Ethol LPD Recipe?

Gerald C Koch said:

I have always gotten the best blacks from an MQ developer. The nice thing about this group of developers is that you can adjust the image tone with benzotriazole. Without it the tone is slightly warm and with it you can get a neutral black or even a cold black.

I ran across the following formula a couple of weeks ago. This might be the right place to post it.

MCM Winchester

Metol 4.25g
Sodium sulphite (anhydrous) 50g
Hydroquinone 12.5g
Sodium carbonate (anhydrous) 100g
Potassium bromide 6.25g
Water to 1 litre

To use, dilute 1:3.

If you use sodium carbonate in monohydrate form, use 118.5g instead.

The OP had this to say about the developer.

"This gives very brilliant, clean-looking prints on baryta papers. Light to mid greys appear to have extra separation, whites stay very bright. Compared to standard developers such as Ilford MG, the blacks seem to have an extra depth which goes right into the paper." The emphasis is mine.

Here is a formula for a long lasting phenidone developer.

Phenidone - Ascorbate Universal Developer

Sodium tripolyphosphate 4.0 g
Sodium sulfite 16.0 g
Sodium carbonate, monohydrate 36.0 g
Sodium ascorbate 20.0 g
Phenidone 0.8 g
Potassium bromide 2.0 g
Benzotriazole, 0.2% 50.0 ml
Acetic acid, 28% 10.0 ml
Water to make 1.0 l

For use dilute 1+1 for papers and 1+7 for films. One liter will process 75 8x10 prints.

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Thank you Gerald, time to brew

Warm tone developer

warm water(125f/52c) 750ml
sodium sulfite, dessicated 50g
hydroquinone 12.0g
sodium carbonate, dessicated 62.0g
phenidone 0.5g
potasium bromide 0.4g
cold water to make 1 L

dilute 1+1 and develope for 1 minute @ 68f/20c
for longer developing times dilute 1+3 and develope for 2 minutes @ 68f/20c

In the UK I got AG to stock it, been using it for a few months now and will probably stick with it.

INCORRECT FORMULA

This is ID-78 but with the incorrect amount of Bromideit should be 4.5g. With only 0.4g it's not a warm tone developer,

This is one of Morgan & Lester's classic mistakes, the Photo Lab Index is riddled with them, unfortunately every other US book took formulae from them. The 3rd Edition of Anchell's Darkroom Cookbook is the first US book of Formulae book to be cross checked with manufacturers own data.

Ian

Rick A said:

Warm tone developer

warm water(125f/52c) 750ml
sodium sulfite, dessicated 50g
hydroquinone 12.0g
sodium carbonate, dessicated 62.0g
phenidone 0.5g
potasium bromide 0.4g
cold water to make 1 L

dilute 1+1 and develope for 1 minute @ 68f/20c
for longer developing times dilute 1+3 and develope for 2 minutes @ 68f/20c

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Nicholas Lindan said:

..........Minor White recommended the addition of both S. Carbide and P. Bromide to paper developer as a matter of course.

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I've never heard of sodium carbide in a developer? It's a while since I did chemistry, but I do remember a tiny bit of it, and I can't think of how it would be helpful in a developer.

Edtog said:

In the UK I got AG to stock it, been using it for a few months now and will probably stick with it.

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I think MrCad were stocking Ethol at one time but I prefered not to deal with them.

These days I just mix up what I want from raw chemistry, I've far more chemicals than I can ever use, and a colder tone developer is not to my taste anyway

Ian

Ian Grant said:

I think MrCad were stocking Ethol at one time but I prefered not to deal with them.

These days I just mix up what I want from raw chemistry, I've far more chemicals than I can ever use, and a colder tone developer is not to my taste anyway

Ian

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Sometimes it's to mine. I'm not set on one tone only. Tonight (just got up out of the darkroom - it's 0530 here been at it since 2130 last night) I had a tray of LPD set up beside a tray of Ilford Warm Tone. Adox MCC 110 (and contacts on RC paper) went in the LPD. This was my first experience with Adox MCC 110 and it is GORGEOUS stuff in LPD, at least for those of us who like a neutral to cool tone in a rich paper for things like landscapes. Ilford MGWT went in the Ilford Warm Tone developer. I tried Drew Wiley's recommendation for using Kodak (well, actually Arista "Legacy" now - same formula) brown toner and found it worked wonderfully.

So now I have an 11x14 of a tree standing in running water of a swollen river that I'm really happy with on MCC 110 in LPD, light selenium (it DOES change tone in selenium 1+19 for 5 minutes, albeit subtle - but is the first paper I've seen that I prefer untoned when I want cool) - anyway, that image looks good cool. And I have a photo of a very old, abandoned store with door off the hinges and old rusted signs that I'm also happy with, on MGFBWT in IWT developer and a quick bath in dilute 1/4 strength brown toner. I don't think either image tone would work as well for the other image.

I guess what I'm saying in a thread on paper developers is "horses for courses" and all that. OTOH as I said before my experience has been that other neutral developers do as well as LPD, they just don't last as long.

Nicholas Lindan said:

Minor White recommended the addition of both S. Carbide and ...

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This statement makes absolutely no sense either chemically or photographically. Is sodium carbonate meant rather than sodium carbide?

At one time sodium or potassium thiocyanate was added to developers to give better blacks. The amount used is 0.5 to 1.0 g/l. This is mentioned in Lootens "On Photographic Enlarging and Print Quality", 7th Ed, Am[hoto (New York:1967) p 205.

Gerald C Koch said:

At one time sodium or potassium thiocyanate was added to developers to give better blacks. The amount used is 0.5 to 1.0 g/l. This is mentioned in Lootens "On Photographic Enlarging and Print Quality", 7th Ed, Am[hoto (New York:1967) p 205.

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Thiosulphate and thiourea have also been used however the level needed is very low.

In a sense they don't give better blacks, rather they give colder tones so a bluer black. I have tried a trace of Thiourea and while it works the level need to be very low or you get fogging with modern papers.

Ian