Protecting a Yellowing Print

[Baisao]

My wife has a FB print from 1972 that is yellowing. Obviously I could scan it but I have started to wonder about protecting the print itself. I thought that the print may not have been correctly washed but a pH pen test shows that the paper is also acidic. I know the print was stored in a cheap photo album for decades against acidic paper.

1. Is it safe to rewash an old print like this (two bath fix, Hypo Clear for 10 min., selenium toner, then an archival wash)?
2. Is there a safe remedy for the acidic paper?

Thanks!

 

[Gerald C Koch]

First scan the print to make a copy. Refixing, washing and toning the print will help. This will also reduce the acidity of the print. However there is no way that I know of to restore the whiteness of the paper.

 

[gone]

What Gerald said. Also, if the paper is acidic, your goose is cooked, so after rewashing and toning (the latter may help the appearance) all you can do is keep it in reduced light. The yellowing is surely from the acidic paper.

 

[Hilo]

A museum expert will be able to tell if there's anything that can be done. Or perhaps you have a photography gallery near you, who could help you further. It is always nice to try save the original object, but if this is more about the image then it is easy. You scan or you photograph the print digitally. I would have that done professionally. They can make the file look better than your original, and you can have it printed on high quality digital paper.

 

[MDR]

Do you mean the photo paper is a acidic if so a 1) thorough wash and 2)fix followed by a 3)good wash and Hypo clearing solution. Is the yellowing constant over the whole print or just some parts of the print also not all yellowing is created equal. One has to know the cause for the yellowing before one can recommend a treatment. Well washed prints are prone to yellowing due to aerial oxidation and only toning in gold or polysulfide toner can help in this case. But as been noted before show it to an expert museum not gallery.

As final note remove all photographs from that album and store them in a non acidic environment for example in ph neutral cardboard box and in archival envelopes (chronos paper) or mat them in an unbuffered ph neutral matboard (best storage is mat + box) Long term protection of the print is provided by toning in gold (more neutral) or polysulfide toner (brown not so subtle) making a copy is never wrong but if the discoloration is the same over the whole print toning after washing in destilled water should solve the problem.

 

[cliveh]

Well you could send it to Murabayashi Takao for chemical restoration.

 

[Ian Grant]

There are ways to remove the yellow stain but it's not recommended unless you raelly know what you''re doing as you could potentially do more damage to the image as a whole. You can use a Permanganate/Hydrochloric acid re-halogenating bleach, that will often destroy the yellow stain. Then you expose to daylight and re-develop, fix, wash etc.

I spent some time in the early 1970's working on restoration of damaged images, some mouldy, you work with the least important first and evolve the best methodology, in this case it was harden the emulsion slowly.

The OP's wife's paper wasn't fixed properly, strangely it seems it becomes more of an issue when Rapid fixers become the norm. I'd refix in quite strong fixer, wash and selenium tone, then wash again.

Ian

 

[pentaxuser]

You could make a copy of the print as a MF neg, if possible and make a fresh print from this. I had a good deal of success doing this with a late Victorian postcard of a relative of my wife in 35mm but MF might be better.

That way you can start again with raw material( a negative) which will be archival and make an archival print from this

pentaxuser