paper color

[rmolson]

Paper tone

It is ironic that another post refers to MG4 as warmish but dektol cools it .
I have been rather frustrated trying to alter the tone or color of the image of Ilfords Multigrade RC . I keep getting a color that is more towards the olive or a yellowish undertone, for lack of a better description, than neutral or cold black. I use Dektol 1:2 at 70 degrees for 2 to 3 minutes I have tried adding Benzotriazole and Orthozite. Using Ultra black developer, all to no effect. Selenium toning helps a little but that color is more towards purple than I want .I was under the impression that Ilford Multigrade IV was not developer incorporated, but it almost behaves as though it is.. Am I beating my head against the darkroom wall as it where?

 

[Ian Grant]

It's not a warm tone paper so you can't do much to alter the colour. Any shift will be slight and if you use techniques used for Warm-tone papers your likely to get poor quality and odd effects.

Ian

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

I think that's a great paper for proofs and playing around with, but agree with Ian that I find it limiting in altering tones in any manner. The Ilford Galerie papers respond much better in this respect, I think. Particularly the split sepia-selenium, it's gorgeous. My guess is that it would respond to cold tone developers, too. Galerie papers lith pretty well, so I also assume no developers incorporated. I don't know about the MGIV.

 

[AlanC]

Molson,

Try Dektol at 1+9. When I used this dilution I got a definite cool blue-black. At 1+4 there was hardly any colour change so I would expect even less at 1+2.

Alan Clark