Kodak (Mexico?) Inkjet Paper Deterioration

[invisibleflash]

 

 

 

Kodak (Mexico?) Inkjet Paper Deterioration

See yellowing edge of paper compared to white paper. The entire sheet of Kodak paper has yellow blotchiness. The edge is the easiest way to see the yellowing in a photo. If you have a laptop or unbalanced monitor, you may not be able to see the yellowing. This was Kodak's cheapest paper at the time. From what I recall, the paper was made in Mexico.

 

Paper shown here is 10 years old, stored under normal household conditions. It started to show yellowing about 3 to 4 years ago. All of the rest of this Kodak paper shows the same yellowing. It is hard to get a good photo or scan of the yellowing, but it is easily detected by looking at it under 5,000k lighting.

 

A couple of other major photo paper makers also suffered from yellowing of their cheapest brand of inkjet paper. I didn't record the maker's names. I didn't purchase this paper to print on. I didn't purchase this paper to do archival testing. All these papers were purchased to use as interleaf while printing artist books with an inkjet printer.

 

Unless interleaf was used while printing, the pages would transfer freshly printed ink to the page stacked on it. This was a big problem when using matte black ink, but not a problem with gloss black ink. RC gloss or RC semi-gloss inkjet paper worked best as interleaf as it did not accept any ink transference on the RC coated verso of the paper.

Edited August 27, 2022 by invisibleflash

[digitaldog]

Maybe OBAs which you can check if you have a blacklight flashlight to shine on it. OBAs=bad.

[paddler4]

Does the yellowing show up on the uncoated side as well? It's not uncommon for paper that's not acid free to yellow with age.

[paddler4]

PS: OBAs can of course lead to yellowing when they deteriorate, but I have used high-OBA papers for non-archival work for a long time, and I don't think I've ever seen visible deterioration in as little as 10 years. Not to say it can't happen--that's beyond my expertise--but I haven't experienced it personally.