Coffee Developers

[dances_w_clouds]

Next one I will use toning after printing.

 

[ProfessorPlum]

Hello, like many of you I joined this group to learn more about Coffee Devleopers. So I have no clue about coffee developers. Do you use coffee to develop the film, the paper or both? I read all the posts but still am confused, I thought coffee was only used as a toner.

 

[Toffle]

I use a coffee formula to develop the paper prints, though it seems most people prefer to use it on their film. There are lots of recipes out there. Not to indulge in shameless self promotion, but I have an article on my experiments here: http://tomoverton.images.googlepages.com/caffenol (I do have an ulterior motive here... I'd love to see a lot more people printing with coffee recipes, it's kind of lonely out here.)

 

[ProfessorPlum]

Hey I looked at your website and it has good info, but I'm mixing up a batch and was wondering what temp do you develop at? Because you have to get hot water for the coffee to dissolve and hot water and paper don't usually mix. Also is there a difference between washing soda and baking soda?

 

[Toffle]

I generally mix my recipe in warm water, and let it sit for a short while. Once you pour it in the tray, it comes down to room temperature fairly quickly. The truth be known, I don't always fret much about how consistent my mixing is; you can get some really interesting effects with lumpy chems.

 

[dances_w_clouds]

Just put in a few pics of the snow developed with coffee and selenium toned also. I just have to experiment some more to get the super contast out of the dev.

 

[Toffle]

I don't think you're going to have that much control over contrast with coffee developers without going the extra steps of bleaching and toning. (which I'd really like to learn more about)

 

[Toffle]

I just added a picture to the gallery, Pelee Drive IR Coffee. The title kind of says it all. Maco 820 Aura, split grade coffee print. I'm quite pleased with this print.

 

[dances_w_clouds]

I shot a few pics on a foggy night and it turned out not bad so I had a brain wave. Use warm tone paper with the coffee developer. As you can see the plan did not work as well as I thought. (message to self : DO NOT use warm tone paper)
I usually always try to push the envelope to see what will happen. Next time maybe cool tone paper
Oh well somebody had to try.

 

[Toffle]

That is very interesting, to say the least... I was just about to print some shots on warmtone sometime in the next couple of nights. (I'll probably end up giving it a shot anyway, as I'm practially out of my regular cool tone paper)

Still, I'm liking your prints. I'm waiting for someone to give me some kind of idea of the archival qualities of coffee prints. My first prints are nearly two years old, and they look as good today as the day I printed them.

[EDIT] It just occurred to me.. are you using RC or FB papers? I have yet to try coffee prints on FB papers. I will try this soon enough as well. (I have the urge to experiment)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[dances_w_clouds]

I was using RC paper. When i edited the brown tone pic (digitally) pic it almost looked 3 dimentional. I am definitly going to have another go at this (coffee and warm tone paper) I was really surprized on the out come of it but I guess experimenting chemically you never know what to expect. (Late 60's and acid) But thats another story. Let me know how the cool tone paper coffee combo work.

 

[Toffle]

If you think that looks like acid, check this out. http://tomoverton.images.googlepage...ol.jpg/Chicago-Towers-Caffenol-full;init:.jpg

I think I'll be trying some WT myself soon. (Why do I hear someone saying, "don't touch the brown stuff"?) And I might even give FB a shot as well. (I have a feeling that won't be as successful, though if it is, it would be wonderful.)

Cheers,
Tom

 

[dances_w_clouds]

One thing about this, you never know what is going to come out. I thought it would turn out a really nice brown tone with warm tone but NOOOO ! I see we don't have ANY hard and fast rules about this process so I guess it is hang on and hope for the best !! My 645 just came out of the shop so 120 in COFFEE ! Check out my Flickr site for the edited view.

 

[Toffle]

I'm a happy man. Sitting here drinking a coffee beer... just finished printing a lovely shot from Chicago in coffee developer on Ilford Warmtone RC and Ilford FB papers. I did have my doubts with the FB paper... lacking the integral developer that many RC papers have, I wondered my coffee fomula had enough juice to coax the latent image out of the emulsion. It took quite awhile... two full minutes before there was even a trace of an image, five to look close to my target, and seven until it looked complete. In the end, the image came out almost the way I wanted. My test print was pretty drab, so my final print was done with a #5 contrast filter. (by the way, the WT RC came out quite nice without much tweaking) Now that I've got a couple under my belt, I can fine tune the process and improve the softer details which I lost in the hard contrast FB print.

I'm a happy man.

 

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning, Tom;

You mentioned the quote; "Don't touch the brown stuff!." Isn't coffee normally brown? Maybe a lighter tan color if you put cream in it, but it is still brown.

Enjoy; Ralph Javins
still living out here in Latte Land

 

[Toffle]

It's been pretty quiet here lately. I 'm assuming that is because we have all switched our computers off and are spending our time shooting and printing. The last month has been very productive for me in the darkroom and I thought I'd report a little on my progress as of late. As I mentioned earlier, I have done coffee developing with Ilford MGIV Warmtone to very good results. In terms of exposure and development, this paper responds virtually the same as the other papers in the Ilford RC line. The real surprise is with Ilford MGIV FB paper, which surpassed my expectations and produced some very bold prints. The developing times are very long, but the resulting prints have quite a wide range of tones. This leads me to believe that this paper might be suitable for more lith-like prints, using massive over-exposure under the enlarger and careful snatch-point developing in the coffe bath. I'll keep you posted on any progress.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[dances_w_clouds]

I was just wondering why my warm tone paper came out so unusual in the coffee developer ? I think it was the paper from Arista EDU. I have not tackled coffee dev since that incident but will be resuming my conquest in the future.

 

[Ralph Javins]

Good morning, Tom;

You are right; it has been quiet. I have been putting more coffee into me than any other use. We have had a couple of nice days, and there are some nice photographs of the crocuses coming up in the yard. Lots of work on camera equipment. Then there is also the effort to make some sense of this stuff. I have begun an inventory of all of the stuff, and it is making one impressive record file on the computer.

Enjoy; Ralph Javins

 

[Toffle]

I've had some very good sessions in the darkroom... some nice coffee prints among the lot. Right now, I'm trying to get my hands on some selenium (harder to manage around here than it sounds) so I can test the archival properties of these prints. Coffee or not, they are still silver prints, so I can't think of any reason they won't last as long as traditionally developed prints.

Cheers folks,
Tom

 

[Toffle]

Always the experimenter, (and the procrastinator ) I finally got around to trying to archivally toning some of my coffee prints. I'm not entirely sure what I expected to see, but I do notice that there is a perceptible "warming" of the tones... sort of a more chocolate than coffee... Not a huge amount, but I was also working at a rather extreme dilution. (Berg Selenium Toner at 1:30) As I was toning more for archival purposes than colour shift, I don't know if I should be breaking out the champagne yet.

To be honest, I took the coward's way out for my first tries, and only toned some test strips that I have saved over the last couple of weeks. Until I find a dilution and time that suits me, I'll stick to these rather than risk my final prints. Seeing as I was just doing test strips, I was able to test a number of papers at the same time, and compare the effects. As expected, FB papers take substantially longer to tone. I also noticed that there was a nice "cleaning" effect on some Ilford WT RC Glossy paper...

I think my next steps will be to bump up my concentration and try some full-sized prints.

If anyone has any opinions or advice, I'd be happy to hear.

When I have some prints that I feel are up to standard, I'll post them in the gallery.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[WolfTales]

Actually this gives me an excellent use for bad coffee - ie coffee blends I don't enjoy that have inevitably been gifted to me, or coffee that has gone stale in the cupboard, or coffee I react badly to.

Also, what is washing soda and where would I find it....

Thanks!

 

[alan doyle]

ok i am a total idiot but this seems to work.
i used an unbranded high res 12 asa military film similar to kodak tech pan.
2 teaspoons washing soda in a tiny little water. stir it good.
2 shots of strong espresso,delta portuguese blend...yummy.
650 ml water
and a tiny splash of paper developer fomadon lqn
mix it all together and get going.
quite a lot of agitation
12 mins at 24c
fix with filter water tiny tiny bit of stop bath.
and fix as normal.
i was shocked when it worked especially using a toy plastic camera with 12asa film.
not sure if the paper developer was a good or bad thing..
anybody got any ideas.
cheers

 

[DutchShooter]

This topic really made me curious So I decided to try the simple recipe first:
2 spoons of washing soda in 300ml water (25C)
5 heaped spoons of the cheapest instant coffee
mixed
waited a few minutes for air bubble removal.

The I dropped a film of Rollei Retro 100 (APX-100) in it. I shot it at EI 25-100. Wash with tap water until clear water came out, regular fix&wash.

EI100 was very thin, correct EI seems to be around 25 with this recipe, although the 50 shots were not too bad at all...

Scanned at 3600dpi with my optic 7200, no adjustments.

The positive image:

The negative image:

Off course the negative is a bit boring, so I decided to adjust it from RGB to B/W using the brown colour of the positive image as a tint:

I must say that I was quite amazed in a positive sense

I also have a question. I read somewhere (I think in this topic) that vitamin C can be used to increase speed. Sound good, but does anyone know whether it also increases base fog? And do you use regular pharmacy-vitamin C, without caring about the other ingredients in this "consumer product", as I believe it's not pure vitamin C what they sell?

To close the post, here are a few more:
Positive:

Negatives:

(gossen sixtomat, the light meter which is easy enough in use to explain to a 3-yr old - unfortunately, he is too young to read the numbers on the scale, otherwise I would have a nice talking light meter)

 

[Toffle]

Those are pretty clean negs, considering the process. Caffenol can produce very uneven development at times. I don't know if Vitamin C would increase fog, but it is a regular part of my formula. I buy mine in the grocery store in the canning section. (now would be a good time to get some, as it's seasonal) The brand I use is called Fruit Fresh, but as long as it's ascorbic acid, you are good to go.

Great work.
Cheers,
Tom

 

[jnanian]

hi dutchman ..
i usually get my vit c from a healthfood store ..
i haven't been able to find some in my regular grocery store.
i've also gotten it at a pharmacy. i get the powdered-stuff with no additives ...
tom, you are lucky

since i wasn't wise enough to start this thread / group so it is like a thread in the main forum
i can't figure out ( really too lazy ) to do the html tags to load an image from my webserver to appear here
so i will post something showing a neg+positive of 1/2 frame 35mm film

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

it was processed in my usual haphazard dumping of coffee/washing soda/vit c (fizzzes like mad!) then add about 100cc of
straight ansco 130 ... i just realized tom, ansco 130 has bromide ( like you add ) but it also
has glycin ... i had been doing stand development in dilute ansco 130 before i started to add it into my coffee
so started to add it to give my film a little more of a punch. ...