M Carter
Allowing Ads
I'm finding that my B&W print chemistry generally has far longer life than the labels suggest.
I don't like to pour out chemistry that may still be fine, and I'll reuse unless I'm doing a big print or something special, final, etc. But for dialing in a print, I've had great luck storing chemistry far longer than the instructions/data suggest. For instance, I make plain hypo for bromoils and lith. It's supposed to age quickly in the tray and have pretty limited print count. Yet I can bottle the stuff and use again and again, for sessions days or weeks apart. (I'll get to the point but to avoid being dunce-capped) :
When my developer is fresh, I usually snip a piece of the paper I'll be using, expose it to room light and develop to full black. I keep this handy as a black reference.
Then, under safe lights, I fold a scrap of paper so one half can sit in the fixer for three minutes. I turn on the room lights, and develop the scrap. A full black half against a pure-white half suggests my fix and dev are doing fine.
If I find it "feels" I'm having trouble hitting full blacks on a print, I'll compare to my full-black test scrap and toss a little more working solution in the dev tray, and test a new scrap for blacks.
So... my question - what actually are the symptoms of exhausted developer? Longer times or density loss? Anything to look out for?
I feel my fixer test is legit, especially since I test final prints for silver and hypo. I use indicator stop, and since I know of no way to test HCA, I dump it at the end of every fiber session.
(For the record - I'm really trying to dial in my printing and learn some masking techniques, so I tend to do all sorts of tests, often with cheap adorama RC paper. When I print a final or something I want to keep or give away, I may mix fresh chemistry - but I always do residual silver and residual hypo tests on prints I intend to keep. Yep, sometimes they do go back in the wash... that's what the test is for...)
I don't like to pour out chemistry that may still be fine, and I'll reuse unless I'm doing a big print or something special, final, etc. But for dialing in a print, I've had great luck storing chemistry far longer than the instructions/data suggest. For instance, I make plain hypo for bromoils and lith. It's supposed to age quickly in the tray and have pretty limited print count. Yet I can bottle the stuff and use again and again, for sessions days or weeks apart. (I'll get to the point but to avoid being dunce-capped) :
When my developer is fresh, I usually snip a piece of the paper I'll be using, expose it to room light and develop to full black. I keep this handy as a black reference.
Then, under safe lights, I fold a scrap of paper so one half can sit in the fixer for three minutes. I turn on the room lights, and develop the scrap. A full black half against a pure-white half suggests my fix and dev are doing fine.
If I find it "feels" I'm having trouble hitting full blacks on a print, I'll compare to my full-black test scrap and toss a little more working solution in the dev tray, and test a new scrap for blacks.
So... my question - what actually are the symptoms of exhausted developer? Longer times or density loss? Anything to look out for?
I feel my fixer test is legit, especially since I test final prints for silver and hypo. I use indicator stop, and since I know of no way to test HCA, I dump it at the end of every fiber session.
(For the record - I'm really trying to dial in my printing and learn some masking techniques, so I tend to do all sorts of tests, often with cheap adorama RC paper. When I print a final or something I want to keep or give away, I may mix fresh chemistry - but I always do residual silver and residual hypo tests on prints I intend to keep. Yep, sometimes they do go back in the wash... that's what the test is for...)