Paper Developers?

[MattKing]

Ethol LPD.

Tough to find right now (in powder form).

 

[jvo]

I just ordered some Liquidol, which is supposed to be a liquid version of Dektol. Twenty bucks buys 1 liter, which will make 2.5 gallons working solution. That's a great value....

liquidol+++++++++

long lasting

 

[Tom Kershaw]

As an addition to this thread. I have been using Ryuji Susuki's DS-14 paper developer, replenishing per session with no issues - with a batch started six months ago.

 

[Loren Sattler]

LPD is a very high quality, long lasting developer and easy to replenhish. Much has been written here by users. Search "LPD replenish" and you will find several posts explaining the value, methods and ease of replenishing the product. Tom Bertilson promoted it here years ago and posted his method of mixing and replenishing.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Ethol LPD.

+1 One of the all time best paper developers out there.

 

[Renato Tonelli]

LPD is a very high quality, long lasting developer and easy to replenhish. Much has been written here by users. Search "LPD replenish" and you will find several posts explaining the value, methods and ease of replenishing the product. Tom Bertilson promoted it here years ago and posted his method of mixing and replenishing.

I am a long time user of Ethol LPD and the thing I like best about it is its versatility, making useful for both cold-tone and warm-tone papers. I mix the stock solution 1+3 and sometimes 1+4 for warm-tone. The stock solution last a very long time.
I hope they keep making it; Ethol's parent company has ceased production of a vast array of chemistry. I do have enough to keep me going a couple of years.

 

[Ernst-Jan]

I am new to printing, made my first print about a year ago. I am using Adox MCC developer. It's open for a year now and still good.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I am using Adox MCC developer. It's open for a year now and still good.

Yes. The MCC developer works very well, I was using it before I went back to self-mixed developers.

 

[MattKing]

I am a long time user of Ethol LPD and the thing I like best about it is its versatility, making useful for both cold-tone and warm-tone papers. I mix the stock solution 1+3 and sometimes 1+4 for warm-tone. The stock solution last a very long time.
I hope they keep making it; Ethol's parent company has ceased production of a vast array of chemistry. I do have enough to keep me going a couple of years.

I have been looking to buy the powder version for nearly two years. It has been out of stock at all the online sources throughout that time. Even if it were in stock, B&H won't ship it.

 

[Renato Tonelli]

I have been looking to buy the powder version for nearly two years. It has been out of stock at all the online sources throughout that time. Even if it were in stock, B&H won't ship it.

Freestyle has it and will ship it. The scarcity makes me wonder if they stopped making it; I hope not.

BTW - B&H does not ship most chemistry, as far I know.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Need to order more, have used Dektol for years, recently using Ilford MultiGrade paper developer. Both work well. The paper is all Ilford MGRC Deluxe Glossy (latest version) and Ilford MGFB Classic Glossy.
What do you like for performance, cost, convenience, storage life, etc.?
Thank you for your thoughts...

I'm for Dektol all the way; never let me down. use it until max black gets harder to obtain.

 

[BradS]

I've always (40+ years) used Dektol / D72.
Never found any need to even try anything else.

 

[BradS]

I have been looking to buy the powder version for nearly two years. It has been out of stock at all the online sources throughout that time. Even if it were in stock, B&H won't ship it.

I saw this at the Habitat for Humanity thrift store the other day…looks like two dozen cans in sad condition.

 

[osella]

Freestyle has it and will ship it. The scarcity makes me wonder if they stopped making it; I hope not.

BTW - B&H does not ship most chemistry, as far I know.

Maybe they don’t ship everything, but they will certainly ship most chemistry. I haven’t found anything they won’t ship. The distance may matter as well I’m only in Vermont.

B&H probably does not ship chemistry to Canada however.

 

[brian steinberger]

Ethol LPD.

+1. Been using LPD for over 15 years. Tried others. Just not the same. As said, it is hard to find right now and getting quite expensive.

I can go months between printing sessions and LPD is always up to task when I need it. Just make sure you keep it in a glass bottle. I dilute 1:1 and add PMT for coldest tones. Works great with classic fiber glossy.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm for Dektol all the way; never let me down. use it until max black gets harder to obtain.

I've always (40+ years) used Dektol / D72.
Never found any need to even try anything else.

Dektol lets one time the development which reduces a big variable and thus makes it easier to get consistent good prints.

 

[MattKing]

Freestyle has it and will ship it.

I've been monitoring Freestyle on this for two years now. Not checking every day of course, but quite frequently. They just keep bumping the backordered date.
They do have the liquid version.

Maybe they don’t ship everything, but they will certainly ship most chemistry. I haven’t found anything they won’t ship. The distance may matter as well I’m only in Vermont.
B&H probably does not ship chemistry to Canada however.

There are quite a few chemistry products at B & H that are listed as not being available for online sale. And they don't seem to share any logical similarities.
In normal times I often use a mailing address just a few blocks away from where I live - a mailing address in Washington State - so I'm not normally caught by the "ground shipping only" restrictions that prevent shipping to Canada. Most chemicals that are available online from B & H are available for shipping to Canada.

I saw this at the Habitat for Humanity thrift store the other day….looks like two dozen cans in sad condition. They had each one priced at $2.

I would have bought them all - with print developer, your risk is very low.

 

[gordrob]

I have been using Dektol since it came in the Tri-Chem Packs of the 60s. I still have some packets and cans from the pre Alairis days of Kodak so I should have enough developer to last me for a while.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I gave up on Dektol decades ago. The greenish cast it yields is obnoxious, and the shadow gradation is disappointing. Now I primarily use 130 glycin formula mixed from powder ingredients. I NEVER EVER try to replenish or reuse anything; that helps too.

 

[Ian Grant]

These days I rarely buy compound chemistry it's 45 years since I began working as a Photo Chemist and emulsion maker (commercially).. Initially I only made up the chemistry I couldn't buy in reasonable quantities like 5 litre or 25 litre containers. However these days I mix almost everything from scratch.

Personally I wouldn't use Dektol/D72 not because it's bad developer rather because it's an MQ developer, that means it keeps less well & has much lower capacity than a PQ developer which will give equal quality results. The issue with MQ developers is Metol is development is retarded as Bromide builds up on a printing session. My choice is ID-78 although I make to a commercial strength rather than the published formula, however it's a Warm Tone developer. It's a variant of ID-62 (PQ Universal).

Ian

 

[Ian Grant]

I have been using Dektol since it came in the Tri-Chem Packs of the 60s. I still have some packets and cans from the pre Alairis days of Kodak so I should have enough developer to last me for a while.

When I began in the 1960's there was no Dektol here in the UK, we had Kodak D163 instead, but then there were a few Kodak Ltd developers never made or sold in the US, and a few EK developers never made here.

Ian

 

[grainyvision]

I gave up on Dektol decades ago. The greenish cast it yields is obnoxious, and the shadow gradation is disappointing. Now I primarily use 130 glycin formula mixed from powder ingredients. I NEVER EVER try to replenish or reuse anything; that helps too.

You never reuse anything? I was like that with everything but Ansco 130 until recently.

I figured out an actually good warmtone PQ developer (similar in ratios to ID-78) which has a shelf life of months so far and capacity of >50 8x10 prints per liter. Curve measurement of aged and new solutions are similar if adjusted for slightly longer development time, and it only gets warmer in tone as it gets older. It gets warm in terms of brown rather than olive is why I actually like it though.

I also greatly dislike D-72 and Dektol because of the green tone is gives everything. I still use it as a reference developer but not for any real production purpose. I've observed that print developers can matter for both curves and tone, especially on FB papers and especially if not over developed which produces sterile and very closed shadows.

 

[Paul Howell]

I've used Dektol or a clone for many years, lately been using Clayton P20 or Freestyle house rebanded version. A liquid developer easy to mix when I want to print only a few negatives I can mix in very small amounts and use film drums.

 

[Dali]

I saw this at the Habitat for Humanity thrift store the other day…looks like two dozen cans in sad condition.


View attachment 293646

a treasure! Buy them before they disappear ! I have rusty LPD cans but the developer inside is going strong.

 

[Down Under]

... think about making your own. The Darkroom Cookbook and several other references gives you access to lots of options with just a few stock chemicals. I believe I save money doing this, too.

I use the "E72" formula mixed homemade. You make a liter of stock at a time so run very little risk of it going bad. Only takes a few minutes to make up and is safer for you and the environment than Dektol. The kicker? I like the results more! Looks fantastic.

This is true of film developer, too. I make a 1 liter bottle of a homemade Xtol variant that works fantastic. The chances of a liter of stock solution going bad compared to the 5 liters a bag of Xtol makes is very, very low.

Agree. I bought the first Darkroom Cookbook edition when it was first published (about 20 years ago, if memory serve me right), I still have it and have used this variant of D72/Dektol ever since.

I recently replaced my electronic scales (after 7 years, accidentally dropped on the kitchen floor while mixing new batches of my darkroom brews) with a small scale I found on Ebay, used by coffee fanatics to measure precise amounts of beans. It works well.

Much of the paper I use nowadays is long-ago expired FB (I even have a few boxes of wonderful French Guilbrom left fro 1990-1991, still printing well), I find adding a little more potassium bromide and on occasion when I'm working with an ancient paper, some benzotriazole. Both can change the color of finished (processed) images, though, so go easy on either.

Ditto film developer. I now use Adox MQ borax developer which seems to bring out the best in my (also long expired) films. Earlier this month I finished a batch I mixed 15 months ago and it was still good, imagine!

(Later) Ian Grant's comments in two posts re PQ developers are interesting. Over the years (I set up my first darkroom as a high school kid in 1961 and mixed chemistry from scratch from the late '60s) I too have played around with most of the older PQ developers for both films and papers he writes about. Of the lot of them, PQ Universal is probably the best I've used over all that time, with D163 a close second. Food for thought...