Last night I made a bunch of 5x7 prints in a community b&w darkroom. All of the prints using the same paper (Ilford MGIV RC) had a wierd gold-colored shiny iridescent discoloration around the paper edges. It went about 1/8 inch into the paper from each edge. Two weeks ago in a different darkroom this paper produced good prints, and since then it has been stored in the original dark bag and box. Did I get some kind of contamination/light leak/chemical fogging on my paper supply? I also tested a piece of unexposed paper and ran it thru the developer process, and it too had this shiny gold border. Any thoughts? Another student using different paper saw a similar gold border on her work, but only on one of her dozen or so prints. Any ideas?

-- Bill Akstens (bill.akstens@trw.com), September 13, 2000

Answers

I think that's dichroic fog which is a fine layer of silver metal and is caused by exhausted fixer and/or stop bath. You mentioned a community darkroom. To run a quick check, drop in a new, shiny penny. If it turns silver in a few moments, the fixer is shot.

-- Tony (ajbrent@mich.com), September 13, 2000.

To follow up on my original posting: I went back into the darkroom last night and used the same paper as before. This time I did not get any strange borders, so it probably was bad chemicals. The darkroom was out of service over the summer, so there might have been an exhausted stop or fix.

-- Bill Akstens (bill.akstens@trw.com), September 20, 2000.