When is B&W paper no good

PhotoBob · Mar 11, 2006

Recently I received a bunch of film and paper. The Oriental Fibre seems fine as does the film I've worked thus far despite being way out of date.
Now I tried printing with some Ilford MG III RC glossy, and it seem to develop with a dull light grey over the image, just destroys the contrast and the print. It was sad because I had 500 sheets of 8x10.
I reached into the centre area of one of the bags to check and the same thing happened with the development.
Is that the only way to tell when paper is out-dated beyond useability?
Seems others have used outdated paper successfully, any ideas as to what is wrong with this stuff?
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Ryuji · Mar 11, 2006

Frankly, you can give it away to someone who practices an alt-process that uses paper base and not the emulsion. The way fog centers are created on modern emulsions is different from how other kinds of fog occur, and there is really nothing you can do to make it like a new stock.

MANY darkroom books say you can salvage the fogged stock with addition of KBr and benzotriazole. That never worked with me. I have many kinds of organic antifoggants besides BTA, but none of them could selectively suppress fog while keeping the image unaffected. Those additions will slow down the development and may also require greater exposure, but when the image comes to the right density, fog will appear and you'll also see reduced highlight contrast. Whether the old books wrote plain nonesense or the technique used to work, I do not know. One thing I know is that there is no way to reverse emulsion fog.

pmu · Mar 11, 2006

PhotoBob said:
Now I tried printing with some Ilford MG III RC glossy, and it seem to develop with a dull light grey over the image, just destroys the contrast and the print.

Sad to hear that. I bought 2 months ago 3000 sheets of the same MG3 paper which was about 10 years old and they were 100% fine... Your paper haven't been stored the right way? (sorry this useless post)

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 11, 2006

Generally base fog is the main problem with old B&W papers. I think MGIII RC was still a developer-incorporated paper, so it is probably more subject to base fog problems than other papers. Fix an unexposed and undeveloped sheet to be sure it isn't just fogged right out of the box, in which case, it is truly useless.

If you want to try and see if it might be useful for something, use benzotriazole or Edwal Liquid Orthazite (which is benzotriazole + sodium sulfite)--you'll need to test to determine the required concentration--and cut development time to no more than 45 sec. I would say for MGIII you may even need to reduce development to 20 or 30 sec.

ChuckP · Mar 11, 2006

Try it out with some high contrast negatives. You might just like the look.

PhotoBob · Mar 13, 2006

Thanks everyone for your responses

MMfoto · Mar 13, 2006

Truly fogged paper could be put to good use by printing down and bleaching up if your into that sort of thing.

DannL · Mar 13, 2006

For a while there I thought I was the only one experiencing this trouble, or similar trouble. I posted the same question basically and got some general ideas on possible fixes to include Benzotriazole or Potassium Ferricyanide Bleach (neither tested). Mine paper is Kodak Polycontrast II RC paper circa 1982. I noticed if you develop a sheet "out of the box" we get a base color that is very dark grey . . . and that's with no exposure to light. I just acquired some Kodak Antifog No. 1 circa 1979 and some Potassium Ferricyanide. So, I'll test this stuff and let you know what happens. In my earlier thread I stated that my prints looked more like Tintypes. ;-)

Woolliscroft · Mar 13, 2006

ChuckP said:
Try it out with some high contrast negatives. You might just like the look.

Or use it to make index contact prints. There is always some use for old paper.

David.

Gerald Koch · Mar 13, 2006

Salvaging age fogged paper became popular after WWII when vast quantities became available as government surplus.

FWIW, Grant Haist suggests starting with 50 ml of a 0.2% solution of benzotriazole to each liter of working paper developer.

Kino · Mar 13, 2006

Thanks Gerald, good to know that.

I am going to try that, as soon as I get some Benzotriazole.

Anchell also suggests 15 to 25ml of a 10% potassium bromide solution and/or 50 to 100 ml of a carbonate solution per each liter of paper developer (see page 80 of the 2nd edition of The Darkroom Cookbook).

Seems the bromide gives cleaner highlights, extending the contrast of the paper.

The Carbonate increases the speed and contrast of the paper, but can fog it if too much is put in the bath.

I found a copy of the Darkroom Cookbook at our local library and am reading it cover to cover; great book! Going to drop hints for the birthday...

Gerald Koch · Mar 13, 2006

Kino said:
I found a copy of the Darkroom Cookbook at our local library and am reading it cover to cover; great book!

There are some errors in the book and so it's good to check the errata at
http://www.anchellworkshops.com/books/books-errata.php

Photo Engineer · Mar 13, 2006

Since every paper has usually used different emulsions and addenda in each revision, it would be hard to generalize on this. Sometimes antifoggants work, and sometimes not.

Papers containing incorporated developers, and those with FB support usually keep less well than those without developers in them or papers that are coated on RC support.

Another very good antifoggant is phenyl mercapto tetrazole at between 0.5 and 1 mg/liter of developer. If that is isufficient, you can go up a tad, but usually it is used at 1/10th the level of BTAZ (benzotriazole using the Kodak acronym).

All emulsions have a certain level of inherent fog. It is just that fresh, the image comes up before the fog, while keeping reverses this situation. Fog formation also often lowers contrast, and only sometimes will the use of an antifoggant restore that feature. Most always, you can expect a speed loss if you antifog the paper back.

Multigrade papers, containing multiple emulsions are often harder to control this way, as the two emulsions in them may not respond the same way to the antifoggant.

You won't know unless you give it a try. And we won't know unless you tell us your results and what you did.

Good luck.

PE

Kino · Mar 13, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
(snip)
You won't know unless you give it a try. And we won't know unless you tell us your results and what you did.
Good luck.

PE

OK, I won't promise that it won't take me quite a while, but as I do these experiments with the above techniques, I will take copious notes and save my test strips.

Hopefully, I will be able to offer a reasonable layman's study of these chemicals, what they can potentially offer and what they will not do; perhaps a small contribution to the growing APUG library...

That being said, don't hold your breath, but I will give it the old college try.

Frank W.

DannL · Mar 15, 2006

Well, this might help. I tried using Potassium Ferricyanide on an old "foggy" paper stock and the results are exactly as described. It reduces the silver layer. If left long enough, you will end up with white notepad paper, and your photo will desolve. My foggy paper is "really fogged" and requires a lot of work and experimentation. Kodak Antifog No. 1 had no effect whatsoever on this Kodak Polycontrast II paper.

When is B&W paper no good

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