Quote:
Originally Posted by JOReynolds
I don't bother with a stop bath - never have done. Acid fix stops development quickly and effectively, without staining. Its pH, easily measured with litmus paper, is a rough-and-ready way of assessing its effectiveness as a fix. This applies to both film, RC paper and fibre. I suspect that alkaline fix is absent from catalogues is because it has no particular purpose, so no-one buys it, so there's no point in stocking or advertising it.
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For fibre based paper, an acid stop bath can be useful in avoiding staining.
There have been alkaline fixers available mainly in the USA, but a fixer to be optimum doesn't need to be significantly alkaline. Close to neutral is fine. So C-41 fixer for colour negative processing is excellent. Mostly it's very slightly acid like Kodak Flexicolor (pH around 6.5). It used to be cheaper than mainstream "black and white" fixer but with the decline in colour film use and the collapse of Kodak it's harder to obtain. There's a Fuji version but the price advantage isn't there (at least here in Australia).
For what it's worth, neutral fixer smells a lot less which might be a good enough reason to use it.