Yay, I made a photograph! Can I save the chemicals?

I just did my first-ever real photograph! A 8x10 sheet, way overexposed, from a pinhole camera. One print, done in my bathtub in kitty litter trays. Now the trays are still there.

Can I dump my fixer back into the glass bottle and save it? What about the dektol? I already diluted the dev stock solution with equal parts water but it seems a waste to dump it, I need some more tomorrow when I shoot another photo. How long can the chemicals sit in the trays? What if I got smaller tupperware containers that just barely fit the paper, and then put lids on it?

I have no idea what is normal in photo developing; I just read the instructions on the dev and fixer for use, and it didn't say anything about reuse or storage. What do people normally do? My wife is going to want to shower eventually.

By the way, just how toxic is this stuff? I borrowed my wife's pyrex to make the stock solution, am I going to die? Could I keep the rest of the stock solution of dev and fix in the fridge? It's cold and dark, and usually has plenty of space.

The fix should keep just fine. Either put it in a bottle or cover it with Saran Wrap. I'd put the developer in a bottle of some sort (pop bottles are pretty good for this). If the Dektol turns brown, it is no longer good

I'd definitely not mix kitchenware with storage containers for any photochemicals!

Many 1+1 diluted developers will keep for days in trays. Likewise the fixer. Sometimes I mix up chems for the weekend on Friday and come back Sat and Sun and... no problem. (N.b. this is not true of all developers) It'd be better to pour the chems back into capped bottles with minimal air space, but I've found open trays to be alright for ~days. Incidentally, I do believe that most of the developers I've used (D76/ID11 etc.) are still fine quite a while after they turn colour. I prefer to do everything one-shot and fresh, but... sometimes I don't.

If you are going to be doing this habitually then you might clean out some wine bottles and vacuum cork tops for those. That's more practical than keeping open trays or putting things in the fridge and then having to rewarm them etc.

One variable here is what kind of mix water you used. That is probably a big factor in how long your mixture is "good."

Working solution of Dektol (stock + 2 parts water) is good for 32 8x10's per litre. You'll know when it's exhausted. Pour from tray back into bottle (tupperwear is good) after each session and it should last a few months at least. Same with fixer, you'll know when it's exhausted, but check the capacity listed by the manufacturer. Great thing about paper is that you develop by inspection, and when it get slow, you just go longer and stop when it's done.

Dektol and fixer are not considered toxic, but clean up after yourself and label your jars and beakers and don't ever use them for anything other than photography.

Thanks a lot everyone! This is going to be a lot cheaper than I thought. When I first mixed up the chemicals I was figuring up the prices and it was kinda steep for a poor person like me. This isn't going to be so bad, most important thing is I need to find cheaper paper ($18/25 for Illford MG4 at local store)

If you are going to be doing this habitually then you might clean out some wine bottles and vacuum cork tops for those. That's more practical than keeping open trays or putting things in the fridge and then having to rewarm them etc.

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True. Since I'm not doing film at this point I kinda just did everything roomish temperature, so I forgot about the temperature thing.

Working solution of Dektol (stock + 2 parts water) is good for 32 8x10's per litre. You'll know when it's exhausted.

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I suppose you can tell because it starts taking forever to work. BTW, I mixed mine stock+equal parts water. My overexposed photo developed in like 1 second so I was thinking about diluting it a bit.

Same with fixer, you'll know when it's exhausted

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Wait, how? Your photo fades away in a couple years? I didn't notice the fixer doing anything noticeable to my photo in the first place.

I keep Dektol etc a long time. After a while you just have a developer that gives weak results
Maybe you can learn something -cheaply- using it/in combination with fresh
With RC -developer incorporated- paper you don't even need a "developer" to get "an" image to develop ..just warm water, really
Therefore I doubt Dektol is strained much in RC developing so should last longer?

Save it, anyway. Water/Soda bottles
Keeps a long time in normal temps so forget about fridge
Don't wory about the pyrex too much ...from the emptiness of the fridge it sounds like it ain't used very often
But you are likely to die if you tell that joke out loud

Just get the exposure correct
Dektol is useful at Stock down to 1:4
less contrast/slower working/maybe slightly more warmth with increased dilution 1:3 and 1:4
and 1:9 for lith films

But you are likely to die if you tell that joke out loud

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No it's just a fairly big fridge and only the two of us, and she doesn't eat much. Always room on the bottom shelf at the back, where the beer or pop would go if I drank much of either.

BetterSense said:

Wait, how? Your photo fades away in a couple years? I didn't notice the fixer doing anything noticeable to my photo in the first place.

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Good. The fixer removes the unneeded silver. Insufficient fixing will be evidenced by a greyish tinge to all of the bits that are supposed to be white, and within hours or days. You can generally refix and clear them up.

So anyway, you've got pinhole negative #1. Can you or have you made the positive?

Yes, you can store and reuse the fixer. It doesn't go bad nearly as quickly as developer, and it will last in the tray for at least a day or longer. A simple check will tell you when it has reached its useful life. Take a small piece of undeveloped film. Place 1 drop of fixer on film and leave it for 30 seconds. Then immerse the film into the fixer and note how long it takes for the film to clear completely. Do this when you first mix up the fixer, and repeat the test before and after each session. The 1 drop spot will clear first and provide a visual reference. When that spot is no longer visible, the film is cleared. When the clearing time approaches twice the time it took to clear that piece of film when the fixer was new, it is time to discard the fixer. If you are reasonably observant and keep notes on how many square inches of paper or film you've run through a particular batch of fixer, befire long you'll know how much you can use that fixer before its finished. Realize though that different films have different clearing times, so you must use the same type of film each time for the test to be valid. Save those film leaders.

Dektol doesn't last too well in the tray. Kodak says the useful life in a tray is 1 day. They are not clear if that means 1 working day (8 to 12 hours) or a full calendar day of 24 hours. Stock solution is what you get when you mix the powder according to the package directions Standard working strength dilution for Dektol is 1 part stock solution plus 2 parts water, though it works equally well diluted 1+3. While Kodak does not recommend it, you can bottle up a lightly used working strength solution and use it another day. After three days in the bottle, the working strength solution is pretty much finished whether you use it or not. The stock solution keeps for 6 months or more in completely full bottles, 2 months in partially full bottles. Pop bottles make good storage containers for developers and fixers. Just be sure to label them clearly.

In the interest of cleanliness, which is always important in wet photography, you should bottle up your chemistry after each session and wash everything down when you are done. I wouldn't drink the stuff, but none of the chemistry involved is particularly dangerous or toxic when used as intended. Tupperware trays can work, but they don't seal up as well as pop bottles. There is not need to store the chemicals in the refrigerator. In fact it is not recommended. A dark corner out of direct sunlight is good enough.

Get yourself a set of measuring cups or some graduates and don't use the kitchen utensils. Your wife's Pyrex glass measuring cup will clean up just fine, but it's not a good idea. Ingesting this stuff can make you sick.

So anyway, you've got pinhole negative #1. Can you or have you made the positive?

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It's drastically overexposed at 1 minute so I didn't want to waste paper trying to make a positive. Hopefully it will be sunny and I will try the same photo again at 15 or 30 seconds.

Note: If you leave the trays in the bathtub overnight without even checking to make sure they are dry underneath, you will get nasty brown stains in your tub underneath the fixer tray.

The best bottles I have for chemistry are the one gallon jugs of distilled water that come from the store. I just dump out some of the water and mix the powdered chemistry right in, then top off under the faucet.

Don't bother putting photo chemistry in the fridge. It's not going to keep longer keeping it cool.

Buy a funnel also that you only use for chemistry and in between using it for different chemistry make SURE to wash it.

Well ya got something there at least...!!!

I have good results using Dektol all weekend. I made fiberboard covers for my trays. I sit up my darkroom Friday, and use it over the weekend as time permits. The covers go on when I'm not using the darkroom. Of course I then discard my working solution Dektol and stop. Fix goes back in the bottle until it's done it's 100 8X10's or equivalent. This would be a problem in your bathroom when your wife wants a shower. Dilution would be more than 1:2 after the shower.

Wives can be dealt with. However, BetterSense, you said you were using kitty litter trays. My concern is for your cat!

BetterSense said:

I just did my first-ever real photograph! A 8x10 sheet, way overexposed, from a pinhole camera. One print, done in my bathtub in kitty litter trays. Now the trays are still there.

Can I dump my fixer back into the glass bottle and save it? What about the dektol? I already diluted the dev stock solution with equal parts water but it seems a waste to dump it, I need some more tomorrow when I shoot another photo. How long can the chemicals sit in the trays? What if I got smaller tupperware containers that just barely fit the paper, and then put lids on it?

I have no idea what is normal in photo developing; I just read the instructions on the dev and fixer for use, and it didn't say anything about reuse or storage. What do people normally do? My wife is going to want to shower eventually.

By the way, just how toxic is this stuff? I borrowed my wife's pyrex to make the stock solution, am I going to die? Could I keep the rest of the stock solution of dev and fix in the fridge? It's cold and dark, and usually has plenty of space.

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Working solutions tend not to last long, best is to mix up the powder to get a stock solution, if your using a concentrate then the concentrate is your stock solution, I'll refer to both as stock. Best is to keep your developer stock in a brown glass bottle with a metal cap that has a wax or rubber seal inside. You want to use glass or plastic beads (marbles work really well), to make up for any lost volume so that there is no air space at the top of the bottle. This is because developers tend to oxidize fairly quickly, Use distilled water when mixing developer, and pour very slowly, like your trying to pour a beer without a head.

What a lot of people do is they use several 1L/1Qt bottles rather then a single 1 gallon (3.85L) bottle, this means that you fill 3 bottles right to the top, and use your beads in the forth, so that the 3 full bottles will stay nicely sealed for months,
put a piece of electrical tape around the cap, so that you know the bottle is full and unused, so you don't inadvertently open one before you need to. Date the bottles so that you know when the stock was made up. This is the same technique used to mix and store film developer, I always treated both the same. One modern trick, buy one of those electrical tape packs that has different colours, and use a different colour for different chemicals. For example blue is paper developer, green is film developer, yellow is stop, red is fixer.

Use the same colour tape on the trays so that you always use the same tray for the same stuff.

Stop bath, which I am more likely to use with paper then with film, due to the short developing times with paper and fixer, can last a long time, it does not oxidize in a bottle, and can be stored in any old bottle, stop bath and most fixers are now sold in concentrates and the bottle it comes in, is good enough.

One rule of thumb, I always followed, is working solution developer tends not to last long, so your best to mix as little as you need from the stock for all your chemistries and figure that at the end of a session or the end of the day, they are pretty much spent, and toss them, clean your trays and put everything away.
Next session, you set up and mix fresh working solutions. You also track how many prints you feed through your working solution, when you have processed enough prints for the solution that has the shortest life span (probably the developer), toss them all clean your trays and mix fresh.

Do not use the same mixing container for chemistries as food, photo chemistries are not that toxic, but you can have small traces left after washing a mixing container, and not only can you contaminate food, but you can also contaminate your chemicals with food particles. So buy a couple of new Pyrex containers, give one to your wife for the kitchen, and mark the other new one for water only, get a bucket for mixing developer stock solutions, This should ONLY be used for this purpose.

It's not a good idea to keep chemicals in the fridge, some chemicals will go out of solution, and it can be hard to get them to go back in, even at room temperature.

What may be an idea is to get one of those plastic totes, that kinda look like a chest. All of your darkroom stuff goes in the tote when not in use, this can go under a table or other furniture, out of the way, then you drag it out, set up, and after your session, pack it all back away. This will do a lot for family peace,

not only can you contaminate food, but you can also contaminate your chemicals with food particles.

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Yeah, my developer and fixer smell faintly of V8 Splash. They worked, though.

Stop bath, which I am more likely to use with paper then with film, due to the short developing times with paper and fixer

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I just used vinegar. I don't know if I should get some stop bath or not.

Stop bath is cheaper to use than vinegar. It's all the same chemical, acetic acid, under the covers. Your choice.

let's say I develop my prints only at the weekend (Fri. and Sat. overnight).
will it make sense to save the 3 bath (dev-fix-stop), transferring them from the trays to plastic bottles sealed??

if yes, how long can I keep them like that, and for how many "printing sessions" can I re-use them?

thanks!!

Gizzo said:

let's say I develop my prints only at the weekend (Fri. and Sat. overnight).
will it make sense to save the 3 bath (dev-fix-stop), transferring them from the trays to plastic bottles sealed??

if yes, how long can I keep them like that, and for how many "printing sessions" can I re-use them?

thanks!!

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See posts #3, 10 etc. above.

I saved my developer working solution in a peanut butter jar for the first time a couple days ago. I tried to top the jar off with Dust-Off if it makes any difference, since it didn't fill the jar all the way. I made some more prints with it today and it worked fine, although it's starting to change colors. I figure I will just see how long it keeps working; if it fails to develop a print next time I'll just crack another bottle of stock solution and whip up some new real quick. Can aging developer cause strange contrast problems or anything?

The fixer has me slightly worried, because I don't understand how you know when its spent other than to try to keep track of how many prints went through it. And I can't know if it stops working other than to see if my prints deteriorate. I like the idea of using the film leader test, but I don't shoot silver film at this time. 1L of kodak fixer probably can take dozens of prints, so if atmosphere doesn't hurt it, I can keep using it for a long time, but it seems to be getting slightly diluted with stop bath because the bottle overflows when I fill it back up. By the way, how long should the print stay in the fixer? I've been swishing it just a little bit and then leaving it in there for at least two minutes while I do other stuff.