During my recent restoration of my darkroom I came across a few pouches of old chemicals which had to be at least ten years old. I found a few pouches of Dektol, one of which was opened by the mice(I do not recall catching any over developed mice in the traps over that past decade) some D-76 and some Glacial Acetic Acid. Aside from the chewed open Dektol all of the pouches were intact and the contents still felt soft and powdery. I also found some opened boxes of ten year old Kodak Polycontrast RC paper. On my way home from work last night I stopped by B&H and scored some fixer. Today I tried out the old stuff I found laying around. The Dektol powder was a light tan color and the mixed developer looked more like espresso than developer. The Acetic Acid still smelled like salad dressing and seemed to stop the development just fine. The 8X10 paper was a wreck. Sheets taken out of the inner plastic bags from different depths were all fogged taken from the box and placed straight into the developer without ANY lights on in the darkroom the result looked more like a Rorschach test than a blank piece of paper. The 16X20 paper has an even mid-gray cast to it. The 5X7 paper was not too bad. Some fogging around the edges but yielded some acceptable results. I printed a 4X5 negative of a motorcycle I shot about 12 years ago and it looks quite nice. Although I don't shoot 4X5 to print 5X7. My seven year old son chose a 4X5 negative I shot of my wife when we were first dating and I taught him the basics of setting up the negative in the enlarger and composing the easel. He learned pretty quickly. It took two stacked PC filters: #3 & 4, to get an acceptable contrast but the negative is a little on the under exposed side. My son very proudly showed my wife the print he made of her.
It looks like I am going to be switching over to Ilford papers from here on in since Kodak is no longer available locally. Are the PC filters compatible across brands?
Also: Many of my negatives have some moisture damage from storage in a humid environment. Can some water damage (uneven wetting of the emulsion) be alleviated by soaking the whole negative in water?
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