Ilford multigrade paper and poor storage...

srichards

srichards

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I've found an unopened box of the stuff in the conservatory :eek: No clue how long it's been in there but it's going to have made this box of paper be exposed to 45C hot and probably 0c cold temperatures and all manner of humidities etc.

In short is it buggered?
 
The heat will be an issue but not cold or damp if the paper stayed in the bag.
 
Was it covered by other things or in direct sunlight? The actual temperature it got to could be significantly less if it was covered by other things
 
It was only slightly covered I think. Not properly under a load of stuff surprisingly.
 
Hard to know unless you run a test. I would be inclined to think that sheets nearer the middle might stand the best chance of having retained their natural state.
 
In colour films the layers degrade at different rates at a given temperature, causing colour shifts, and the higher the temperature the more likely it is for a random 'detection' event to occur, which fogs the film. From my understanding, both of these to some extent are proportional to ISO. With photo paper, it's only really the fogging that you care about.

Paper has an effective ISO far lower than film, and being silver based rather than die, I would expect the fogging effect to be less apparent. Personally, in this instance, I might just take the first few sheets that have likely seen the worst of the heat and develop them for a lot longer than one otherwise might when exposed to light from an enlarger. If the paper fogs after development, you know the heat has had some effect, and if not then you're good :)
 
Last edited:
Woodsy said:
In colour films the layers degrade at different rates at a given temperature, causing colour shifts, and the higher the temperature the more likely it is for a random 'detection' event to occur, which fogs the film. From my understanding, both of these to some extent are proportional to ISO. With photo paper, it's only really the fogging that you care about.

Paper has an effective ISO far lower than film, and being silver based rather than die, I would expect the fogging effect to be less apparent. Personally, in this instance, I might just take the first few sheets that have likely seen the worst of the heat and develop them for a lot longer than one otherwise might when exposed to light from an enlarger. If the paper fogs after development, you know the heat has had some effect, and if not then you're good :)
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As I don't use them I'd probably leave whichever poor sod I manage to fob them off onto to find out :)
 
Multigrade is in effect colour sensitive, that is how the various grades are achieved.
How Time and temperature has affected this can not be known. with out a few tests.
Suck it and see, would seem to be the only way to find out.
You say it is a box, so quite a few sheets could be involved, so testing a few might be worthwhile.
 
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