Edge penetration of RC papers revisited

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I understand that much of the concern about longevity of RC papers concerned edge penetration. On the face of it this seems a reasonable concern as any chemistry which penetrates the edge is presumably hard to wash out -- especially if one is reducing washing time for RC papers anyway. Kodak and others simply recommend minimizing wet times and that is what I do when I use RC papers. However I am currently doing a lot with toning of Panalure papers (for which there appears to be no FB paper substitute). For Sepia toning, dev+stop+fix+wash+bleach+wash+tone+wash adds up to a minimum of 26-27 minutes wet and typically over 30 minutes. Duo-toning would add another 10 minutes. The edges and corners indeed begin to separate after this much soaking and agitation. Drying after the wash steps doesn't seem to help too much in terms of visible separation, but perhaps it will help reduce penetration of the chemistry in subsequent steps -- although it means I can't finish a print in one day which is sometimes awkward. My inclination is to not worry about it and just crop off the edges anyway, but I don't have a sense for how far the chemistry may be penetrating the edges may be travelling into the interior of the print area. I feel some of these prints are worth keeping for a long time, so I worry about this. Any ideas/experiences? Thanks in advance!

-- Eric Pederson (epederso@darkwing.uoregon.edu), May 10, 2001

Answers

My wet times seem to end up at about 30 minutes or more including toning, and that's just life I'm afraid. None of my temperatures are very high (70F at most) and only the tips of the corners show any damage -- rarely. I leave a border and don't worry too much. I assume RC paper'll last 20 years and have fiber around if I really care about an image.

-- John O'Connell (boywonderiloveyou@hotmail.com), May 11, 2001.

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