I've been having much more success at creating images. However, most of my prints have a mauve or dullish red color in the edges of the photos (the edge that's not being exposed). Is this normal, or?
It is caused by partial development and incomplete fixing (of the edges).
For HDPP, it you look at the underdeveloped paper it has a pink colour. An unexposed, and fully developed/fixed(direct positive) paper will be black, but an unexposed/undeveloped and completely fixed paper will be white.
So what is happening is during development/fixing, whilst there are enough chemicals to process the print, only a small amount of liquid has seeped under the edge as it is held by the camera body (which is to be expected). Enough developer has gone under the edge to start the process, but not enough fixer has gone under the edge to complete the process.
There are quite a few variables, but you could try fixing longer, and ensuring the fix is not exhausted, or overly contaminated by having too much developer carried over into your fix.
I don't use a stop solution, and fix for 3 minutes (at 20c or a temperature equivalent adjustment), and generally use fresh fix each time, but I do try not to carry over more than 3-4ml of dev over, without wasting too much time trying to get the dev out, as I think that remaining dev has soaked into the paper.
Take a look at my Instagram if you want any examples of edges, there is no digital editing on any of my images, and they are scanned in colour not greyscale. The images are as they came out of the Pinsta.
Imperfect edges have a certain charm to them in themselves, so don't feel you have to be perfect.
Thanks. My neighbor also said it was from underdevelopment, and it's the edges of the paper that are secured under the camera's lip. I can live with it, if it's no issue otherwise, Or, fix for longer, or I've also been developing some of my prints out of the camera and there are no colored edges.
It is caused by partial development and incomplete fixing (of the edges).
For HDPP, it you look at the underdeveloped paper it has a pink colour. An unexposed, and fully developed/fixed(direct positive) paper will be black, but an unexposed/undeveloped and completely fixed paper will be white.
So what is happening is during development/fixing, whilst there are enough chemicals to process the print, only a small amount of liquid has seeped under the edge as it is held by the camera body (which is to be expected). Enough developer has gone under the edge to start the process, but not enough fixer has gone under the edge to complete the process.
There are quite a few variables, but you could try fixing longer, and ensuring the fix is not exhausted, or overly contaminated by having too much developer carried over into your fix.
I don't use a stop solution, and fix for 3 minutes (at 20c or a temperature equivalent adjustment), and generally use fresh fix each time, but I do try not to carry over more than 3-4ml of dev over, without wasting too much time trying to get the dev out, as I think that remaining dev has soaked into the paper.
Take a look at my Instagram if you want any examples of edges, there is no digital editing on any of my images, and they are scanned in colour not greyscale. The images are as they came out of the Pinsta.
Imperfect edges have a certain charm to them in themselves, so don't feel you have to be perfect.