas of poor processing at both the edges and the centre - I'm assuming this isn't individually coated sheets of paper, so I would expect any production issues to not align to individual sheets [The patterns would run across the whole paper and not consistently impact all the edges/the centre of any individual sheet after it is cut from a larger roll], and I would also expect any post production issue of the paper to either work from the edges in, or be relatively evenly patterned across the whole surface.

I can't think of any contamination or chemical failure process in a paper's coating that would impact both the centre and edges that consistently.

To me this looks like a wave pattern in a tray that is keeping the most active chemical reactions in a ring about 1/3rd the way from the edge of the paper, and not enough fresh/active chemistry at the edges/centre.

 

[wyofilm]

The only time I've seen something like your results was when temp of developer bath was much too low. I doubt this is the case, as you have dark room experience. But just in case, I threw it out there ...

 

[PFGS]

You mentioned you did a control from an older stock of aged photo paper - Did you use the exact same developer as with the problem paper? {snip}

Yep - the control was the exact same conditions, including developer, just a couple minutes apart. The developer was fresh and mixed from liquid concentrate (Sprint Systems), all the gradients, mixing containers, trays etc. involved were clean, and dedicated to developer chemistry only. The tray was filled nice and deep, 8x10 tray for 5x7 paper as I always go up a size for ease of handling, I do a kind of randomized agitation to prevent any wave pattern...

I know these patterns are really weird, and unlike anything I've seen in even deeply expired paper, but I'm not a total noob, and I did enough of these to eliminate any really obvious errors...

 

[voceumana]

What is your developer temperature? Once I had issues in a darkroom that was nearly 100 degrees F, with similar developer temperature. After I figured out the temp problem, I adjusted developing time to about 15 seconds (working backwards with Kodak B&W Darkroom Dataguide developing computer) and the prints came out grainy but balanced tonality. If ice had been handy, I would have cooled the baths.

 

[PFGS]

What is your developer temperature? Once I had issues in a darkroom that was nearly 100 degrees F, with similar developer temperature. After I figured out the temp problem, I adjusted developing time to about 15 seconds (working backwards with Kodak B&W Darkroom Dataguide developing computer) and the prints came out grainy but balanced tonality. If ice had been handy, I would have cooled the baths.

Temp was 70 degrees F (~21 deg. C).

 

[voceumana]

Flash a sheet of paper to a dim light (enlarger, no negative, stopped down) and develop to see if you get a uniform gray.

 

[PFGS]

Flash a sheet of paper to a dim light (enlarger, no negative, stopped down) and develop to see if you get a uniform gray.

I feel like some of my tests already came pretty close to following this procedure and still came out mottled, but I'm willing to try again. But if I get a nice even grey, what does that mean? The problem is elsewhere? Consider that the other paper, though tired, has none of this unevenness. Just wondering what I'd be looking for, at that point.

 

[Agulliver]

Very odd. I've not used that brand of paper before but I recently finished a box of Tura branded paper which I bought in 2004 and it was producing fine prints in December 2019. I've even been using Kodak paper from the 1970s with success.

I find it interesting that the borders show no signs of fogging.

 

[PFGS]

{snip} I find it interesting that the borders show no signs of fogging.

Right? It's only where the light hits. And it's not the safelight, the middle photo was done in total darkness for that reason.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

One thing that can affect even non-ancient paper is chemical exposure. Perhaps at some time in the last 4 years this paper was stored near something that off-gassed and caused this weird partial exposure. By the way, I will agree with everything everyone has said here already. This is a very strange thing you are seeing. I have a box of old papers someone gave me, and the worst they have is high dMin. Nothing this weird!

 

[koraks]

This looks like overexposure of the print combined with an insufficiently active paper developer. Have a closer look at the print developer chemistry and check if the concentrate is still ok, dilution is correct and development time and temperature are appropriate. Take a strip of paper into normal room light, drop it into the developer and develop until it's entirely pitch black. If this doesn't happen within a minute or so, there's a problem with the developer.

 

[grain elevator]

(How) Are you agitating the prints in the developer? Are the developer concentrate and water well mixed? the swirls look like what I'd expect if they're not. 1 minute is on the short side even with good developer and agitation...
Here's another test you could do: Cut a sheet of paper in two. Expose to room light, together. develop both parts. If the swirly pattern fits together, it must have been on the paper, if not, it must be acquired during development.

 

[PFGS]

This looks like overexposure of the print combined with an insufficiently active paper developer. Have a closer look at the print developer chemistry and check if the concentrate is still ok, dilution is correct and development time and temperature are appropriate. Take a strip of paper into normal room light, drop it into the developer and develop until it's entirely pitch black. If this doesn't happen within a minute or so, there's a problem with the developer.

I just did another test:

1. Took out a sheet of paper from the 2nd bag within the box - this bag had not yet had any sheets taken out, but was stored in the box along with the sheets previously tested.
2. Exposed the sheet to a generous amount of sunlight, during which it turned a uniform pale brownish pink, which my past experience has found to be typical of daylight exposed paper.
3. In room light, slipped the sheet into a tray full of the same batch of working developer solution that I've been using all along. This batch of working developer is Sprint Systems paper developer purchased, opened and mixed at the recommended 1:9 on 7/23/20. I'm confident that it is fully and correctly mixed and has not seen anywhere near enough paper to be exhausted. All my tests, in 6 sessions across two weeks, have been this same batch.
4. From the start up to about 40 seconds, I observed the sheet without agitation. Swirly marks in the same pattern as before appeared almost instantly but became less visible as the sheet darkened overall. At about 40 seconds, I began agitation as the center of the paper had humped up and was barely submerged, and was falling behind in development.
5. By 60 seconds the entire sheet was uniformly black, with a dmax not too much lighter than the paper had when new - with dry-down, it would have been pretty close.
6. At 120 seconds, there was no observable difference from the paper's state at 60 seconds.

For the heck of it, here are some images of additional development with this same batch of working solution that I've now poured in and out of trays at least 6 times:

4x5 pinhole camera paper negatives cut out of the same ancient Kodak paper I referenced above as a "control" - some were exposed and developed 7/25/20, the rest exposed over the following few days and developed 7/29/20, no hint of swirl:

Top two: The very first and second pieces of the probably-bad 5x7 paper, exposed and developed less than an hour after the working solution was first mixed. I've scanned both those negs and those huge dark areas are not on them; bottom two: exposures with and without negs in a different enlarger, about a week later:

A full 8x10 sheet of the old "Kodak" control paper, ACROS in a 6x6 pinhole camera, a crap exposure and showing the paper's age but no swirly funk:

 

[PFGS]

(How) Are you agitating the prints in the developer? Are the developer concentrate and water well mixed? the swirls look like what I'd expect if they're not. 1 minute is on the short side even with good developer and agitation...
Here's another test you could do: Cut a sheet of paper in two. Expose to room light, together. develop both parts. If the swirly pattern fits together, it must have been on the paper, if not, it must be acquired during development.

I'll try this test tonight, but see my above to reply to Koraks, which addresses some of your points.

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Are you agitating the developer or are you just letting it sit? It is really bizarre to have the center developed so much but not the edges of the image. And the paper doesn't look fogged. I think you should try a different developer. Just because it is new doesn't make it good....

 

[PFGS]

Are you agitating the developer or are you just letting it sit? It is really bizarre to have the center developed so much but not the edges of the image. And the paper doesn't look fogged. I think you should try a different developer. Just because it is new doesn't make it good....

In all but the today's test of a sunlight-exposed sheet, I've been agitating as I've always done. This has definitely proven to be more of a head-scratcher than I expected. I'm not going to toss the paper until I can test: this paper in a new developer, some new paper in this developer, and new paper in new developer.