How Important Is Temperature Control in Wet Printing?

[wgerrard]

After months of being stymied about exactly how to shoehorn a makeshift darkroom into a cubbyhole of a bathroom*, I think I've hit on a solution.

And that prompts this question: How critical is controlling the temperature of the water and other liquids in wet printing? Tap water at my place is typically 80F and above for about five months of the year. (It's at 80F right now.)

I use a couple of jugs of refrigerated water to keep things cool for my kitchen sink processing. But, I don't relish stocking up with a half-a-dozen or more. Do I need to float all the trays in bigger trays filled with cold water?

I found a post by the late and sorely missed Al Kaplan in which Al said temperature control is not that important. Was he right?

(* I have a choice of two bathrooms for this project. One has the space and a better configuration but getting it dark enough is very problematic. The second can be made dark rather simply but, until now, I couldn't figure out how to jury rig something to actually hold the enlarger. If I am as clever as I think I am [sure...] I'll be able to leave things in place, too.)

 

[dfoo]

I don't think it is all that important. For my printing I've found a couple of minutes in dektol will develop the paper to completion. The water temp varies between 15 and 25C depending on the timer of year.

 

[tj01]

I've been printing with all 3 solutions at room temperature. Room is however with AC at 24 Celcius. However, I've had sessions where it's ambient 33. And I think its more important to have all fresh solutions than temp control. However, this is all non scientific advise with no empirical evidence to back up. Just personal experience.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Not very.

Dev & fix are both to completion, though things can slow quite a lot below 65F/18C.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Tin]

For B/W printing, temperature control is not that important. You can compensate that with timing.

Question for you : Do you have a bathtub in the the smaller bathroom? If yes, then I can suggest to you what I used to do when I lived in an apartment. Just get a piece of plywood the width of the bathtub when it rests on the rim of the tub. Screw in strips of wood to act as stoppers so that your plywood piece would not slip of the bathtub rims. Then put the enlarger on top.

I simply put the development trays on the bottom of the other end of the bathtub. Just need to be careful---do not let your loose negatives or whatever drop into the trays. To be on the safe side, you can also screw in a strip of wood on the upper side of the plywood to rein in those loose pieces.

 

[sevo]

It is quite irrelevant for black and white, as the paper is developed to maximum contrast. You may get fogging and streaking issues or increased/reduced contrast with very hot or cold developer, but a range as wide as 18-40°C is generally safe and results only gradually suffer beyond that.

About the same goes for RA4, without which the "any fool at Walmart can do it" minilab would never have been possible. Older colour print processes and reversal printing needed more discipline, there you will have to match the specified times and temperatures quite precisely or you'll get significant colour casts.

 

[wgerrard]

Thanks all. The consensus seems to be I won't need to make special efforts to keep things cooled to a proper temperature. That's nice to know.

Tin: I may adopt your approach, but I've seen some heavy three-sided wooden fixtures that I believe should over the toilet and be big enough and strong enough to hold the enlarger. If not, there is very barely room for a more traditional stand for the enlarger if I remove a towel rack. You know the kind of shelves in your refrigerator? I'm think of using something like that over the tub for the trays, if I can find the right size. That would make handling runoff from the rinse and any spills much simpler.

 

[Haigh]

I usually develop paper for between 18-22 celsius. The important thing if you are in for a long darkroom session is to keep the developer temperature constant otherwise is is hard to nuance the print. This is especially so if you are printing to exhibit.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

Temperature is not critical but there are two other things to watch out for.
Don't let your fixer 'expire'. Change it or replenish it well within the stated amount of paper it will fix. You don't get any warning unless you use a test strip.
Also, make sure you thoroughly wash any fixer out of your prints. The colder the water the longer it takes.

I've also seen the 'box over the bidet' design - seems to work quite well for an enlarger, and I also used to put my trays on a sheet of coated MDF board positioned over the bath. But I put legs on the board to raise it to a good working height. Bending over the bath for too long will break your back!

 

[sepiareverb]

Agreed with the general feeling that you needn't worry. At 80F you might take some extra care in paper handling if you're printing on fiber papers- the emulsion will likely get more delicate at that temperature- but processes will work fine.