brown stains on paper. unwashed fixer or developer?

[SeanEsopenko]

Some nights I get slight brown stains on the edges of my Ilford RC paper and some nights I don't. They usually show up where I handled the prints, moving them from tray to tray and to the drying racks. Sometimes I can get rid of it by rubbing the surface of the RC paper with my finger-nail, sometimes it doesn't help.

I try to be consistent in my printing process and paper handling but it's quite inconsistent when I get them. I use my fingers to transfer the paper from tray to tray. I use tongs to hold the paper down as I'm rocking a tray. I have one tong labeled for developer and one labeled for fixer. Is it unwashed fixer or unwashed developer that's causing the brown stains?

I don't have running water in the darkroom but I give it 1 minute in water, followed by 30 seconds in hypo clear, then 1 minute in fresh water, and another minute in a new batch of fresh water again. I agitate the rinsing by giving a gentle rub to the submerged paper surface for about 15 seconds on each side, then from that point forward rinsing is done by constantly rocking the tray and flipping the paper over about every 15-30 seconds.

I'll use 1L of hypo clear for about 20 8x10's and throw it out at the end of the night. I mix up fresh developer each time but I reuse 1.5 liters of fixer (ilford rapid fixer 1+9) for about 40 sheets of 8x10. I re-use the indicator stop bath until it just starts to darken under the safelight.

I give a final soak in photo-flo for about 30 seconds. I use RO water for the developer, stop bath and hypo clear. I use well water for the fixer and the final photo-flo rinse. Our well water's drinkable, it's just so high in calcium it tastes salty.

These brown stains have been so frustrating. I'll run a set of prints, then when I get in the house and inspect them under good light, sometimes I lose 25% of the edition to the staining. I need to get this solved before I can have confidence in selling my prints.

[PViapiano]

Sean,

Eliminate using your fingers. Use separate tongs for each bath as well...

[Louie Powell]

Two points about your process:

1. I'm not totally clear about the washing sequence. If I understand correctly, each print individually gets one minute in fresh water followed by one minute in Hypoclear, and then two successive baths in fresh water with agitation. If that is what you meant to say, then that's marginally OK. I might prefer a bit more washing, but

But if your process is that all prints together get one minute in fresh water, one minute in Hypoclear, and two one-minute baths with agitation, then you need to increase the number of final baths. I would want at least five baths post-hypoclear - six or seven would be better.

2. The other issue is the use of fingers. You can easily pick up chemicals on your fingertips, and when you use your fingers to move prints from one tray to the next, you will contaminate those prints. Use tongs instead.

[Gem Singer]

I believe that you can trace the problem to the well water you are using for the fixer.

Brownish stains could be caused by un-fixed developer remaining on the print surface that show up after the prints are dry.

Your fixer might not be doing it's job due to the alkaline ph of your well water.

Try mixing fixer with distilled water.

After the prints are properly fixed, they can be washed in well water.

[IanG]

The stains are dichroic fog caused by fixer on the fingers contaminating the prints before or during development.

You can't have unfixed developer Gem Developer traces diffuse out during the stop bath and fixing stage but there's no interaction unless the fixer is neutral or alkali.

Washing fingers in the rinse/wash water's not sufficient, they need a good wash or rinse. The stains can be removed easily using Farmers reducer.

Ian

[BetterSense]

I used to get this (I only use RC paper). I stopped using my fingers to handle prints and only use segregated tongs. The problem seems to have gone away so I'm guessing that it is caused by getting the print contaminated somehow.

[SeanEsopenko]

I try to keep the RC paper from being in water too long so I keep it to only about 3.5 minutes of washing/hypo-clear. Each print's getting washed on it's own with fresh water being supplied 3 times.

the pH of our well water sits around 8.1. It's extremely alkaline so I guess that would be causing the fixer to be neutral or alkaline like you said. Tonight is my next time in the dark room so I'll try using RO water for the fixer, too. I'll try to handle the paper with my fingers less. I'm printing 18x20's fiber paper tonight and last time I used tongs for fiber I was kinda clumsy and tore the paper a few times. We'll see how it goes.

This farmer's reducer, b&h says they don't sell it any more. Is this the same stuff?

photographer's formulary spotting reducer II for paper (B&H)

[IanG]

pH 8.1 isn't very alkali at all and most good fixers have more than enough buffering to cope with that, it's not the problem.

That Reducer is fine but you just need some Potassium Ferricyanide and make a 1% solution use that to bleach the stains and rinse and re-fix, wash etc.

Ian

[Oren Grad]

Sean, if you haven't already done so you should test the adequacy of your wash:

http://stores.photoformulary.com/-st...EST/Detail.bok

http://www.digitaltruth.com/products...ch/03-0150.pdf

[Merg Ross]

Using tongs with 18x20 fiber paper sounds like a bad idea. Instead, I would practice the use of thumb and index finger to transfer prints from tray to tray. I learned this technique while using single weight papers. Tongs are fine for smaller sizes of paper.