Rescuing Old Paper: Negra Portrene

When I first began to learn printing in the darkroom, I went through a phase of picking up different expired papers. Partly because they were cheap and also to experience what the properties and history of these old papers were like. Eventually I came to the conclusion that most papers are too fogged to be worth the effort and whatever characteristics they had once have long since diminished with time. 

Of course, I use a number of these for lith printing and toning with some great results. Papers like Fohar Raster with an embossed pattern of dots I suppose was to suggest the idea of a CRT? ORWO, Oriental Seagull, Agfa-Gevaert Rapidoprint are some other examples.

One paper that stood out for me was Negra Portrene made in Barcelona. At the time I bought some I researched the paper as best I could here... and determined it went out of business in the 1970's when Spain was still ruled by a fascist dictator. 

I bought the paper because it was unopened and 16x20" and I wanted to try making larger prints but at a decent price. The Portrene was a great deal. My first experiments indicated the fog was very minimal and could be mitigated with a light bleaching. I made a number of good prints with the paper, some of which I have hanging on my walls. It is a graded paper so not all negatives are suitable. I also found it liths well.

I like this paper as it has a richness to it which may be in part because it is warmtone. The paper takes a lot of light to get exposed which is characteristic of warmtone papers. Recently, however it seems my opened box has fogged more perhaps because it has been exposed to fresh air. 

I decided to try developing it using some restrainer. In the past I have tried BZT as a restrainer for fogged paper to little avail. More recently someone on Reddit encouraged me to try much more than I was trying. This time I decided to be more methodical. I had some 1% BZT in an alcohol/water mixture from my past attempts. (BZT disssolves poorly in water but you can first dissolve it in alcohol then add that to water.) 

I used a series of blank paper strips and prepared my developer first with 5ml of restrainer. The idea is to take a blank strip of paper and then develop it to see the fog. Then add more restrainer and test a fresh strip of blank paper. Then iterate until the fog is eliminated 'enough'. It is also important to minimize the development time as even fresh paper will fog if left in developer long enough. The general advice is between 1 and 1.5 minutes.

I used some already freshly mixed Ilford Universal PQ (1:9) as I didn't want to waste my Moersch ECO 4812 developer. 

You can determine the minimum time to black to set a lower bound on development time by placing a strip of blank paper in a small clear glass with enough developer to cover half the paper. Then turn on the lights and measure the time until the paper in the developer gets black. 

As can be seen from the progression below I added a lot of restrainer (165ml) to get the fog down. Fortunately, I could retain the blacks as well. I started out with 2-minute development times mostly to see what the outer bound was but found the best results at 1:30-1:40. 

Restrainer Progress (upper right to lower left)

I then set about making a print. The whites come out clearly, but the image lacks a bit of contrast. It is likely a problem with the grade of paper which may have shifted with age as well. The paper has a nice warm tone. 

Some contrast might be rescued with selenium toning of the shadows. I have also done some lith printing with this paper recently as well... 

Scan007 f8 2xND 45 sec bleach 1 min

Scan008 f8 0xND 26 sec