Shelf life of colour paper & cibachrome

[walter23]

I have a ton of cibachrome and colour paper that I got with an enlarger, and it's all expired mid-to-late 90s, or early 2000s. Any hope of actually using the stuff? I posted a similar question in B&W re the B&W papers I got, but this is even more of a wildcard for me since I've got no idea how to expose & develop colour paper anyway (and therefore am not in the ideal condition to be testing out unknown papers).

There's a kreonite machine for automagic colour processing where I'm renting the darkroom, and I've also got some boxes of cibachrome chemistry to play with (equally expired).

Some of the cibachrome materials have been stored frozen, most not.

Shame it's so old - there's lots of boxes from small stuff up to huge stuff (16x20, a couple even bigger).

 

[Nick Zentena]

Depends on storage conditions. I've got old Kodak Supra III that's been frozen since I got it but no idea how it was stored before. It's fine. Maybe if I had some fresh stuff to compare to I could tell but it makes fine prints.

 

[Lopaka]

I have some Ilfochrome 20x24 that 'expired' 7 years ago. (Stored at room temp). The color balance has changed, but once tweaked it can still produce stunning prints.

Bob

 

[boyooso]

I have some Ilfochrome 20x24 that 'expired' 7 years ago. (Stored at room temp). The color balance has changed, but once tweaked it can still produce stunning prints.

Bob

I think you can correct a fair amount of the color shift if you are not being too critical. However in my experience you also lose the deep blacks, they tend to go blue, with the rest of the colors.

That certainly doesn't mean you can't play around with it and see what you get

Corey

 

[davetravis]

Walter,
The chems are most probably shot!
Too old for shelf storage life.
You could mix, and try it, but the prints would look sorta extra high contrast and no middle tones.
The paper might look ok, in fresh chems.
That's the way it goes.
Good luck.