Develop RA-4 as B&W - possible?

[mkillmer]

Is there any way to develop RA-4 paper to get B&W only? Using B&W chemicals will only give me a low contrast image, so I am looking for an alternative.

 

[Rudeofus]

There is very little silver in RA4 paper, therefore you get low contrast and low Dmax with a conventional B&W print developer. It looks like the only way you can get full contrast and density is with a true color developer. If B&W is what you are after, you can try using regular rapid fixer instead of BLIX, but you will have to use a color developer, and you must adjust color balance to get neutral gray tones.

 

[mkillmer]

How about toning - is there a toning processs that could convert the paper to b&w ?

 

[Rudeofus]

How about toning - is there a toning processs that could convert the paper to b&w ?

Toning won't help you much here. The problem you face is that dye clouds are bigger and denser than the silver grains they come from, which means that regular RA4 paper doesn't need much silver to reach the needed densities. This is the same thing as C-41, where bleach bypass will reduce color saturation only to some extent.

B&W toning process generally reduce density yet more, or increase it slightly at best (selenium toner), so these won't buy you much.