Kodak bromide paper
Discussion
Blimey, what is this strange language you speak in these days of digital imaging?
All things being equal, It depends on your neg. If you have an underdeveloped low contrast neg, you would need a higher grade of paper. A longer dev time will increase contrast, but you are limited to how much you can do.
But I suspect the real problem is you paper is long, long, past its sell by date and they do deteriorate. I guess it may be possible to use old paper if it had been kept at optimum temperatures etc, but doubt it.
Kodak papers are long dead but you can still buy Ilford Galerie graded papers from here: http://www.silverprint.co.uk
Keep up the good work!
All things being equal, It depends on your neg. If you have an underdeveloped low contrast neg, you would need a higher grade of paper. A longer dev time will increase contrast, but you are limited to how much you can do.
But I suspect the real problem is you paper is long, long, past its sell by date and they do deteriorate. I guess it may be possible to use old paper if it had been kept at optimum temperatures etc, but doubt it.
Kodak papers are long dead but you can still buy Ilford Galerie graded papers from here: http://www.silverprint.co.uk
Keep up the good work!
Is the grey tint over the whole paper or it just across the image? Try developing an unexposed sheet to see if the paper has been fogged somehow.
Thirty year old graded paper should work fine. (I'm assuming it is fibre based? Old resin coated paper might be dodgy.) Dev times and exposures may not be exactly as they were when it was new, but you should get perfectly acceptable results, unless it's been stored really badly. I learned darkroom skills from my dad about 20 years ago. His darkroom had been my grandfather's darkroom originally, so the cupboards had stuff dating back to the 1930s in them and there were all sorts of old papers (1950s air mail weight paper anyone?) in the cupboards that by and large all worked fine. I also used film from a bulk loader that had Kodak Pan-X (I think) in which I know had travelled around the Libyan desert in a Land Rover on a university archaeological expedition in the early sixties and that also was fine. Colour materials definitely deteriorate, but b/w materials will last for decades and still be usable.
Thirty year old graded paper should work fine. (I'm assuming it is fibre based? Old resin coated paper might be dodgy.) Dev times and exposures may not be exactly as they were when it was new, but you should get perfectly acceptable results, unless it's been stored really badly. I learned darkroom skills from my dad about 20 years ago. His darkroom had been my grandfather's darkroom originally, so the cupboards had stuff dating back to the 1930s in them and there were all sorts of old papers (1950s air mail weight paper anyone?) in the cupboards that by and large all worked fine. I also used film from a bulk loader that had Kodak Pan-X (I think) in which I know had travelled around the Libyan desert in a Land Rover on a university archaeological expedition in the early sixties and that also was fine. Colour materials definitely deteriorate, but b/w materials will last for decades and still be usable.
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