What happened?!? White base paper...became warm/yellow base paper!

[dsphotog]

Due to more chemical carry over, Fiber base paper tends to exhaust stop bath and fixer faster.,
Also, try constant agitation in the fixer.

[Goncalo]

I already mixed new stop bath and fixer with destiled water and now they came out fine.

I guess it was the fixer. I never thought because it was relatively new.

Thanks for all the help!

[Doremus Scudder]

I already mixed new stop bath and fixer with distilled water and now they came out fine.

I guess it was the fixer. I never thought because it was relatively new.

Thanks for all the help!

Two things to keep in mind for the future: Fixer (especially mixed working solutions) has a shelf life. Look at the manufacturer's tech sheet for details, but generally, fixer in an open tray won't last longer than a week, even if you've fixed nothing in it. Working-strength fixer in a bottle only lasts a few weeks at most.

And, note the throughput capacity for the fixer and type of paper you are using. Capacity for fiber-base paper is less than for RC (and the fixing times are longer as well).

Do re-fix any prints from your last batch through the bad fixer that you want to keep for a long time. Even prints before the yellowing started are likely underfixed.

If you work a lot with fiber-base paper, you may want to adopt a two-bath fixing regime. It's more economical and ensures that prints are adequately fixed at the same time.

Best,

Doremus