OK, when I'm printing with RC paper I will do a session of say 8-10 prints and all is well. The next day I'll come to see the finished dryed product and to my dismay 3-5 of the ten will have brownish streaks or blobs. My fixing and rinsing procedures do not vary. Ussually they are in the middle of the print. I've tried isolating the problem with no, but no luck. This morning I took what I thought was a stack of dry prints but a wet area on the back of one immediately stained the front of another one. Myquestion, does this sound likea fixer problem or a rinsing problem

-- Matt Roan (getonit34@hotmal.com), June 01, 1999

Answers

Sounds like sabotage Matt. Why are your prints still wet the next day? If you're using RC paper you can squeege off the water and have perfectly dry prints in 20 min. The staining with RC is a puzzler. You need only fix RC paper for about one minute and rinse for 2-3 min. or so. Are you letting your prints dry on a surface that has an accumulation of dried developer? Once it gets wet again it might transfer brown marks. Thats all I can think of. Greg

-- Greg Augustine (wca@idt.net), June 02, 1999.

Try hanging up your RC prints with clothes pins as an experiment to see if you may have them coming in contact with contamintion on your drying or handling surfaces. They will dry in 10-15 minutes and there is no need to wipe down as excess water will instantly drain. You will only get a small mark on the emulsion where the print was hung.

-- Gene Crumpler (nikonguy@worldnet.att.net), June 02, 1999.

When moving the print from the developer to the stopbath..are you leaving it out in the air for a few seconds to drain??? This can cause staining which may not show up until later. An old printer taught me this. Move the paper quickly from solution to solution with the absolute miminmum air contact. The other possibility is developer contamination in the wash. I've developed a rigid habit (learned from the same guy) of not allowing any solution to go "backwards"..i.e. no stop bath getting into developer..etc. I never put anything into the wash tray unless I'm sure that it has been neutralized in the fixer..and then thoroughly rinsedwith running water

-- C MATTER (charles.matter@riag.com), August 26, 1999.

I have found that you get a wishey-washey finish to your print if you agitate too much in the developing solution

-- Mark Engers (paul.engers@tesco.net), November 25, 1999.