Changing paper contrast through developer

[Melvin J Bramley]

Flic Film Phenatol Green paper developer is said to change contrast of paper by increasing or decreasing dilution!​

If true this could be of use when printing on single contrast papers such as my stock of Ilford Gallerie.
Has anyone had experience with this product?

 

[Paul Howell]

Not with this product, but I have used Dr. Beer's VC developer, it is a 2 part stock for woking by mixing various combs of part a with part b I was able to adjust contrast by a grade, maybe a grade and a half.

Here is a link to PF version.

Dr. Beer's Paper Developer

Developer Dr. Beer's Paper Photography Chemistry

stores.photoformulary.com

 

[GregY]

MB, before the advent of VC paper, we used to use two trays of developer: Dektol & Selectol Soft. You'd tweak the grade by how much time was used in each. Galerie is such a wonderful paper. I'd bet you could use a combo of developers to get the results you want

 

[mshchem]

There's a lot of old formulas for doing this. Edwal, Agfa etc. Photographer's Formulary has all kinds of potions.

 

[chuckroast]

You absolutely can control paper contrast in a variety of ways:

1. Changing developer dilution
2. Changing development time
3. Using a different paper developer
4. Preflashing the paper
5. Using a highlight restrainer like benzotriazole or Potassium Bromide
6. Adding a slight amount of alkali to increase developer activity

Most of these techniques were born in the days of graded papers when you wanted to tune a print to give you an "in between" contrast grade.

Mostly, with modern VC papers, these are not as necessary as they once were,. One exception would be the use of highlight restrainers to calm the fog down on old, out of date papers.

N.B. You cannot correct or balance what is not in the negative. No paper contrast adjustment can correct for a very thin, underexposed negative that has no shadow detail, for example.

 

[MattKing]

The challenge with this is that many of the modern papers are engineered to resist this result.
One of the design criteria that tends to be optimized for now is consistent results with a relatively wide variety of developers and dilutions. The papers of yore were very flexible as to all sorts of behaviors, including contrast behavior and image tone, but the downside of that was that it tended to be more difficult to obtain the same results from different labs, different acidity levels, different developers - all sorts of other variables.
The modern stuff tends toward more reliable "sameness".

 

[Don_ih]

In my experience, other than via pre-flashing or using additional restrainer, whatever developer you use for new MG papers has almost no impact on the final contrast, if you develop to completion. Potassium bromide can warm the tone of the image and can reduce or increase contrast, depending how much you use and whether or not you add sodium carbonate. Benzotriazole will cool the image tone and generally increase contrast since it restrains highlight values to a great extent. Benzo also slows paper development overall - much more than bromide does.

 

[chuckroast]

The challenge with this is that many of the modern papers are engineered to resist this result.
One of the design criteria that tends to be optimized for now is consistent results with a relatively wide variety of developers and dilutions. The papers of yore were very flexible as to all sorts of behaviors, including contrast behavior and image tone, but the downside of that was that it tended to be more difficult to obtain the same results from different labs, different acidity levels, different developers - all sorts of other variables.
The modern stuff tends toward more reliable "sameness".

What do you mean when you say they "resist this result"?

I have definitely changed VC paper contrast with more- or less dilution and more- or less development time, within reason.

As I noted in Post #6, most of the techniques in question made more sense with graded papers, so I do generally agree with you. Properly exposed negatives should be able to have the contrast handled pretty well entirely with VC filtration changes and split VC printing.

 

[Paul Howell]

OP is clear that he is asking about single grade papers.

 

[MattKing]

What do you mean when you say they "resist this result"?

If you had a procedure that worked in the past with older papers, you will find that applying the same procedure to many more modern papers will result in much less change.

 

[chuckroast]

If you had a procedure that worked in the past with older papers, you will find that applying the same procedure to many more modern papers will result in much less change.

Interesting. I've never done much more than increase developer time to get a slight bump in blacks. Haven't used Benzotriazole or KBr in years.

I would imagine that preflashing still has application with VC papers. I try hard to make negs that don't need it.

I suspect (but have not tried) that cranking up developer temp might also still work, but the affect on color/tone is unclear.

 

[Don_ih]

Phenatol Green

If it's a phenidone developer (as implied by the name), it most likely has benzotriazole as a restrainer. Greater dilution of the developer will have the immediate impact of greatly diluting the restrainer. Contrast should decrease with greater dilution, no matter what paper.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

See the thread on split development here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/split-development.202549/#post-2735414

Many good printers who work(ed) with graded papers used a combination of hard- and soft-working developers to achieve intermediate contrast on graded papers (e.g., Dektol and Selectol Soft). The technique works well on Galerie.

Other techniques include adding sodium carbonate and potassium bromide (or benzotriazole) to your developer either separately or together. I think The Darkroom Cookbook has a detailed explanation of this.

There are also very high-contrast developers that can be used in a pinch to eke out a bit more contrast from a single graded paper.

Bleaching the final print, either generally or locally can increase the impression of contrast by bleaching light areas up. It's not really changing contrast from the developer. Nor is flashing the print, which can be gratifying at times.

Also, selenium toning the negative is a fairly easy and foolproof method to get about a Zone (a bit less, usually) more contrast on the negative. If you really need to increase contrast in the negative, then bleach-redevelopment will give more contrast boost.

And, since we do have good VC papers these days, just reserve your stash of Galerie for negatives that fit it well.

Doremus

 

[MarkS]

My older edition of the Darkroom Cookbook lists a higher-contrast paper developer; I've never tried it.
Photographer's Formulary offers at least two different low-contrast paper developers. Last year I used some of their Ansco 120 equivalent; it helped me make good prints from several very contrasty negatives.
One more thing- I've found that Foma VC-FB paper is lower in contrast than Ilford MG Classic. So that's how I'll print my contrasty negatives now.

 

[Xylo]

I know I read that they old-time photographers would keep a small cup of warm Dektol and a cotton ball next to their developing tray. When they wanted to locally increase contrast they would apply some warm Dektol to selected areas with the cotton ball.

 

[MattKing]

I know I read that they old-time photographers would keep a small cup of warm Dektol and a cotton ball next to their developing tray. When they wanted to locally increase contrast they would apply some warm Dektol to selected areas with the cotton ball.

We used to do that not to increase contrast, but instead to increase density on a localized basis - usually with a press deadline hanging over us, and the copy runner waiting impatiently to rush the print down to the editors

 

[Xylo]

We used to do that not to increase contrast, but instead to increase density on a localized basis - usually with a press deadline hanging over us, and the copy runner waiting impatiently to rush the print down to the editors

There were a lot of tricks used in the old days to speed things up.
I know that at La Presse in Montreal, the printers had dimmers fitted to their enlargers to keep the printing times even and they would just eyeball the density of the negatives so that they all looked equal on the baseboard.

 

[MattKing]

There were a lot of tricks used in the old days to speed things up.
I know that at La Presse in Montreal, the printers had dimmers fitted to their enlargers to keep the printing times even and they would just eyeball the density of the negatives so that they all looked equal on the baseboard.

When I started working as a teenage darkroom tech at the Vancouver Sun, I was surprised to find modern, auto-focus Durst enlargers, but no timers, other than a couple of metronomes.
Of course, many of the long-time photographers there were still complaining about no longer being able to smoke in the darkroom .
My job interview for that job was to be sent into the darkroom and told to make a print, with the youngest staff photographer - Bill Keay IIRC - watching me. I looked at the setup, asked him what the typical exposure time and lens aperture was for those enlargers, eyeballed the image on the easel and made a first print, with a bit of burning and dodging for good measure. That first print came out as a really usable print - something that certainly doesn't always happen for me!
I got the job right then and there.

 

[Xylo]

My job interview for that job was to be sent into the darkroom and told to make a print, with the youngest staff photographer - Bill Keay IIRC - watching me.

I never worked at a newspaper, but I read all of Antoine Desilets' books. He was a pretty famous newspaper photographer back in his days. His son has a website dedicated to his legacy (https://www.antoinedesilets.com/copie-de-portfolio)

 

[DREW WILEY]

I ROUTINELY alter or fine-tune contrast on VC papers not just by changing the light color itself, by the length of development. That was also true in graded paper days. There is a fair amount of flexibility in that respect with premium quality papers. Of course, serious underdevelopment will affect image color itself toward the warm side. But the other direction, what is meant by "develop to completion" is more of a sliding scale past a certain point. It's not a constant predetermined time. With some paper/developer combinations it be anywhere between one and a half to four minutes. Then you also have toning variables which can affect final contrast and DMax. Then there are the more advanced tricks like unsharp masking. Some papers can be overprinted a little, then brightened back up in the highlights via Farmer's Reducer. All kinds of potential tricks are out there. But I gave up on that old Dektol vs Selectol Soft approach decades ago; frankly, I never liked the somewhat greenish tinge that imparted to AA's Galerie prints.