Here's a challenging question. When printing occasionally on the image a golf club shaped pattern occurs on the print. Like a line with a head on the end. It looks like a page turner ?. I have changed papers, developers, lenses and enlargers and occasionally it creeps in. Its not on the negative either. No one has been able to answer me apart from "a light leak somewhere."

any response welcome Ta ben.

-- ben langley (benjaminlangley73@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000

Answers

Does the image always appear in the same place on the print, and is it always the same size? Is it dark or light? What is a "page turner"? If it is dark, it may result from developer concentration that occurs when a print is lifted from the developer with the fingers on the print surface.

-- Keith Nichols (knichols@iopener.net), December 15, 2000.

Sounds, indeed, like a light leak somewhere, particularly if you get it with different enlargers. Do you notice it when working at a particular time of day or when the lights outside your darkroom door are on? If it's a very well defined pattern, it could be a pinhole leak, projecting a sharp image onto your easel or developer tray. Check your safelight. Spend some time in the darkroom with the safelight off under conditions when the leak is most likely to appear--bright daylight if a daylight leak is possible with all lights outside the door on. Look for a golf-club-shaped object of any size (floor lamp? streetlight? brightly lit golf trophy?) that might project itself into your darkroom through a pinhole.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), December 16, 2000.

I would also check on and around your enlarger, that there is nothing that might be reflecting down onto your easel, from stray light during the exposure. Check that walls and ceiling are not throwing significant light back down onto the paper. And make sure nothing is dangling in the light path, such as safelight or enlarger power cords.

-- Paul Swenson (paulphoto@humboldt1.com), December 17, 2000.

I also would check to see if you have the right bulb (heavily frosted) in the enlarger. It almost sounds like an out of focus element of the light bulb. Cheers

-- Scott Walton (scotlynn@shore.net), December 19, 2000.