How to Reduce Tri-X Contrast?

[Arvee]

RM,

I looked at the print carefully; frankly, I don't see the issues you are concerned about. I think it looks fine as it is.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Reduce the contrast by printing on a lower grade on multigrade paper.

that works and does much of what the ZoneSystem does only easier; the general rule is to over expose and underdeveloped;if HC110 doesn't allow you to do that, try D76 1+1 and if all fails, you are better of to do a full film test.However, the MassDevChart is a brilliant start.
good luck.

 

[RattyMouse]

RM,

I looked at the print carefully; frankly, I don't see the issues you are concerned about. I think it looks fine as it is.

It's a negative, not a print, and the blacks are just crushed; far too dark. Other images from this roll are much, much worse. I want to raise the shadows and not touch the highlights.

 

[removed account4]

I have done tons of rolls of Tri-X in HC110 dil B and never encountered uneven development results. I fail to see where Kodak, one of the great conservatives in process control, would recommend a combination of developer and film when it is prone to issues for the majority. Plus-X at normal contrast was even shorter times than Tri-X...3.6 mins for Plus-X to have normal contrast.

hi wiltw ..
sure, they say it is possible .. pretty much anything is possible .. but not optimal ...
were all these rolls of tri x you developed in dilution b done for 3.6 minutes, or did you use a longer time ?
my (uneducated) guess is they were developed for longer than 3.6 mins
its kodak that doesn't recommend short development times. ( there is usually a disclaimer printed near the table )
kodak used to recommend using super dilute xtol developer in the beginning, like 1:10 for contact printing
and when people started having "trouble" they stopped recommending that too.
then again its just recommendations, no one is saying the OP CAN'T process his film for 3.6 minutes, who knows maybe the OP has
the magic touch and he'll get perfect negatives ... but me, i'd never do it ... i'd rather have dense, bulletproof negatives,
than unevenly developed negatives. bullet proof or well developed negatives are easy to scan and print,
unevenly developed negatives aren't, but that's me.
if the OP had DEKTOL lying around stephen cooper used to tell me that news photographers
used to stand develop film in straight dektol for 3mins .. ( and some of his friends still did )
id also suggest the OP do that instead of HC110, but, and wear a hat that says "scoop" on it,
and be friends with a guy named clarke + a gal named lois
i'd also suggest he scan / print them when they were still wet "olde skool" to get the full effect ..

the OP can easily over expose his film , and adjust his development style and get his negatives to come out perfect for his scanning, using the same time and dilution he is using...

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Develop less time. Or dilute the developer more.

Forget all the charts and advice. Exposure controls density in shadows on the neg. Time in developer controls density of highlights on the neg.

Basically, if the highlights are to dense, you have to print too long and shadow detail is lost.

All for fine tune normal negs. To control further, water bath development, or use half box speed and cut the "correct" normal time FOR YOU of developer by 20%.

The times you read are perhaps for diffusion enlargers, contrast index .62, and you are using a condenser which requires only a contrast index of .42. Condenser enlargers need negs with less development time.

 

[RattyMouse]

Develop less time. Or dilute the developer more.

Forget all the charts and advice. Exposure controls density in shadows on the neg. Time in developer controls density of highlights on the neg.

Thank you for your reply. If I had added one stop of exposure to this film, I can understand that there would be more exposure to the shadows, but there would also be that for the highlights. I would have to pull process then, correct?

 

[Nihil Abstat]

Develop for 30% less than factory recommendations. They are almost invariably too long.

 

[Craig75]

It's a negative, not a print, and the blacks are just crushed; far too dark. Other images from this roll are much, much worse. I want to raise the shadows and not touch the highlights.

then its an exposure issue not one of development. If most of roll is missing shadow detail then check exposure compensation dial hasnt been jogged accidentally to -1 or -2 or that whatever you were shooting wasnt tricking the meter.

might even be the case you need to use centre filter as centre of shot looks lot brighter than edges.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Sure, there are more than one way to skin a cat, but it's astonishing (and a bit disappointing) just how much bad advice and misconception there is on this thread.

Some basics:

More development = more overall contrast in the negative
Less development = less overall contrast in the negative
Shadow detail is controlled for the most part (90%) by EXPOSURE. Development has very little to do with it.

Now some details:

You can increase development by (in order of usual preference) 1. increasing development time 2. increasing developer activity (e.g. more concentrated developer or even a different developer) 3. increasing the frequency and intensity of agitation, or some logical combination of these.
You can reduce development by (again in the order of usual preference) 1. decreasing development time 2. decreasing developer activity (e.g. less-concentrated developer or even a different developer) 3. decreasing the frequency and intensity of agitation or some logical combination of these.

@Ratty

There is no "general rule" that you should dilute your developer and increase developing time to reduce overall negative contrast. It is one way of getting the result IF you get the right dilution and the right time. Note that it is a combination of numbers one and two above.

Developing negatives does not exist in a vacuum. There are lots of contrast controls available for printing. The advice to try a lower-contrast setting when printing is GOOD advice and very relevant. Comments like "This post has nothing to do with printing and everything to do with developing" demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. You may just be able to get the very best print possible by simply printing with a bit lower contrast.

However, if you are dead set on not trying printing adjustments, use one of the methods listed above to reduce the negative contrast. If you're having trouble recording shadow detail, then adjust your exposure accordingly.

Be aware also that adjusting agitation schemes can result in uneven development. That's the reason it's last on the preference list. First choice if your negs are too contrasty is simply to reduce development a bit. I'm frankly kind of surprised that that wasn't the first bit of advice you got in the thread. Michael R. knows what he's talking about, listen to him and disregard a lot of the other, more spurious, advice that appears in this thread.

And realize that you will have to do your own tests to find the exposure and development times that work best for you. No one, not the film manufacturer or the developer manufacturer or online development charts or anyone on this forum can take into account exactly what you do. Do your own due diligence.

You know, Kodak had it all pretty well straightened out years ago with the simple recommendation: "If your negatives are consistently too contrasty, reduce development time."

Doremus

 

[RattyMouse]

then its an exposure issue not one of development. If most of roll is missing shadow detail then check exposure compensation dial hasnt been jogged accidentally to -1 or -2 or that whatever you were shooting wasnt tricking the meter.

might even be the case you need to use centre filter as centre of shot looks lot brighter than edges.

Great observation!! I forgot I did not use the ND filter due to all these shots being indoor (not enough light)! Well spotted.

 

[RattyMouse]

Sure, there are more than one way to skin a cat, but it's astonishing (and a bit disappointing) just how much bad advice and misconception there is on this thread.

Some basics:

More development = more overall contrast in the negative
Less development = less overall contrast in the negative
Shadow detail is controlled for the most part (90%) by EXPOSURE. Development has very little to do with it.

Now some details:

You can increase development by (in order of usual preference) 1. increasing development time 2. increasing developer activity (e.g. more concentrated developer or even a different developer) 3. increasing the frequency and intensity of agitation, or some logical combination of these.
You can reduce development by (again in the order of usual preference) 1. decreasing development time 2. decreasing developer activity (e.g. less-concentrated developer or even a different developer) 3. decreasing the frequency and intensity of agitation or some logical combination of these.

@Ratty

There is no "general rule" that you should dilute your developer and increase developing time to reduce overall negative contrast. It is one way of getting the result IF you get the right dilution and the right time. Note that it is a combination of numbers one and two above.

Developing negatives does not exist in a vacuum. There are lots of contrast controls available for printing. The advice to try a lower-contrast setting when printing is GOOD advice and very relevant. Comments like "This post has nothing to do with printing and everything to do with developing" demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. You may just be able to get the very best print possible by simply printing with a bit lower contrast.

However, if you are dead set on not trying printing adjustments, use one of the methods listed above to reduce the negative contrast. If you're having trouble recording shadow detail, then adjust your exposure accordingly.

Be aware also that adjusting agitation schemes can result in uneven development. That's the reason it's last on the preference list. First choice if your negs are too contrasty is simply to reduce development a bit. I'm frankly kind of surprised that that wasn't the first bit of advice you got in the thread. Michael R. knows what he's talking about, listen to him and disregard a lot of the other, more spurious, advice that appears in this thread.

And realize that you will have to do your own tests to find the exposure and development times that work best for you. No one, not the film manufacturer or the developer manufacturer or online development charts or anyone on this forum can take into account exactly what you do. Do your own due diligence.

You know, Kodak had it all pretty well straightened out years ago with the simple recommendation: "If your negatives are consistently too contrasty, reduce development time."

Doremus

Thank you very much for the thoughtful advice!

 

[Craig75]

Great observation!! I forgot I did not use the ND filter due to all these shots being indoor (not enough light)! Well spotted.

If you are scanning then you might be able to make some sort of centre spot filter in photoshop that will allow you to lift shadows proportionally across the frame so that you can still shoot handheld at a decent shutter speed.

 

[RattyMouse]

If you are scanning then you might be able to make some sort of centre spot filter in photoshop that will allow you to lift shadows proportionally across the frame so that you can still shoot handheld at a decent shutter speed.

Yeah, that's no problem. Lightroom has a slider to add or reduce vignetting. I just have not used it. I still think the blacks are too dark in these images and was fooled into thinking that longer development time would help grow them a bit. The highlights are well exposed so I did not think that there was an overall exposure problem. I still need to learn how to properly judge and evaluate a negative.

Thanks for your help!

 

[pentaxuser]

Just out of curiosity, if Rattymouse continues to use HC110 is there any way he can achieve what he needs to and still keep development time to say 7+ mins. I'd be a bit nervous going as low as 5 mins and yet with HC110 this seems to be the only solution. Maybe 5 mins is OK but I must admit to being used to a more relaxed time period. Things do happen very fast at 5 mins and any leeway is very short, I'd have thought

pentaxuser

 

[RattyMouse]

Just out of curiosity, if Rattymouse continues to use HC110 is there any way he can achieve what he needs to and still keep development time to say 7+ mins. I'd be a bit nervous going as low as 5 mins and yet with HC110 this seems to be the only solution. Maybe 5 mins is OK but I must admit to being used to a more relaxed time period. Things do happen very fast at 5 mins and any leeway is very short, I'd have thought

pentaxuser

I can dilute down further than Dilution E. That would have the same effective results.

 

[Doremus Scudder]

Just out of curiosity, if Rattymouse continues to use HC110 is there any way he can achieve what he needs to and still keep development time to say 7+ mins. I'd be a bit nervous going as low as 5 mins and yet with HC110 this seems to be the only solution. Maybe 5 mins is OK but I must admit to being used to a more relaxed time period. Things do happen very fast at 5 mins and any leeway is very short, I'd have thought
pentaxuser

Five minutes is not too unmanageable for a development time, depending on which development method one uses. However, it's fairly easy with HC-110 to get longer times by diluting more. In my experience, if one dilutes twice as much (say 1+63 instead of 1+31), a good starting time would be twice the development time in the stronger dilution. Note that I say "starting time," since refinements will be necessary. FWIW, even though a 1+63 dilution (from the syrup concentrate) is not an "official" dilution, I've used it a lot with great results.

Best,

Doremus

 

[Nihil Abstat]

Just out of curiosity, if Rattymouse continues to use HC110 is there any way he can achieve what he needs to and still keep development time to say 7+ mins. I'd be a bit nervous going as low as 5 mins and yet with HC110 this seems to be the only solution. Maybe 5 mins is OK but I must admit to being used to a more relaxed time period. Things do happen very fast at 5 mins and any leeway is very short, I'd have thought

pentaxuser

Yes, add boric acid or sodium bisulphite, 1% solution, 5-10ml/l or so. Trial and error to determine quantities and times.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Your shadows look empty. What speed are you shooting Tri-x at? But the tried and true rule is expose for shadows and develop for contrast.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Start by cutting your agitation to first 30, and then 5 seconds every 30.

 

[RattyMouse]

Start by cutting your agitation to first 30, and then 5 seconds every 30.

Noted. Thank you.

 

[RattyMouse]

Your shadows look empty. What speed are you shooting Tri-x at? But the tried and true rule is expose for shadows and develop for contrast.

ISO400.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

How are you

ISO400.

How are you mixing your developer. Are you mixing from a stock solution or mixing directly from the syrup?

Take a look at this.
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

 

[RattyMouse]

How are you

How are you mixing your developer. Are you mixing from a stock solution or mixing directly from the syrup?

Take a look at this.
http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/hc110/

Directly from syrup.

 

[piffey]

I just developed a bunch of Tri-X in HC-110 Dil B for the first time and got very similar results. I wasn't a fan at all and will likely switch back to D-76 when using Tri-X after this brick -- or hopefully even sooner back to HP5 as a film stock (where I buy my film ran out of HP5 so bought a brick of Tri-X). Anyways, I'm going to experiment with a few things because I do want to 'solve' it. Trying the same things mentioned here (shorter times and increased dilution). Am curious to compare with your results doing the same.

 

[Craig]

I have been experimenting with ortho film lately and agitation has has a very pronounced effect. In a Jobo with continuous agitation I was using 6 min with pyro and needing to print on grade 0 paper. Then I changed to tray development using a semi stand. I agitated for 30 seconds, then once every 5 min for a total time of 15 min. Then it printed nicely on a grade 3 paper.