Ilford CT paper and Developer a no no?

[ajuk]

I have bought some Ilford Cooltone paper, and my first print in the ordinary developer came out well, but looked almost neutral so I thought I would try it in the Cooltone developer and all I have got is a selection of washed out looking prints and it takes ages for the paper to react to the developer, That was Thursday and I didn't have time to do any more printing and I packed away, today I tried again (with a test strip) and got the same result, then I tried mixing up some more Cooltone developer, being careful of temperature and mixing it well. I then attempted another test strip using the lens open a stop wider but still using 5 second intervals, still washed out, then I tried making a print, and it looked awful.

So then I tried the normal Ilford paper, I increased the exposure by 1 second from 12 to 13 seconds, Placed the ordinary paper in the CT developer and it came out fine, I got high contrast print going all the way from pure black to white and not the horrible looking print I got with the CT paper. But the CT paper looked fine in the ordinary developer, am I doing something wrong?

 

[Stan160]

How long are you developing for? I haven't used Cooltone paper, but according to the datasheet (http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/2006224153011226.pdf), Cooltone RC paper and Cooltone dev requires twice as long in the developer as other Ilford RC papers - 3 1/2 to 6 minutes.

Ian

 

[ajuk]

Yeah I just read that to and tried it at 4 minutes, barely looks any different to the one I just took out of the developer when I had just given up on getting a good result.

 

[ajuk]

First one is the CT paper 12 seconds developed untill I gave up
Second one is the CT paper 13 seconds developed beyond me giving up a full 4 minutes
Third is ordinary Ilford MG Same time 13 seconds, same grade ad the first print. in the same developer, same bath.

 

[Les McLean]

Papers have different speeds, for example Ilford Warmtone paper is at least two stops slower than Multigrade. I'd suggest that you do a test strip that is very light at the start and almost black at the end simply by increasing the exposure until that happens. I suspect that you have not given the paper enough exposure.

 

[ajuk]

In normal developer Cooltone seems to be quite a bit faster than normal paper.

 

[Bob F.]

I've not used that paper/developer combination myself however so have nothing beyond generalities to suggest but did notice the developer was very slow acting when I used it with MGIV-WT fibre.

A test: with the lights out, cut a small piece of paper from a sheet. Pack the rest away and switch on the room lights. Drop it in to the developer, still with the room lights on. Agitate as normal and see how long it takes to turn black. If it never turns black, there is something wrong with either the developer or the paper. Try another piece of paper that you know is OK to find out which. If it does turn black, then you know you just need to increase development time.

Good luck, Bob.

 

[ajuk]

On my second test strip, it did get quite dark at the most exposed and, but it still looked like crud, remember the CT paper worked fine with normal developer and CT developer worked fine with normal paper!

 

[pentaxuser]

As a result of our APUG trip to Ilford in 2006 and its generosity with samples I have had the opportunity to use CT paper with CT developer and then MGIV paper with CT developer.

Both combos should give good prints. They did for me. Its true that CT dev with CT paper requires longer dev times. If you want good blacks then at least 3 maybe 4 mins is required.

The difference between CT dev and paper and CT dev and MGIV is very subtle and given the longer dev time I can understand printers saying that the extra cool tones provided are hardly worth the effort but there are subjects where CT paper and CT dev do give that little extra.

So, yes, CT dev does work properly with either CT paper or MGIV.As others have said, it is likely to be exposure differences or your particular batch of paper that account for your problem if your CT dev and MGIV paper give good prints.

I am sure that you'll solve your problem. Best of luck.

pentaxuser

 

[Les McLean]

On my second test strip, it did get quite dark at the most exposed and, but it still looked like crud, remember the CT paper worked fine with normal developer and CT developer worked fine with normal paper!

Use a higher grade to increase the contrast.