What to do with fogged Polymax Fine Art

[galyons]

I have a 250 sheet box of badly fogged Kodak Polymax Fine Art paper. Hate to toss it. Any suggestions on getting some positive utility of the paper?

Cheers,
Geary Lyons

 

[Loose Gravel]

I let the kids draw on the back or do POP pictures on the front. Otherwise, if you need some black paper, expose it and develop. Best I can think of. I know it hurts as I've been tossing boxes of very old, fogged paper.

[ that's 500 ! ]

 

[B-3]

Use it to cover the light leaks in your darkroom.

 

[Ole]

If it's so badly fogged it can't even be used with a super-KBr-souped developer, or for lith printing, there isn't really that much to do. You can fix and wash it, then use it for alternative processes. Or burn it and extract the silver from the ashes.

 

[Claire Senft]

Fix it out, wash it and sell it to a diginut for half price.

 

[jimgalli]

Fix it out, wash it, and print Platinum / Palladium on it. or Expose them all to direct sunlight, develop in Dektol, fix and wallpaper your darkroom with them. Sell them on Ebay as........"I got these from a neighbor who was moving and I don't know what they are. etc. etc." See, there's lots of stuff you can do with those.

 

[Surly]

Try a 1% solution of benzotriazole in your developer.It's available from the Formulary and relatively cheap, iirc. If it's still fogged make photograms or something. Also try toning the prints to mask the fog.

 

[grahamp]

POP might work - depends on how even the fogging is, as it would affect the shaded area. Using natural materials like leaves works well.

Fully fog it and develop it, then use it to 'clean' used selenium toner.

 

[Flotsam]

Sell them on Ebay as........"I got these from a neighbor who was moving and I don't know what they are. etc. etc." See, there's lots of stuff you can do with those.

Make sure that you take it out of the box and fan it out for a picture so that the buyers can see that it is nice and white for themselves .

 

[jim appleyard]

Perhaps you can use the paper for photograms; they've never been fussy.

Also, an photo/art teacher I know lets his students use old paper in the computer as a sub for inkjet paper.

 

[sanking]

I have a 250 sheet box of badly fogged Kodak Polymax Fine Art paper. Hate to toss it. Any suggestions on getting some positive utility of the paper?

Cheers,
Geary Lyons

You could send it to someone who prints in carbon. They could fix it out and use it as a final support.

Sandy

 

[Robert Hall]

Do you have a bird in a bird cage?

 

[grahamp]

More ideas.

Treat it as pre-flashed paper and print all your most contrasty negatives.

Fix it and use it as a dry-mount backing to reduce curl.

 

[Max Power]

Proof sheets?

 

[removed account4]

use them for paper negatives -- expose a little under + soup in dilute and oxidized ansco 130. you'll be very happy with the results. i've been doing that with olde and fogged polyfiber.
you can also make sun prints with the paper ... don't run it through developer, and contact print the exposed paper.

 

[DKT]

if you do any studio type shots--fog it all the way and process the paper. exposed print paper makes a great black backrgound! same goes for unexposed. some of the cleanest backgrounds I've ever use were on processed print paper....

I can't take credit for this idea--learned it from the smithsonian. they salvaged old rolls of color paper this way.

 

[CraigK]

Send it to me.

I'll give it a good home and bath it in platinum/palladium

 

[galyons]

... give it a good home and bath it in platinum/palladium

My thanks to everyone for their thoughts and ideas. Quite slipped my mind that I could fix and use for alt processes. I have been collecting the chems to do Kallitypes toned with PT and/or PD, per Sandy's Unblinkingeye article. So now I am blessed with a goodly quantity of pre-sized quality paper!! So much for the old adage about "sow's ears".

Strutting with a "silk purse" thanks to y'all!

Cheers
Geary Lyons

 

[photobackpacker]

I have a similar quantity. I use a sheet to condition a new tray of paper developer. I then dry mount these back to back with others and use them for dodging an burning sheets and cutouts.

 

[George Papantoniou]

Fixing and then using for Alt-process (or inkjet printing), as proposed is a clever way to use it.

BUT there is something that you can do that will take advantage of the silver ON the paper... Use it for Vaseline-portraits...

It goes like that: You take some vaseline and rub it all over the subject's face (cover the face completely), then take a sheet of paper and wrap it around the face, trying to make it touch the largest part of the face possible, without damaging it too much.
Then, you put the paper in a tray with good fresh fix. Then turn the lights on, wash and remove the vaseline. Finally, develop the paper to make the parts that were protected by the vaseline (and were not fixed) darken, fix again and wash as usual. You'll see a strange (but interesting) impression of the face on the paper, white on black.

Using the procedure the other way (first develop, then fix), gives a negative impression of the face, that is black on white.

Since the paper is FB, I am not sure whether all this will work. I cannot be sure whether the vaseline will adhere with the emulsion and will be impossible to remove. I have only seen good results with RC paper, but it's worth trying...