Colour printing prpblem - deep blue cast

[vickylou]

Hello,

I have recently started printing my own colour prints and although the first attempts were pretty o.k., on my second attempt (with a different neg) the prints came out with a very deep blue cast. This time I used a developing tank, instead of trays. It is not possible that any fix got in the dev solution as this happened the very first time i used the tank. Does anyone know what might have caused this? Could it be that the dev was too cold? I am using Tetenal RA-4 kit (with Kodak RA-4 paper) so it only needs room temp to work. The room temp was a couple of degrees below the stated 61 degrees C the instructions reccommend. Would this be enough to turn the prints dark murky blue?!

Additionally - does anyone have any experience with the Tetenal RA-4 chemicals and know after how many prints they should be chucked?

Thx

 

[ladyphotog]

Is it a cyan blue color? If so that is usually an indication that your developer is contaminated. Was the tank extremely clean when you started? Usually is developer is too cold it will just show low activity not such a color shift. One way you can tell if your developer is good is to process a piece of paper that has been exposed to white light and one piece that has not been exposed. If you process them both and you get one true black and one true white, your chemistry is good. The technical data should tell you how many prints or mm per liter the chemistry is good for.

 

[vickylou]

I think that was indeed the problem - when I tried fresh dev in a tray it was fine. I'm being much more careful with the chemicals now, having realised just how sensitive they are. Thanks for the help - much appreciated!

Vicky