Problems with curly RC prints

Just to follow up...this weekend I made an effort to shorten wash times, but as it was already pretty disruptive to my flow the shortest I could make it was 30 minutes, not 10. I continued putting the trays of steaming water under the screen to add humidity, and squeegeed half the prints while leaving some soaking wet to see if there was a difference. I used Foma Variant III, Ilford MGIV Satin and Ilford Cooltone. Started my darkroom time (in October) with only the MGIV and had no issues with curl. Later prints on it seemed to have curl. Previously had the absolute worst curl with Cooltone in 8x10--and because those were for a specific project the wet time wasn't multiple hours either...probably just over one hour. I've been really trying to get the Variant III to work because I want to buy it in 4" rolls, but I've had some curl issues there.

End result: everything looked mostly flat while still on the drying screen. As soon as they were moved off to a side table, they started curling. And when the corners are held down, the center still pops up. Perhaps the MGIV had slightly less firm of a pop, but it was still visible, and the Foma roll is too good a price if the difference is this slight.

On the other hand: I use MGIV in 8.5x11 for contact sheets, and only hang those by one corner to dry, rather than using the screen. The clothesline runs close to a pipe in the ceiling (my darkroom is in a basement) which is quite warm so hanging prints dry pretty quickly. While there's a gentle curve while still clipped, once removed from the clothesline they look completely flat. Mystified.

rwboyer said:

I may be the only one that does not experience this with RC on this thread but I know that I am not the minority in my experience with RC. The whole point of using RC is so that the handling is easy and less critical - faster fix/faster wash/faster dry - done real quick with no fuss.

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You are definitely not in the minority. This is how it should be, how it was for me the first month, and for the few years that I printed in high school/college. I've had people tell me the same papers I'm using do not curl for them (although not that much feedback from other people in New York, where we don't have much control over heat and probably few people have space for humidifiers!).

rwboyer said:

Having said all that try slowing the drying down - this is easy. Just dry a print in a much more contained environment like a big plastic back with a couple holes poked in it. or a tupperware with the lid cracked or something.

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One print at a time? I'm not sure that's logistically possible...there's a limit to plastic bags, tupperware, and space to put them. If you put a bunch of prints together into a bag/tupperware, wouldn't they stick together as they dried?

naugastyle said:

You are definitely not in the minority. This is how it should be, how it was for me the first month, and for the few years that I printed in high school/college. I've had people tell me the same papers I'm using do not curl for them (although not that much feedback from other people in New York, where we don't have much control over heat and probably few people have space for humidifiers!).



One print at a time? I'm not sure that's logistically possible...there's a limit to plastic bags, tupperware, and space to put them. If you put a bunch of prints together into a bag/tupperware, wouldn't they stick together as they dried?

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The slow down - no matter how you do it is just a test to see if you slow the rate of drying does it make things a lot better - if it does you can engineer a solution for volume.

RB

I've been monitoring some prints that I made a little over a week ago. After being sleeved and put under weight (not a lot), they are almost flat. Another idea that came to me as I was looking around at other threads on this subject (I believe it was at photo.net) was to iron the back of prints. If you were to put a piece of cardboard or matboard on top of the print, it should give results comparable to using a dry-mount press. You'll probably want to use low heat for RC, tho.