Exhausted Fixer Question

[brian steinberger]

I was thinking today, since fixer removes the unexposed silver in a print, wouldn't exhausted fixer give duller and muddier whites than fresh fixer would?

Brian

[Brian Ellis]

Fixer doesn't actually remove metallic silver, it removes only the residual silver halide that hasn't been reduced to metallic silver. All the metallic silver remains and so the look of the print isn't affected by the state of the fix (which of course doesn't mean it's a good idea to use exhausted fix).

[Bruce Watson]

wouldn't exhausted fixer give duller and muddier whites than fresh fixer would?

Not in my experience. It won't look any different, today. But the silver halides that the exhausted fixer failed to remove from the film can still be reactive. When the print turns brown, you'll know why ;-)

Exhausted fixer isn't worth the gamble. When in doubt, throw it out.

[Bruce Watson]

Oy. That's "from the print" instead of "from the film." Sorry 'bout that.

[Ole Tjugen]

I have some underfixed print somewhere. They have normal shadows and midtones, but the highlights are distinctly pink!

On the other hand, overfixing in rapid fixer tends to bleach the highlight somewhat. So the "truth" is, as always, somewhere inbetween.