Topic: Black Prints

[fondoffilm]

Hello there film Wasters,

I am new to this forum and I have a question to ask, I have recently purchased a colour enlarger and tried to print my first prints in my home dark room  The problem i am having is this, once I have exposed my prints onto the paper I then put the paper into the dev it takes a minute or two for the picture to appear but as soon as it has the print then just turns black. My chemicals are fresh the paper maybe not so much, just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and what might be causing it and what do I have to do to rectifiy the issue, any thoughts or solutions would be much appriciated. I am semi skilled in the dark room and have never encountered this problem before, thanks folks look forward to your replies

[LT]

Hi FoF. Welcome to filmwasters!

Are you doing colour printing or using your colour head to do mono printing?

Either way it sounds like the paper is over exposed. Are you getting frame edges or is the whole sheet black from edge to edge?

Try shorter exposure time, or if already very short, a smaller aperture on the enlarger lens, or maybe look to dim the elarger light source some how.

[Andrea.]

Are you exposing the colour paper under a red 'safe' light?

[jojonas~]

I can be of no help with your colour stuff but I wish you welcome all the same

[Alan]

welcome to filmwasters - sorry I cannot offer any help!

[Francois]

Welcome.

I print all my 35mm B&W with a color head and have no problem with it. You could be grossly overexposing the paper. Or it could be a safelight issue. Or the room is not sufficiently dark. Or you could be processing the wrong type of paper in the wrong chemistry. Or the person who sold you the paper counted every single sheet on the kitchen table... there could be quite a few things going on.

[moominsean]

from what i remember, color has to be developed in complete darkness, so if you can se it develop and then turn to black, that means you aren't developing in complete darkness? that's just what i remember about it when i used to work at a paper...it took awhile and you didn't see what you got until the end, then you's have to adjust the color and do it again and again until it looked right.

[Francois]

That's right, color paper is not orthochromatic. If it were, you couldn't print some colors.
It is not sensitive to a few seconds of the dark green safelight... but will fog if given more than that. That's why color is usually processed in total darkness.

[fondoffilm]

Hey folks,

thanks for the replies i am using a colour enlarger but the prints I was trying to print are black and white. I'm wondering after reading your replies if I have the safe light to close to the enlarger (I have it literally next to it) but I'll try printing again after I've moved the safe light and see what happens. The paper I used is Kodak Professional and the box looks like pretty old but its a full pack. got the paper at a darkroom auction so can't be sure. Anyhoe I'll update ya'll on my progress later,

Cheers

[Francois]

Try and pick a sheet from the middle of the pile. Some people don't know how to read and disregard the "sensitive to light" warning on boxes... If the box has been open in daylight, the middle of the pile is where you stand a better chance of finding unexposed sheets.

Also, make sure the safelight is at least 4 feet from the paper.

[Paul Mitchell]

Why don't you try and do a simple photogram (with keys or something) using the enlarger and the darkroom light turned off (total darkness). If it's the same then at least you know the paper has been fogged and has nothing to do with the light.

[LT]

It's quite rare for a safelight to fog a paper to complete black ... maybe a light shade of grey.

Get some fresh paper and try again - I suspect someone has had a peek in the box before you bought it.

My safelight is less than a meter from the baseboard and I get no fogging issues at all.

[moominsean]

maybe the paper is possessed by demons and being burned black by the fires of hell?

just an idea...

[Francois]

Actually, I've seen some people simply use a red party light and "hoping" it would work as a safelight...
It turns out there's a 50/50 chance, either it works but most likely it doesn't.

But it's true, fogging a paper to complete black from a proper safelight alone is very hard.

[fondoffilm]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I'm planning on printing this evening - last night just ran away with itself ;0 and I have taken all your advice on board. Would it be ok if I posted my results up here?

What's the protocol with that? I am allowed to upload a pic here and there and have you lovely people tell me what you think?

[LT]

Post away FoF! That is exactly what we are all about.  Good luck with the printing.

L.

[soeren]

Could it be the paper has been exposed to white light? Its unfortunately not that uncommon as regular adds on the bay shows
Once had some really old Ilford paper that turned 18% grey in the highlights but never experienced total black.
Are you making test strips? At what apperture are you printing? Exposuretimes?
Best regards
Søren

[gregor]

if it's the exposed area only (and not the entire sheet of paper), and you are in fact seeing an image before it turns black, it sounds like over exposure.  a lot of factors there: f-stop on the enlarger lens, negative density, exposure time, filter calibration on the color enlarger, etc. With more details about what is going on I'm sure you'll get some sound advice here in the forum !

Doing test strips always help out if you're relatively new to working in a wet darkroom.