Ethol LPD excessive contrast and tray staining

ntenny

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With the demise of Liquidol, I’ve begun experimenting with Ethol LPD, and so far the results are unexpected.

I mixed from powder, gave the stock a day to cool and dissolve any leftovers, and mixed up a 1+1 working solution. Unfortunately my first test negative was one I haven’t printed before, so I have no baseline for comparison, but read on. (It’s got a somewhat long scale but doesn’t look outlandishly contrasty to the eye or anything.) Condenser enlarger with above-the-lens Ilford filters.

Paper was MGRC pearl, and I experimented with dev times between 1:00 and 2:30. The image came up really fast—significant visibility within 10-12 seconds—and I didn’t detect noticeable changes after the first 45 seconds or so, so I eventually converged on developing for a minute.

The results were incredibly contrasty. At grade 2, I got chalk and charcoal; by the time I worked down to grade 0, things were somewhat ok, and grade 00 was generally better but with some mud in the shadows. This strikes me as absurd for a reasonably normal negative; I can’t just print everything at grade 00.

(The tone does look somewhat cold, as expected from 1+1 dilution. The manufacturer’s claim is that changing the dilution does not appreciably change the contrast.)

This morning, having rinsed the trays the night before and left them out to air-dry, I noticed a lot of very dark, sooty staining in the developer tray. There’s always a little staining, but this was extreme. I don’t know if it’s normal behaviour for LPD or related to my contrast problems.

The only thing I can think of that I may have done wrong is mixing in water that was too hot; I didn’t measure the temperature but just used pretty hot tap water, figuring that with a recommended range of 80-90°F precision wasn’t too critical. I could understand if an error there had broken down one of the ingredients, but is there any reason it would turbocharge the developer?

I’m baffled, and any advice is welcome. I’d like this to work; LPD looks great in principle and people obviously get working results with it, so I’d like to resolve the problem.

Thanks in advance
-NT
 

MattKing

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1 + 1 is generally reserved for cool tone papers, which may be relevant to what you are seeing.
 

GregY

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I'd suggest 1:2 or 1:3 (or more)...... I use LPD a lot and haven't run into that problem....but I use FB papers. RC papers are typically have a pretty fast appearance time. I hope you're able to get the bugs worked out.....as LPD is a very fine developer.
 

Rick A

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I've been using LPD for years, usually 1+4 or even more dilute. My developing time is set for two minutes and I adjust my enlarging exposures to suit that. Your dilution should look cold tone, the more dilute the warmer prints appear. Developing times shouldn't change for dilution. Are your negatives on the thin side? Do you need to stop the lens down more? I tend to shoot dense negatives to get long-ish print exposures.
 
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ntenny

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This negative is thinner than average (dark scene), but the exposure was correspondingly reduced, and the print isn’t too dark—it’s just too contrasty.

I’ll try 1+2 and a known negative. I hate to experiment with FB paper due to cost and rinsing time.

Thanks
-NT
 

Rick A

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If it's too contrasty go to a softer contrast filter.
 

GregY

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I suspect going to a known negative will help you get things sorted out....
 
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ntenny

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If it's too contrasty go to a softer contrast filter.

Like I said, I already had to go to 00, for a negative that wasn’t obviously ridiculous. I mean, maybe there’s something terribly wrong with it that I’m not seeing, and sure, I should have used a known negative, but…

-NT
 

Rick A

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I've reread your original post and am stumped. I've never run into your issue in all the years I've used LPD. Maybe you did cook the chems in too hot water.
 
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ntenny

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Ok, 1+2 seems to have tamed it a bit, and a known-good negative in that produced good results. The emergence seems slower but completion time is about the same, and we’ll see if I get heavy staining in the tray again.

The first negative looks better this way (I think—it’s still drying), but I still had to go to grade 0. I can’t figure out by eye what’s so extreme about this negative, but obviously I picked the wrong negative to test with the first time!

Thanks for everyone’s help with this. I think I’ll stick to higher dilutions henceforth.

-NT
 
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