Red River Pro Luster 4.0 turning yellow!

[Thenolands]

What is the most common reason for this?

I know RR is not the highest end paper but we store it in its original box and put the roll back after printing. After about 2 weeks since printing, I can tell the white border is not as white as another print on the same paper. Is it light getting to it? Sitting in room with shades drawn lit by a combination of LEDs and halogen bulbs. Any ideas on how to prevent this?

Is this paper known to be that sensitive to ambient room light? Is more UV coming through the glass windows and through the shades than I am thinking is possible?

[Pat Herold]

If you're talking about RR Ultra Pro Luster, it does have optical brightener (OBA's) in it - and it is possible that it could be reduced in brightness over time.   But two weeks seems way too short of time for this to be likely!

Do a little detective work.   Was this earlier print the first one off the roll and therefore exposed to the elements compared to the inner portions of the roll that you're printing now?  Are you sure the lightness of the border is not an optical illusion based on the subject matter of the prints?  (You could mask out everything but the actual white of the paper border to test this.)   You can try another test with another snip of the same paper... and you'll have the results in two weeks.

[Thenolands]

Thanks for the reply!

It was definitely not the beginning of the roll. Seeing as how the roll stores is perfectly fine but the prints start to fade rather quickly after printing and being exposed I can only assume it is the light that is doing the yellowing.

Question: is it the OBA content that interacts with light and causes the issue? Therefore the solution being to find a paper with no OBAs?

If so, anyone have good recommendations on a cost efficient 44” roll paper with a luster type finish that has no OBAs?

Any other insights welcomed!

[John Nollendorfs]

I've been happy with HPs everyday satin, available at B&H at a reasonable price. It's a bit lighter in weight, but prints well. I have prints dating back 10 years still looking good.

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

[mearussi]

Thanks for the reply!

It was definitely not the beginning of the roll. Seeing as how the roll stores is perfectly fine but the prints start to fade rather quickly after printing and being exposed I can only assume it is the light that is doing the yellowing.

Question: is it the OBA content that interacts with light and causes the issue? Therefore the solution being to find a paper with no OBAs?

If so, anyone have good recommendations on a cost efficient 44” roll paper with a luster type finish that has no OBAs?

Any other insights welcomed!

OBAs fade but usually not that fast (unless they're very poor quality). I would run a test where you cover 1/2 of a sheet to block the light and leave the other half uncovered exposed to light. If you are having a sensitivity to light you should find out soon enough with this test method.

ASFAIK all cheap RC luster papers have OBAs. Here's a fine art pearl with no OBAs, but it's probably more expensive than RR:
https://www.hahnemuehle.com/en/digital-fineart/fineart-media/glossy-fineart/p/Product/show/5/22.html

[Ernst Dinkla]

Thanks for the reply!

It was definitely not the beginning of the roll. Seeing as how the roll stores is perfectly fine but the prints start to fade rather quickly after printing and being exposed I can only assume it is the light that is doing the yellowing.

Question: is it the OBA content that interacts with light and causes the issue? Therefore the solution being to find a paper with no OBAs?

If so, anyone have good recommendations on a cost efficient 44” roll paper with a luster type finish that has no OBAs?

Any other insights welcomed!

Very few RC papers are without OBA content and you will probably find the paper white too warm of the ones that are without OBAs.  OBAs degrade on UV, visible light and gas fading (oxygen, ozon, etc) depending on the OBA chemistry and where the OBA is used. At the top of the inkjet coating or more within, in the white resin/polyethylene barrier between the inkjet coating and the paper base or in the paper base. It can be present in all the components.  The packaging can have the wrong emissions of gas, yellow discoloring beneath the tape applied on the packing paper around a roll is not uncommon. Any laser printers near the piece that yellowed? Then there is the more exotic discoloring of an RC print first exposed and then stored in darkness, the print getting darker and more or less returning to its original white after a higher dose of light.

Read the articles on OBAs at Aardenburg Imaging, this is one example; http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/optical-brighteners-obas/
Check the tests of RC papers there and especially what happens with the paper whites.

For RC papers and their OBA content check SpectrumViz at my site.

Distributors tend to switch their source of RC papers more than the source of other papers and RR probably is a chaser of the best deals in the wholesale market. RC papers are seen as commodities within certain standards but the underlying chemistry may vary and by that be more unpredictable on their longevity. That makes the SpectrumViz and the Aardenburg tests of RC papers also a bit uncertain, the more for smaller distributors that easily sell a new quality with the old name.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Simon J.A. Simpson]

I had a similar problem with A4 sheets of Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss which had been repackaged by my local photographic society in standard office stationery C4 envelopes (having been bought in bulk).

The edges of the paper went yellow.

Long story short it turned-out that it was something in the paper of the envelopes which was causing the yellowing (after only a few months in storage).

Could it be something in the packaging of the RR paper that is causing this ?

[Alan Goldhammer]

Could it be something in the packaging of the RR paper that is causing this ?

Since we are discussing rolls here, it would be surprising if even inferior packaging would cause degradation in a print form the middle of the roll as what ever chemicals in the packaging would have to penetrate through a number of layers (and remember these types of papers are coated which would be another barrier to penetration as long as the roll was intact.

The likelier explanations are the ones already stated above.  I don't know how their current stock are performing but I've had some prints made on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk hanging in an office environment for 12 years now that still look good.  When I went back to take some light measurements last summer and check them, I could not see any apparent discoloration or fading.  According to Ernst's spectral data, the Ilford paper has modest amounts of OBAs.

[ned]

Call them. They are nice people.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Thenolands]

Those that have stated you have prints up for 10+ years with no apparent degradation, are there plain white paper areas with no ink applied? I cannot tell any yellowing in areas where ink has been applied on my prints -only for areas not covered by ink. Also, are they hanging in a frame with glass or other protective coatings. Honestly, I have not been very careful with protecting them after printing but generally they have just been stacked on a laminate desk on top of other prints of the same paper.

Just in case this detail piques anyone’s interest, my house is basically a glass box (glass curtain walls) but has 6 foot overhangs over all the windows so there is no direct light ever entering the house but I suppose a lot of indirect light compared to say a more tradition house with one 3’x5’ window in a room. Do you think I could be getting a super high dose of light (UV?) in comparison to a “normal” indoor ambient exposure?

Another item I thought of is that I have had this roll for about 2.5 years so although it has been stored in its box it is not a new roll and has therefore been exposed to light while printing and then stored again, etc. for 2.5 years.

Keep the paper recommendations coming as I am getting to the end of this roll anyway and likely will not be reordering this RR paper to try to remove that variable of the problem.

[MHMG]

I recently received sample packs containing nearly all the latest Red River papers. I do not see one called Pro luster 4.0, but I do have one called Pro Satin 4.0 and another called Pro Luster 300.  Both of these RC papers have very high OBA content (UV included-UV excluded M0 ∆b* reading > 5.0).

When RC inkjet media have this much OBA content, it is typically located in all three functional layers (the base paper sheet, the PE/TiO2 layer, and the ink receptor layer which is the very top surface. When OBAs are located in the microporous ink receptor layer, they are highly susceptible to ozone-induced fading that can occur in a very short time frame (see page 9 of the following article for an example of ozone induced fading: Case Study #2 A Year in the Life of an Inkjet Print – Environmental, Colorimetric, and Visual Assessments

It wasn't clear to me whether you had placed your finished prints back in a box, or whether they were lying open or at least some edges exposed to ambient room air flow. If ambient room air flow is the case, then ozone is the most likely explanation for the rapid yellowing. Electric motors in appliances like dehumidifiers, refrigerators, etc, and various other electric appliances like laser printers can be an indoor source of ozone emissions. Any fans or forced-air ventilation in the room will increase the air circulation over the print surface, and thus speed up the ozone penetration into the microporous coatings.

Light and UV exposure can be ruled out because the time was too short. Even if you'd placed the prints near a south facing window or under a skylight, two weeks of relatively direct sunlight streaming through glass windows still wouldn't have produced a large enough accumulated UV/vis light exposure to cause noticeable OBA burnout. 

On the other hand, if you had placed the prints in their original box, the box would protect them both light and ozone. The box surfaces tend to quench the ozone because ozone reacts quickly with just about every surface it comes in contact with. Hence, if the prints were protected from the light and ozone, then another likely explanation is that various packaging contaminants can easily induce yellowing of inkjet media. Yes, sad to say, but as proof of principle, I'm now able to easily induce phenolic yellowing in my lab on many inkjet media, whereas phenolic yellowing has never been documented with traditional photographic print papers because they don't contain the typically alkaline microporous coatings that facilitate the reaction. Phenolic yellowing requires some NOx exposure (mostly unavoidable in modern suburban areas) plus a migrating phenol component like BHT (a common anti-oxidant added to many plastic bags) and an alkaline pH environment. Phenols can also form with lignin degradation which can occur with cardboard products typically used in "non archival" boxes, but the lignin degradation reaction would probably proceed at a much slower than your two week time frame, so the culprit is more likely some contaminant like plastic packaging containing BHT if the prints are being stored in a closed box. The phenolic yellowing reaction products are quinone compounds that impart the yellow color. They are also metastable and can be light-bleached to a colorless form in just a few hours of direct sunlight, but may return over time as more of the initial reaction takes place in the paper. You can do a quick test by exposing your yellowed paper to sunlight for a few hours. If the yellowing is reduced or eliminated it's a phenolic yellowing issue. If the yellowing remains it's most likely ozone induced fading of the OBAs.

All that said, knowing the very high OBA content in these two RR papers noted above, my bet is on ozone attack as your most likely culprit in your particular situation.

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[John Nollendorfs]

Those that have stated you have prints up for 10+ years with no apparent degradation, are there plain white paper areas with no ink applied? I cannot tell any yellowing in areas where ink has been applied on my prints -only for areas not covered by ink. Also, are they hanging in a frame with glass or other protective coatings. Honestly, I have not been very careful with protecting them after printing but generally they have just been stacked on a laminate desk on top of other prints of the same paper.

Yes, the prints I have are stored in a similar manner  to yours, also hung up and displayed on walls with average interior lighting. No discolorization in white areas (usually 1.5-2" white boarders). https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/745019-REG/HP_Hewlett_Packard_Q8920A_Everyday_Pigment_Ink_Satin.html?sts=pi

[John Nollendorfs]

I recently received sample packs containing nearly all the latest Red River papers. I do not see one called Pro luster 4.0, but I do have one called Pro Satin 4.0 and another called Pro Luster 300.  Both of these RC papers have very high OBA content (UV included-UV excluded M0 ∆b* reading > 5.0).


All that said, knowing the very high OBA content in these two RR papers noted above, my bet is on ozone attack as your most likely culprit in your particular situation.

kind regards,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

I would have to agree with Mark's assessment. Many years back, Epson had a similar problem with dye-based prints on micro-porous paper. It was called the "orange fade" problem, and occured when a print was left exposed to Ozone rich environments in as little as a week's time. Wilhelm had tested the ink/paper combo and it should have had a pretty good life from a fading perspective. This precipitated new protocols for testing of inkjet prints.

[Thenolands]

Wow! Can not believe the wealth of info, Mark! Thanks so much. Sounds like a combination of a paper with much lower OBAs as well as dealing with prints faster after printing (storing/framing/spray coating/etc) will be my solution.

[Thenolands]

Also, although any ink would obscure the yellow from being as noticeable I imagine the ink provides some protection from the ozone and thus have only noticed the yellowing on non ink coated areas.

[Richard.Wills]

Has anything in the local environment been painted in the last month - I've known of prints yellowing from the out gassing of eco prints (on both occasions, zero / low OBA rag materials). The cure was to expose them to sunlight for an hour...

[MHMG]

Wow! Can not believe the wealth of info, Mark! Thanks so much. Sounds like a combination of a paper with much lower OBAs as well as dealing with prints faster after printing (storing/framing/spray coating/etc) will be my solution.

RC photo media are particularly problematic. I've been looking at the OBA burnout and light-induced post exposure yellowing issue for that last few years, but haven't published much on it as of yet. It's a complex issue, but I"m convinced the manufacturers can give us much better options than we have available today. With OEM pigmented ink quality as good as it is today, media yellowing issues are the next battleground for print permanence!

Many RC media have OBAs in all the layers, but some confine the OBA to the PE/TiO2, and paper base layers.There a only a few that keep OBAs out of all the coating layers. I haven' seen any that keep it out of the paper core as well.  Note: there is also typically an anti curl layer on the back of the paper as well and it often has OBAs, but we can largely ignore this layer since it doesn't contribute anything to the whiteness of the front surface.

RC media yellowing problems from worst to best follows this general hierarchy:

Worst - High OBA content in all layers contributing to both OBA burnout from both light and gas fading as well as serious light-induced post exposure yellowing that makes these RC media unsuitable for "archival pigment prints".

Problematic: moderate and low OBA papers with OBA in PE/TiO2 but not in top microporous (ink receptor) layers(s); Better on OBA fade resistance but still exhibiting light-induced post exposure yellowing that limits their useful life especially when using high stability pigments. The media yellowing will much appear sooner than any pigment fading. Again, unsuitable for "archival fine art printing".

Best: No OBAS in either the microporous coatings or in the PE/TiO2, but will still be in the paper core (again, I've never seen a fully OBA-free RC photo paper since the paper roll supplied by the mill to the coater is a volume driven market and one that inevitably has OBAs already in the paper). Yet by eliminating the OBAs in the PE/TiO2 layer as well as the top ink receptor coatings, OBA burnout and light-induced post exposure yellowing is fully or almost fully eliminated. It's as good as it gets for RC media yellowing resistance, and the only configuration that is arguably suited well for pigmented inkjet printing when good print longevity is required.

Unfortunately, very few RC media today have this "Best" OBA configuration. It's an unrecognized market for fine art printers because the vendors believe everybody loves that ultra bright white look created by heavy use of OBAs.  Moreover, the few RC papers that do fall into this best category are also not usually considered premium papers due do lesser paper base thickness and/or surface finishes more geared to graphic arts rather than the photographic market. That said, I am now slowly trying to identify RC media which fit into this Best category.  Epson Proofing Paper White Semimatte is one, but it has a semi matte finish that many photographers may not like. I actually do like it except it's a bit on the thin side (7 mil).

Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (PP-301, not the older PP-201) is the most unique RC paper I have identified in this Best category to date. A true RC Photo paper with proper thickness, ie., good feel in hand, and a cool white appearance (b*= -3 measured under M0 condition that surprisingly remains b* = -2 when using M2 uv-excluded illuminant condition. That's unique because it suggests there is probably some bluish tinting pigment in the coatings to keep the paper more cool white in appearance without resorting to higher OBA content. I haven't put this paper into light fade testing yet, but my bet is that it's going to perform very well compared to most other RC media. Regrettably, Canon Pro Luster and Canon Pro Satin do not share the same material construction as the Canon Paper Plus Glossy II. They do have low OBA fluorescence which is a good thing, but nevertheless appear to also have some OBA concentration in the PE/TiO2 layer which means they have the light-induced post exposure yellowing problems of most other RC media.

Other promising RC papers that may likely fall into the best category are HP Everyday Instant-Dry Satin Photo Paper and HP Everyday Instant-Dry Gloss Photo Paper. Also, HP Premium Instant-dry Satin Photo and Premium Instant-dry Gloss. All are in roll format only. HP may have cut sheet versions, but HP's naming conventions have a lot of sound-alike names, and that's problematic because HP RC photo media run the whole gamut in OBA content. The subtle name differences can easy confuse.  I haven't cross-sectioned these media yet to make sure, but my preliminary UV LED examination does show they are likely to fit into the best category.   My advice would be to order an HP Large Format Graphic and Technical Printing Materials Swatchbook, and shine a UV LED light on them to see just how little these ones glow at the front surface compared to other ones in the swatchbook!

My take on all of the current state of RC media material science is that until folks start complaining more about the yellowing issues, the vendors will have no incentive to introduce more long lasting RC products. However, I do think there's an opportunity for the media vendors to introduce some premium RC "natural white" media designed without OBAs and for specific use with high stability pigmented ink sets.  As it stands now, we should consider most RC media as having only modest overall longevity, i.e., stability that was well matched to early dye-based color prints (the dyes faded noticeably before the media yellowed), but the vast majority of today's RC inkjet media fall significantly short when printmakers pair them with long-lasting pigmented ink sets. The media yellowing becomes the weak link.


cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
 

[MHMG]

Has anything in the local environment been painted in the last month - I've known of prints yellowing from the out gassing of eco prints (on both occasions, zero / low OBA rag materials). The cure was to expose them to sunlight for an hour...

Yes, various volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in drying paints as well as found in certain adhesive tapes, and even some dry mount tissues deemed safe for mounting traditional photographs can all produce variants of the phenolic yellowing problem with respect to inkjet media  The sunlight exposure does convert these very unstable yellow reaction products into a colorless state rather quickly thus not affecting the image forming colorants too much during the necessary exposure.

Light bleaching is therefore perhaps a satisfactory fix for an unintended one-time exposure to offending VOCs, but not so good for inkjet prints dry mounted with an offending dry mount tissue or stored in plastic bags containing hindered phenol antioxidants like BHT since the unwanted reactants will continue to be present even after a successful light-bleaching step temporarily reduces the yellowing.

kind regards,
Mark

[Thenolands]

No painting or other cause of large VOC release had occurred that I can think of. The room does have central ac/heat and there subject to the increased airflow issues previously mentioned. I think this paper with its extremely high OBA content is just really susceptible and perhaps RR’s normal clientele are not a picky as me, use up the paper and ship it to clients quickly, etc. that being said, they say it is their number 1 seller so I am surprised that it hasn’t been a big enough issue for them to investigate changes to the paper.

[Thenolands]

Those HP papers mentioned sound promising! I print on a Canon IPF8400 so using another major manufacturer is not ideal as I would have to get a custom profile made but it’s probably ideal to have a custom profile regardless.