Translucent spots on fiber paper

These are a curiousity: several irregular, greyish spots on the unprinted borders of my Ilford Warmtone Fiber paper, discovered in the water holding bath between fix steps. I could faintly see through the paper in these areas. They were only present on two out of a number of prints in the same batch.

The spots persisted through the second fix, selenium tone, Permawash and final wash, then disappeared once the paper was dry. No trace.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
Henry

How do you handle the paper while processing? Could be contamination.
Jeffreyg

jeffreyg said:

How do you handle the paper while processing? Could be contamination.
Jeffreyg

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I use rubber tipped tongs. But, I'm careful not to mix them from one chemical to another during printing sessions, or even from one session to another.

The paper base is not a consistently opaque when wet.

I notice these spots all over my prints when wet but they always disappear when dry

On a 12x16 print I usually get 3 or 4 randomly spaced all over the print

It’s never been a concern to me

Martin

The acid level in your stop bath or fixer is too high, or you are over fixing (or both). More likely the former.

If there's wetting agent in the developer sometimes far more water than normal is absorbed into the fibre base often as localised translucent spots. There can also be detergents in the paper's emulsion, this helps with coating and also developing, traditionally Saponins were used, there can be a build up in your developer and on the trays themselves.

As you say the paper dries fine, with no problem.

Ian

Fred De Van said:

The acid level in your stop bath or fixer is too high, or you are over fixing (or both). More likely the former.

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It has nothing what so ever to do with the composition of the stop bath or fixer.

If you place a Fibre based print in a tray of water & wetting agent you'll see this happen.

Ian

I've had this happen with this paper many times...most of the time it goes away after drying, but not always.

Lith seems to bring out these spots rather heavily, however several APUGgers have said they've never noticed it, so it could be a sometimes thing, different emulsion runs, etc...

It's likely to be a process problem rather than the paper itself.

It may be that in some cases the Baryta layer is becoming damaged, this is the white layer below the emulsion, this will happen with prolonged washing, usually if prints are left a few hours in water (typically overnight). It's also highly likely that the high pH of Lith developers might acerbate this so it's important to keep the total wet process cycle as short as is practical & safely possible for archival reasons.

I have had problems, but they have always been of my own making, forgetting to take prints outof the wash, leaving them overnight, and sometimes through the next day, But with good archival washing, & use of HCA to cut the times these problems shouldn't occur.

Ian