Ansco 130 experience

[dpurdy]

Following a previous thread where a lot of people claimed Ansco 130 is their favorite developer I gave it a try since I had some Glycin on hand. My Glycan is about a year old in the powder and has darkened to the color of light chocolate. When I mixed the liter of stock (original formula) and diluted it to 2 liters it was the color of watery root beer with all the ice melted in it.

I printed on Oriental WT FB VC. I was shocked with the first print at how relatively dark brownish the borders were. It looked like I had stained the print lightly in coffee. The tonality looked OK though and I kept working with it. I kind of like dark warm whites. I had a large portrait job to print so I ended up using the developer for 10 straight hours and processed about 50 8x10s in the same tray making sure to keep the temperature up around 70F.

I made a print on Kentmere neutral VC FB and it came out seemingly warm tone.

After giving the prints an archival wash and air drying them overnight I compared them to prints from the same paper from previous printing sessions. The whites still seem darker but they don't really seem stained anymore, rather like the paper has a darker warmer base. The Kentmere print has actually cold tones with only a slightly warmer base.

In your experience with Ansco 130 is the darkening of the paper actually due to staining? And does that change depending on the age of the Glycin? It is hard for me to imagine that so many people would speak in favor of the developer if it was staining the paper.

I actually like the look of the prints as they have nice contrast and depth and I like the extra warmth of the paper.

thanks Dennis

 

[jim appleyard]

I had this happen with some old glycin that a friend gave me (about 1 pound!) and it was the same color as yours. This won't happen with fresh glycin, but the brown/warm tint you describe has it's place. I found that I also had to boost the contrast of the print with the old glycin.

 

[Snapshot]

It is likely that your glycin is old. Fresh glycin is a light tan color and if it has darkened, it likely has lost its potency. Although glycin it doesn't last long as a powder, it apparently lasts a long time in solution, which is the opposite of most other dry chemicals. It's the only reason I don't use Ansco 130. I settled on Defender 56-D which is more conventional but still gives me really nice results.

 

[JBrunner]

I have never experienced this.

 

[removed account4]

i have only used white fresh glycin
and have never experieced this.

even when the developer is dark as black coffee
i process paper negatives in it and get great results ...

 

[dpurdy]

Looking again at the prints they definitely have more color in the whites though it is pretty light and not unpleasant. It makes the Oriental WT paper look more like an old style warm tone paper with creamy whites. the Glycin is not all that old.. maybe a two years and kept in a dark drawer and it has turned the color of light milk chocolate. Researching a bit I see that Wynn White refers to his slilghtly modified glycin formula as a staining developer. He told me he uses his till it is dark chocolate color.

I don't like the look of it on the Kentmere (Arista II). It just looks like the paper is out of date and the whites are slightly fogged. I process in dim red light with the paper turned face down and have no problem with light fog.

 

[PhotoJim]

Ansco 130 is a nice developer. The shelf life of the stock solutions is quite amazing. I used some nearly year-old stock this weekend and it worked extremely well. It had not appreciably darkened from how it looked when fresh.

The working solutions are long-lived, too - up to a few months.

I recommend that you buy some fresh glycin and mix up your stock solution all at once. It will keep. I seem to have a habit of buying 100 grams of glycin and mixing up 9 litres of stock every year and a half or so. (Each litre of stock requires 11 grams of glycin.)