B&W Negative For Alternative-Processes.

[Keith Tapscott.]

I am planning to attend a workshop soon for Platinum and Palladium printing. I believe that negatives for this are usually developed to a higher than normal contrast.
Would a film developer such as D-19 instead of my usual D-76 work better with out any speed loss?
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/prof...lmProcessing/developerD19.jhtml?pq-path=14036
My film stock for this is FP4 Plus in 8x10 sheets.

 

[Vaughn]

Your choice of film is a good one...it expands in contrast nicely. You do want more than "normal" contrast. How much more development will depend on the amount of contrast already available in the scene. I prefer to make negatives that require no contrast agent when making pt/pd prints, so my negs tend to have lots of contrast.

D-19 will probably be over-kill if the scene already has a range of 5 or more stops in it. Developing in D-76 for 50% longer than "normal" might get you the neg you want. I am a trial and error sort of guy, so I would take two negs of a scene and process one at 50% longer, then see what it looks like to determine how to develop the second one.

Personally, I use UK's Terry King's suggestion of using Ilford PQ Universal Developer for FP4+. Does a very nice job for pt/pd. I use all sorts of dilutions/time combinations depending on the contrast in the scene and the target process for the image (more contrast needed/wanted for carbon than pt/pd). For pt/pd, an average scene might get the PD developer mixed 1:16 for 6 to 8 minutes at 20C, for example.

But what I like about pt/pd (and even more so with Carbon Printing) is the process's ability to reproduce the light values in scenes of very high contrast. So I tend to look for light that otherwise I would probably not use if I was making silver gelatin prints. Things like sunlight coming through the deep forest, etc.

For the below image (in carbon) I actually used the time for "normal" development as I measured 13 stops with the Pentax Digital Spot Meter. ..might have been a greater range as the meter read 0 up on the cave's roof (who knows how much below 0 it was) and the sunlight on the sand read 13. Sorry about the dusty print scan...

Vaughn

 

[Mike Wilde]

It could, but just experiment with extending good ole D76 times. Buy a transmission step wedge. They are necessary for calibrating your process, unless you want to throw a lot of stuff away and was a lot of time, and can be used to optically compare with on a light box to determine negative denisty without a densitometer.

Platinum and Palladuim, as far as I am aware, are contact processes. I am going to get there some day, but for now, I am learning with the much less expensive cyanotype process. I find it needs at least a delta log denisty of 1.8-2.0.

I take regularly developed for silver gelatin negs from my camera(s), with delta log density range of perhaps 1.2 (unless I screw up and accidentlally over-develop, which then become a part of my alt process "Betty" range of negs) ) , and then project them onto lith film, whch I then develop using a low cotrast developer to get a continuous tone positive.

I then contact dupe it using the enlarger as a light source onto another lith film exposed and then develop it to get an enlarged neg of the right delta log density. It is contacted with my coated paper in my UV exposer to get the alt process print. I have toyed with doing reversal processing of the first gen lith enlarged exposure to go straight to the neg, but have not got that far along with my experiments. Some day there will be kids that want nothing to do with me, or retirement and I can go at this whole hog. Until that time, I roll with the punches and nibble away at my hobbies and interests.

 

[sanking]

I am planning to attend a workshop soon for Platinum and Palladium printing. I believe that negatives for this are usually developed to a higher than normal contrast.
Would a film developer such as D-19 instead of my usual D-76 work better with out any speed loss?
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/prof...lmProcessing/developerD19.jhtml?pq-path=14036
My film stock for this is FP4 Plus in 8x10 sheets.

Keith,

You might want to contact the instructor of the workshop and find out what kind of mix of pt/pd will be used. The bottom line on this is that there is not specific ES for pt/pd. It is fairly short, i.e. 1.40 or even less, with a high percentage of platinum, and very long, i.e. 1.80 or more, with a high percentage of palladium. Control of contrast can be obtained with various methods but it is always best IMO to expose and develop for the native range, if I may call it that, of a process.

In general there is no reason you should switch from D76 if you know and understand this developer. Dick Arentz used this developer al lot for pt/pd printing.

Many people use pyro staining developers for printing with pt/pd. I have found this class of developer to be especially good for very low contrast scenes where a very high N+ type of development is needed.

Sandy King

 

[roy]

Are you required to take suitable negatives for the day Keith or will you make them there ? At Terry King's workshops we made them there, downrating FP4 and using PQ Universal for developing. We also shot a test negative to use for trying different developer timings. No doubt you will get the information you need from your instructor as I am sure he/she will have their own individual technique. Sandy is right.

 

[Allen Friday]

Dick Arentz lists the following times for FP4+ in D-76 1+0 to develop negatives for platinum in his book on platinum printing:

Normal development, subject brightness range of 7, effective film speed of 125, 8 minutes for a density range of 1.4, 12.5 minutes for a density range of 1.6 and 15 minutes for a density range of 1.8, tray development. For a SBR of 6, normal development, the times change to 13, 16, and 20 minutes, film speed of 125.

Source: Dick Arentz, "Platinum & Palladium Printing" (2nd Edition).

 

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Vaughn, great to see the sea cave image again. I held that one in my hands and it turned me into a carbon printer! I think if you know the developer that you use do as Vaughn suggests. Take a couple of images and develop them for different times and get a base for the process you are using for printing. I have been using Sandy's Pyrocat-HD for a while now and love it for my negatives on all types of film. Even my 11x14 x-ray film!

Jim

 

[Dana Sullivan]

Just to throw my 2 cents in. Howard Efner did some development testing, and we found that HP5 developed in D-19 was a very good combination for Platinum/Palladium.

The negatives printed just a little muddy in pure palladium, but with the addition of 1 drop of 5% and 1 drop of 2.5% Sodium Platinum (Na2), the images were absolutely stunning. We didn't test FP4, but I suspect the results would be similar.

 

[Vaughn]

Dana, all my packets of D-19 are too old to use, so I have not tested it with FP4+. It seems that HP5+ does not expand as readily as FP4+, so FP4+ in D-19 might have a tendency to get out of hand quickly. I'll put that test in my "one-of-these-days" file.

Vaughn

PS -- I have processed both HP5+ and FP4+ in Ilford PQ Universal developer and the results were remarkably different, much less expansion in the HP5+. If I were to use HP5+ again (especially for carbon printing), I'd be looking for some D-19, or making up some scratch.

 

[Keith Tapscott.]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I think I will stick with D-76 as I have used it for a long time. This is something I have never tried before and I found this when doing a web search, where the author uses ID-11.
http://www.alternativephotography.com/articles/art076.html

 

[doughowk]

If you have a good negative but the density range is marginal for pt/pd, you might try Selenium Intensification. I've increased the range by around 1.5 stops. If you will be using the Na2 process, then an increase in range will mean fewer drops of the expensive platinum compound used for contrast control.

 

[Vaughn]

I have even given a well-exposed negatives a light bleaching, wash and then Selenium intensification (reduces the shadows and then bumps up the highlights).