Failed Efforts:Orwo Lith and the Story of the Hot Pool Print
I recently bought some cheap unopened Orwo photo paper. Readers (I know not many) of this blog will note a number of entries dedicated to attempting to use old paper. I am sure many find this a waste of time and money, which it probably is, but I learned a bit of history of photography along the way and maybe something of techniques. Some results have been quite good while others a complete failure. Sometimes I can rescue papers using different developers. Orwo was an East German brand of paper which was part of a breakup of the original company after WWII. The paper is graded double weight Fiber with a smooth (not gloss) surface and 'normal' contrast. I ran an initial test strip, and it didn't look favorable. f8 Test strip This allowed me to run a full-size print at 8 seconds. This confirmed my suspicions. The paper had extremely limited contrast. This was probably less than the original normal contrast and most likely due to the age of the paper. f8 at 8 sec Un...