Alternative Developers - Coffee and all

nspatel · Feb 13, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
The original URLs posted by Titrisol of the work done at RIT refers to recent work.

This entire subject has been known about 100 years, and is reported on in the Haist Book, "Modern Photographic Processing" and has also been mentioned in Anchell and Troop.

PE

I checked out the original urls in the Titrisol's posts and it was everything that I had read before I started experimenting. I will have check out the Haist book though.

Basically what I was trying to do was utilize the coffee with develop times that were more reasonable. Adding the Ascorbic Acid and Phendione definately helped, but it makes me wonder if there is any merit to mixing develop agents that are not superadditive. I guess there are comercial developers do this to some extent. It seems like mixing a low contrast and a medium or high constrast developer would be beneficial but it is likely that the faster acting developer will dominate the reduction process. Especially if each of the develop agents respond differently to temperature.

Right now I am working on splitting out the developers into 2 baths to try to utilize the benefits of each(although at the cost of small develop times). One bath uses just coffee as the develop agent and the other just uses the ascorbic acid/phenidone combo with less alkali to make it less aggressive.
The idea is that the coffee will render the bulk of the image without the full density. The ascorbic acid/phenidone will just bring the density up in the darker areas to get more blacks. The limited work I have done so far seems to show this behavior but I don't think I have enough data yet.

Photo Engineer · Feb 14, 2006

nspatel said:
I checked out the original urls in the Titrisol's posts and it was everything that I had read before I started experimenting. I will have check out the Haist book though.

Basically what I was trying to do was utilize the coffee with develop times that were more reasonable. Adding the Ascorbic Acid and Phendione definately helped, but it makes me wonder if there is any merit to mixing develop agents that are not superadditive. I guess there are comercial developers do this to some extent. It seems like mixing a low contrast and a medium or high constrast developer would be beneficial but it is likely that the faster acting developer will dominate the reduction process. Especially if each of the develop agents respond differently to temperature.

Right now I am working on splitting out the developers into 2 baths to try to utilize the benefits of each(although at the cost of small develop times). One bath uses just coffee as the develop agent and the other just uses the ascorbic acid/phenidone combo with less alkali to make it less aggressive.
The idea is that the coffee will render the bulk of the image without the full density. The ascorbic acid/phenidone will just bring the density up in the darker areas to get more blacks. The limited work I have done so far seems to show this behavior but I don't think I have enough data yet.

When you mix developing agents and see a big boost in activity, you never know what went on. Was it a superadditive effect or was it just the new developing agent being more active.

When you add an auxiliary developing agent to one of the coffee based developers, often the auxiliary developing agent takes over as the primary developing agent and you don't realize it unless you do lots of check experiments.

This is a very chancy thing to do and claim this or that mixture works. It may be that you could get along with another mixture as well or better. I think that you are very wise to say you don't have enough data yet. Keep at it though, there is a lot to discover out there.

PE

nspatel · Feb 15, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
When you mix developing agents and see a big boost in activity, you never know what went on. Was it a superadditive effect or was it just the new developing agent being more active.

When you add an auxiliary developing agent to one of the coffee based developers, often the auxiliary developing agent takes over as the primary developing agent and you don't realize it unless you do lots of check experiments.

This is a very chancy thing to do and claim this or that mixture works. It may be that you could get along with another mixture as well or better. I think that you are very wise to say you don't have enough data yet. Keep at it though, there is a lot to discover out there.

PE

My bosses at work do a fine job at concluding things with too little data.

Would you know where I could could find good reading on superadditivity? My internet searches have not been so fruitful. I am looking for a semi-technical to technical explanation of what is going on.

Photo Engineer · Feb 15, 2006

nspatel said:
My bosses at work do a fine job at concluding things with too little data.

Would you know where I could could find good reading on superadditivity? My internet searches have not been so fruitful. I am looking for a semi-technical to technical explanation of what is going on.

I'll suggest two authors with good work on the subject.

Mees and James "Theory of the Photographic Process"

Haist "Modern Photographic Processes" (2 volumes)

I think I got them both right.

PE

nspatel · Feb 15, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
I'll suggest two authors with good work on the subject.

Mees and James "Theory of the Photographic Process"

Haist "Modern Photographic Processes" (2 volumes)

I think I got them both right.

PE

PE,

Thanks for the info. I apprieciate it. I noticed you are located in Rochester. Incidentally, I got my degree at R.I.T. Unfortunately, it was not in photography though.

-nsp

nspatel · Apr 10, 2006

New data

One thing I have noticed when experimenting with using coffee as a developer was that it did not work so well on Agfa MCP 312 RC. My original work was done on Ilford Multi-Grade Cool Tone Paper, which showed better image formation with just coffee. Both papers did develop good images once the ascorbic and phenidone were added.

I was reading another thread about using Tylenol and I saw a comment about newer papers(specifically Ilford Multigrade) including a develop agent in the emulsion.

I decided to test whether the image formation I was seeing was really the incorporated develop agents. I exposed a negative that I had worked with recently on both the Agfa MCP 312 and the Ilford Mulitgrade Cool Tone and developed for one minute in a strong alkali solution of Sodium and Potassium Hydroxide. Both papers showed an image, but the result on the Agfa paper was very faint, whereas the Ilford paper had a pretty strong image with no solid blacks and some fogging.I tried this again with just the Ilford paper after adding some coffee to the developer. The result was very similar but there was a very slight brown tone. This is similar to what I see with just accelerator and coffee.

This leads me to believe that the coffee isn't doing much at all, and the incorporated develop agent in conjunction with the ascorbic acid/phenidone combo is doing all the work. When I started my experimentation it was just as the Agfa paper was becoming unavailable, so I was in the process of switching to Ilford. I had noted a faster develop rate from the ascorbic acid/phenidone developer, but I think this was really due to the Ilford paper responding to the accelerator in the solution better than the Agfa paper.

The only thing that the coffee does seem to do is add some tone particularly if the paper is left in the developer for longer than 2 minutes, and at higher temperatures. Since Ilford Cool Tone paper needs the longer develop times to achieve deep blacks this works well to get cold whites with warmer greys. The only thing I still have to validate is whether the coffee is really helping to preserve the solution any.

-nsp

Donald Qualls · Apr 12, 2006

I can't talk about developing paper in coffee or acetaminophen-derived p-aminophenol developers since, with about 85% of a five gallon box of Dektol to use up, I'm staying orthodox with my prints, but *film* has no incorporated developing agents -- and I routinely develop films of a couple varieties in both Caffenol and Parodinal.

Fomapan 100, aka Arista.EDU Ultra 100, processes well in Caffenol, though it seems to give little stain; Tri-X 35 mm looks very grainy in a scan after Caffenol processing, but the stain image masks the grain and can produce 8x10 prints from 35 mm that show no visible grain. I haven't yet tried Classic 400, aka Fortepan, in Caffenol, but it works very well indeed in Parodinal (as does .EDU Ultra/Fomapan 100) -- for that matter, so does Tri-X, though I don't know that I'd want to put 35 mm Tri-X in Parodinal.

NONE of these good to excellent results can be due simply to the alkali reacting with "stuff" already in the film -- they can only result from actual developing agents in the developers.

FWIW, when I've read about coffee developer for paper, ISTM they talked about it being very slow (as it is with film); you might try a non-DI paper (like, say, Forte Elegance FB) with dev times allowed to run as high as ten minutes, to see what you get.

nspatel · Apr 25, 2006

Donald Qualls said:
I can't talk about developing paper in coffee or acetaminophen-derived p-aminophenol developers since, with about 85% of a five gallon box of Dektol to use up, I'm staying orthodox with my prints, but *film* has no incorporated developing agents -- and I routinely develop films of a couple varieties in both Caffenol and Parodinal.

Fomapan 100, aka Arista.EDU Ultra 100, processes well in Caffenol, though it seems to give little stain; Tri-X 35 mm looks very grainy in a scan after Caffenol processing, but the stain image masks the grain and can produce 8x10 prints from 35 mm that show no visible grain. I haven't yet tried Classic 400, aka Fortepan, in Caffenol, but it works very well indeed in Parodinal (as does .EDU Ultra/Fomapan 100) -- for that matter, so does Tri-X, though I don't know that I'd want to put 35 mm Tri-X in Parodinal.

NONE of these good to excellent results can be due simply to the alkali reacting with "stuff" already in the film -- they can only result from actual developing agents in the developers.

FWIW, when I've read about coffee developer for paper, ISTM they talked about it being very slow (as it is with film); you might try a non-DI paper (like, say, Forte Elegance FB) with dev times allowed to run as high as ten minutes, to see what you get.

For film what kind of develop times are required with caffenol?

Donald Qualls · Apr 25, 2006

nspatel said:
For film what kind of develop times are required with caffenol?

For Plus-X, about 25 minutes, for Tri-X and Fomapan 100, about 30 minutes -- this is at 68-70 F, with agitation ten seconds out of each minute.

You can cut this by more than half by adding 1/4 g of ascorbic acid and an additional 1/2 tsp washing soda to each 8 ounces of developer; the resulting Caffenol C gets the job done in about 12 minutes, but gives effectively no stain; my suspicion is that the vitamin C is doing effectively all the work at this strength.

Gerald Koch · Apr 26, 2006

Donald Qualls said:
the resulting Caffenol C gets the job done in about 12 minutes, but gives effectively no stain; my suspicion is that the vitamin C is doing effectively all the work at this strength.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Remember ascorbic acid is also an antioxidant like sodium sulfite. Addition of sufficient sulfite to a staining developer will also prevent the stain from forming.

titrisol · Apr 26, 2006

That is something I didn;t know!
The stain with Caffenol C is much lighter than without C.
But also the shadow details gets a nice boost with C

Donald Qualls · Apr 26, 2006

Gerald Koch said:
Maybe yes, maybe no. Remember ascorbic acid is also an antioxidant like sodium sulfite. Addition of sufficient sulfite to a staining developer will also prevent the stain from forming.

True, but adding a bunch of sulfite to Caffenol won't speed it up by more than a factor of two; the only way to be reasonably sure would be to make the same developer (to the same pH, which would require slightly less carbonate) without the coffee (and another without the ascorbate) and see what it does. It'd be a pretty darned simple developer, just ascorbic acid and sodium carbonate in water; don't expect it to last, but it should be easy enough to mix it on the spot since both ingredients are very soluble at these concentrations.

Hmmm. I might have to try that, if I can find a way to test the pH (pool test kits won't handle the level of alkalinity for developers, I don't think, and pH papers are relatively expensive for the limited use I'd get from them). It'd settle for me, once and for all, whether it's superadditivity, plain additivity, or just the ascorbate taking over the whole job.

Oh, hell -- I'd need a densitometer, too, to measure and control the contrast and evaluate the densities, unless I could calibrate and control my scanner to do that job.

nspatel · Apr 27, 2006

Gerald Koch said:
Maybe yes, maybe no. Remember ascorbic acid is also an antioxidant like sodium sulfite. Addition of sufficient sulfite to a staining developer will also prevent the stain from forming.

I didn't realize that antioxidants will curb staining. I thought that the reduced stain after adding ascorbic acid was simply because the total develop time was less. This makes a little more sense. For paper I have tried a 2 bath approach. The first was a caffenol and the second was a low pH ascorbic acid/phenidone bath. After developing for 3-4 min in each bath I got prints with a lot of brown tone. Way more than if I develop a print for 3-4 minutes in a Caffenol/Vit C developer.

Donald Qualls · Apr 29, 2006

nspatel said:
I didn't realize that antioxidants will curb staining. I thought that the reduced stain after adding ascorbic acid was simply because the total develop time was less.

I'm inclined to think both are involved in this; I still get mild stain with shorter develop times and much weaker solution in Caffenol LC (for pictorial contrast on microfilms), but I see nothing I can identify as stain, even with a color scan and examination of the color channels (closest thing I have to a color densitometer), when using Caffenol C or Caffenol LC+C.

Also, I've heard several opinions that too much sulfite will reduce staining in pyro and pyrocat developers; also that hydroquinone is a staining developer in the absence of a preservative like sulfite or ascorbate (you can make a very, very simple staining developer with nothing more than hydroquinone and sodium carbonate).

Gerald Koch · May 1, 2006

Color negative developers are similar to staining developers in that too much sulfite prevents the formation of an image. Some sulfite must be in the developer in order for it to keep. However, the sulfite content must be keep low, 4 to 6 grams per liter in order achieve sufficient density. A similar low concentration of sulfite is required for pyro developers.

titrisol · May 1, 2006

Ascorbate with carbonate to pH about 10 does indeed develop
I just tried it with a piece of film leader and it turned it black in about 2 minutes (Ilford Fp4)

jsouther · Aug 24, 2006

Help Titrisol!!

I followed the recipe for Caffenol for 500ml as follows:

500 ml of water (for 120)
1 gram Vitamin C
4 teaspoons washing soda
8 teaspoons instant coffee

I mixed the Vitamin C first till completely dissolved (@ 75 degrees), then baking soda till completely dissolved, then coffee till dissolved.

And tried to develop 2 rolls of 35mm. It was fomapan 100 exposed at asa 64. Agitation 5 sec. (gentle) every minute. Total dev time 30 minutes at 75 deg.

I got the absolute faintest, barely there negs. The film leader was a pale grey.

Any suggestions what I did wrong? Too many rolls? Temp to hot?

kwmullet · Aug 24, 2006

jsouther said:
[...]
4 teaspoons washing soda
8 teaspoons instant coffee

I mixed the Vitamin C first till completely dissolved (@ 75 degrees), then baking soda till completely dissolved, then coffee till dissolved.
[...]

Did you mean to say baking soda above? Washing soda and baking soda are two different things.

jsouther · Aug 24, 2006

There you have it. I'm a moron.

I'm not sure now why I was thinking they were the same. How embarrassing...

Thanks for setting it straight for me kwmullet.

I'll go shrivel up and hide in the corner now

kwmullet · Aug 24, 2006

Your experiment didn't fail, though. You haven't lost a session with Caffenol, you've invented Caffenol-Minus! The alternate developer for N-4 development!

jsouther · Aug 24, 2006

Yes indeed! I guess I was just really anxious to try this out and got confused.

And to think I just spent a chunk of change on bulk chemicals and a scale, etc... I really need to pay better attention!

Thanks for making me feel better, though I confess my face is still beet red!

Claire Senft · Aug 24, 2006

I want the ultimate in a wide variety of developing agents. Here is my formula that I hope to test.

16 ounces of orange juice
4 tablespoons of regular coffee
5 ounces of bacon fat
1 egg
top of to 1 liter with 98.6ºF pee.

Strain thru 4 slices toast..unbuttered

heat to 216ºF for 1/2 hour.

Find a new place to live.

Steve Smith · Aug 25, 2006

I have just tried the 8 oz water, 2 tsp soda and 4 tsp coffee recipe to develop a roll of FP4+ and it worked!

I was expecting fairly light, brown stained images but I actually got decent dark grey images. Even the first half of the roll where some idiot (me) had left the camera set to 400 ASA would just about be printable.

I might try to print some tonight.

Steve.

alinCiortea · Mar 29, 2009

Donald Qualls said:
for Tri-X and Fomapan 100, about 30 minutes -- this is at 68-70 F, with agitation ten seconds out of each minute.

I've only used one inversion per minute and might have missed a couple. The negative is very very thin... I hope I can scan it though. I guess it's either the agitation, or the my cheap coffee was too cheap for this purpose
I'm considering an extra tsp. of coffee next time for the same agitation pattern.

LE> oh, wait. dumbass me... i've increased the water to 12oz but added the rest as for 8oz :|

alinCiortea · Mar 29, 2009

it did scan

Alternative Developers - Coffee and all

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