What happens when a photo is set in a bath of fixer?

Although the 'stop' stops the print from developing, the print is still light-sensitive. Fixer makes the print permanent and prevents further degradation from light.What happens when a photo is set in a bath of fixer?
';Fixer'; is sodium thiosulfate in solution, usually with an acid hardener such as sulfuric acid. The thiosulfate dissolves the undeveloped silver salts, but leaves the silver metal behind in the negative or print. After the fixing bath the image can be viewed by normal white light.





Take care when fixing! Do the math on how much capacity a given volume of fixer (and developer, and stop bath) can process and try to come in a little below this amount. You'd be surprised at how few rolls or prints this is.





Poor fixation will show up years from now as the image deteriorates when it doesn't have to. I used to put a row of pennies on the shelf above my pans and push one back for each 8x10 I processed. When all were pushed back (or pulled forward) I tossed the pans and reloaded from stock. BW film developing was ALWAYS ';one-shot,'; where I tossed the developer at the end of each step. Decades later my negatives and prints all still look as if they were processed yesterday.





And don't be one of those photographers who just tosses ';some'; developer into the pan and shoots ';some'; water from the tap into it to make the working solution. I've seen many a photographer who did that, and all their work came out uneven and it took them forever to get a good print of anything. MY images came out right on the button each time because I carefully measured everything I did and used filtered or distilled (preferable) water to make my stock solutions. Once I was set up I took a fraction of the time they did. They never could figure out my ';secret,'; and even made fun of my fussing about it, thus proving that just because you're a photographer doesn't mean you're smart.