Farmer's Reducer - Mixing Question

I have some negatives which are a bit too dense. I had just about written them off when I remembered that someone had given me a small packet of Farmer's Reducer which I might as well try.

Unfortunately, all that is in the box are a couple of packets- no instructions.

A web search found a couple of answers, unfortunately they differed. One said mix each packet with 145ml of water, the other said use 475ml.

I don't have any scales here to accurately weigh the packets but each powder is in a sealed plastic bag about 2" x 2.5" and the outer box is about 2.5" x 2.5" x 1.25".

Can anyone tell me what amount of water I need?


Steve.

hi steve

i haven't made farmers reducer in a long long time.
when i had to reduce dichroic fog stained film paul krot at sprint systems of photography gave
a recipe for farmers reducer, from what i remember he said ...

get a 35mm film canister ( holds exactly the right amount )
fill it up with ( in your case ) packet B .. and 1L of water,
packet A ( yours ) is hypo/fix he said discard the fix packet and use your own fix
in my case it was sprint fix "film strength" and use that any fix will work as your second bath.

he also said to put the film in the solution B, don't agitate, and remove it every 10-15 seconds to see if
it reduced enough, you can always reduce more, but you can't do the opposite.
then fix, rewash &c ...

good luck!
john

The standard Ilford mix is as follows - If you have kitchen scales they should show you roughly what you have - The red stuff is the ferricyanide and the white one is boring old hypo - Hang on a minute while I scan the right page



However, you should bear in mind that Farmer's will remove shadow detail more than highlights, so will effectively increase contrast - That is where proportional and super-proportional reducers come into play, but I have had very uneven results from these and often prefer to do battle with the neg as it is - Not that I admit to making less than perfect negatives

The formulas I have to hand (A. Adams, The Print) suggest 37.5g potassium ferricyanide in 500ml water (A) and 120g of sodium thiosulfate in another 500ml of water (B). Various dilutions are suggested, ranging from 3+3+100 to 3+12+1000 - From the few times I've used a Pot.Ferri. bleach, more dilute solutions are easier to work with. However, I favour a ferricyanide/bromide bleach as it gives the opportunity to redevelop if the bleaching goes too far. The neg can always be dunked in fixer at a later stage one the desired bleaching has been done.

PS - The alternative is modified Farmer's Reducer, which a two bath thing where the first bath is sepia toner bleach, which will slowly turn the silver to silver bromide, then fix - The saving grace with this is that if you inspect the progress and think to yourself "Oh F***" then you have the option to re-develop and try again - When you think you have it right fix in plain hypo

Well, that is the theory, but the last time I used that was for student's work at Oxford Poly' in about 1978 - A few life changes ago

John

Thanks.

Going by John's 35mm film canister to 1 litre of water method, I think I need to mix it with about half a litre.

I will give it a try.


Steve.

Mixed the red packet with 500ml of water and it appears to work very well.

I have only tried it on a scrap negative which I had in the solution for five minutes. It was probably a bit too long. My guess is that four would have been perfect.

Is it best to vary it with time or can a weaker dilution be used?


Steve.

i'd try a weaker solution and extended time so you have more control,
but i am totally clueless
( not really the same thing, but when i use washing soda to bleach back my cyanotypes i alway prefer weak )

I haven't reduced film but I occasionally bleach sections of prints and as mentioned best to do it gradually. You may already be doing this but I would have running water available and after each dunk quickly rinse the film because holding it to where you can see what's happening may cause the solution to pool in a spot and over do that area.

htti://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

jnanian said:

i'd try a weaker solution and extended time so you have more control,
but i am totally clueless
( not really the same thing, but when i use washing soda to bleach back my cyanotypes i alway prefer weak )

Click to expand...

WOW!!! - Thanks John, for Rae's work that little bit of information is the gem of the day, and it is only 5.00am

John

Grumpy Old Man said:

WOW!!! - Thanks John, for Rae's work that little bit of information is the gem of the day, and it is only 5.00am

John

Click to expand...

pleasure's mine, john ...
.. emil ( gandolfi ) is the one i asked ..

thanks gandolfi !

john