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.
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,
