Separating Water Damaged Color Prints

[rjphil]

Hi All -
A client has called me about some prints that were water damaged in a house fire. They appear to be stuck together pretty tightly, probably were not recovered right away, and dried together. Does anyone have any thoughts on getting these unstuck? I'm thinking a soak in distilled water might do it, but where these are (I think) older prints, I might have to find some EP2 stabilizer and re-stabilize them. The other option is to get them apart and dry, then scan them. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Kino]

Hi All -
A client has called me about some prints that were water damaged in a house fire. They appear to be stuck together pretty tightly, probably were not recovered right away, and dried together. Does anyone have any thoughts on getting these unstuck? I'm thinking a soak in distilled water might do it, but where these are (I think) older prints, I might have to find some EP2 stabilizer and re-stabilize them. The other option is to get them apart and dry, then scan them. Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks!

EMERGENCY SALVAGE OF WET PHOTOGRAPHS
http://www.nedcc.org/plam3/tleaf38.htm

I would try a cool to cold bath of very dillute photoflo (use dilstilled water, can't hurt) or some other surfactant and monitor the condition closely, testing occasionally to see if they will come apart without too much damage. You should probably then refix or stablize the photo and dry as normal.

 

[Woolliscroft]

I know from bitter experience that prints that have dried together can be an absolute pig to get apart again. Soaking might do it, but might not. Does he/she still have the negs? Re-printing might be the only way.

David

 

[don sigl]

I had a similar issue with color prints. We were able to separate them by soaking in warm distilled water and redrying with low heat.

 

[rjphil]

Thanks all -
I'll pass your suggestions along to my client.
She knows that when prints are stuck together, they may not be able
to be separated. Have to wave the magic monopod and think only pure thoughts about this...