jp498
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I got a bw-65 developer kit from Formulary and just got around to mixing some up last night.
I've had this box of Arista Private Reserve glossy rc vc paper that I hadn't been using because it was not producing good results for me in dektol (like Ilford WT MGRC does). I was not getting any contrast regardless of the filtration setting. This usually is an indication it's time to throw the dektol out, but the Arista never gave me good versatile contrast and was slow to develop; like it needed a much stronger dektol than any other paper I'd ever used.
I dumped and washed my tray of dektol. I mixed the bw-65 at a ratio of 140+140+1000 (with tap water) and was instantly having good results with the Arista private reserve and with the Ilford WT MGRC.
I haven't compared warmness or coolness with other papers yet. The images though have excellent shadow, midtone, and highlight detail. Dektol developed images sometimes lost shadow detail in the deeper shades as they dried down. Drydown only seemed to predominantly affect the highlights best I could tell.
So now, I can say nicer things about this paper. The bw-65 is not re-usable like dektol, but the concentrate should last several darkroom sessions and be more predictable since it's made fresh each darkroom session. Nothing wrong with dektol, but it wasn't a good combination for me last night.
I've had this box of Arista Private Reserve glossy rc vc paper that I hadn't been using because it was not producing good results for me in dektol (like Ilford WT MGRC does). I was not getting any contrast regardless of the filtration setting. This usually is an indication it's time to throw the dektol out, but the Arista never gave me good versatile contrast and was slow to develop; like it needed a much stronger dektol than any other paper I'd ever used.
I dumped and washed my tray of dektol. I mixed the bw-65 at a ratio of 140+140+1000 (with tap water) and was instantly having good results with the Arista private reserve and with the Ilford WT MGRC.
I haven't compared warmness or coolness with other papers yet. The images though have excellent shadow, midtone, and highlight detail. Dektol developed images sometimes lost shadow detail in the deeper shades as they dried down. Drydown only seemed to predominantly affect the highlights best I could tell.
So now, I can say nicer things about this paper. The bw-65 is not re-usable like dektol, but the concentrate should last several darkroom sessions and be more predictable since it's made fresh each darkroom session. Nothing wrong with dektol, but it wasn't a good combination for me last night.