Dark room problems

[jhkphoto]

hey all,

i have done a tun of dark room work and for the first time yesterday i could not create a print.
what i mean is that after i exposed the paper the developer would not take affect. strange right,

can you exhaust developer to the point where it will not do anything?
i have to finish a school project by friday so... help!

thanks--

[bric-a-brac]

can you exhaust developer to the point where it will not do anything?
i have to finish a school project by friday so... help!

thanks--

All chemistry can be exhausted. You should be mixing fresh working solution of developer, stop bath, and fixer every print session. depending on how much working solution you're using and how much paper you put through it, you may easily have to replenish the chemistry during your print session as well.

it's actually good practice to always use fresh chemistry; that way your times will stay consistent.

arguably you can reuse permawash, if you use it at all.

[jhkphoto]

wow you use new chemistry every time you print! i think i change mine around every 15 cycles. but not every pint i do is for the sake of fine art....
i also share my dark room with some-one that uses it more than me.

have you ever seen developer get to the point where it will do absolutely nothing?? i want to make sure that it was not an exposure problem, witch i don't think is the case.

... by the way, thats Not very environmentally friendly :)

[sandpiper]

have you ever seen developer get to the point where it will do absolutely nothing??

I certainly haven't. But then I usually mix fresh chemicals for each print session. I might on occasion leave stop bath & fixer for a day or two, possibly putting a splash of fresh in the tray, but dev was generally mixed fresh.

Dev also goes off with air contact, once mixed, as well as usage. So, if you are leaving it out for a few days I am not surprised that it has given up on you. Do you leave it in the tray or put it in a concertina bottle and remove all excess air? That will help it last a bit longer.

[jhkphoto]

yeah i put it in standard dark room gallon bottles.

i just really have no idea what when wrong, the lens was wide open i did a large spread of test exposures. i would really expect something to come up regardless

[sandpiper]

yeah i put it in standard dark room gallon bottles.

i just really have no idea what when wrong, the lens was wide open i did a large spread of test exposures. i would really expect something to come up regardless

You did put the paper under the enlarger the right way up? :p

Seriously though, dev does get exhausted and when it's gone it's gone. I'm surprised that you didn't notice contrast going earlier though, the blacks are the first thing to start going and used dev can have problems giving a good dense black.

[bric-a-brac]

if you share the darkroom with another person, and you re-use working solution, I suppose it's conceivable that someone (by accident, of course) might have:

a)mixed up the bottles (in which case you might be attempting to develop your prints in fixer or stop bath)

or

b) mixed up the chemistry (possibly combining stop bath with the developer, effectively killing it)

[René Damkot]

a)mixed up the bottles (in which case you might be attempting to develop your prints in fixer or stop bath)

Pretty easy to smell or see I'd think?

Anyway: To test developer: Expose a bit of photo paper to (day)light. Develop it. If it doesn't turn black in about half the normal development time, replace the developer...

[yogestee]

hey all,

i have done a tun of dark room work and for the first time yesterday i could not create a print.
what i mean is that after i exposed the paper the developer would not take affect. strange right,

can you exhaust developer to the point where it will not do anything?
i have to finish a school project by friday so... help!

thanks--

Yes it can and it does.. For printing and developing accuracy mix a fresh batch before evey session.. If you are doing a lot of developing refresh your developer regulary.. Also developer is easily contaminated by sloppy darkroom practises..

[yogestee]

wow you use new chemistry every time you print! i think i change mine around every 15 cycles. but not every pint i do is for the sake of fine art....
i also share my dark room with some-one that uses it more than me.

have you ever seen developer get to the point where it will do absolutely nothing?? i want to make sure that it was not an exposure problem, witch i don't think is the case.

... by the way, thats Not very environmentally friendly :)

Developer which is exhausted or contaminated will go a kind of smokey colour,,not clear.. Dump it well before it reaches this stage..

[bric-a-brac]

Pretty easy to smell or see I'd think?

it is, but believe me, a lot of people don't. I TA'd the student B&W gang lab when I was in college, and I saw some pretty absent minded stuff going on. one of my favorites was when a photo II student used permawash in place of fixer... talk about a problem you should be able to see...