Solvent, staining developers?

I'm interested in what seems to be a gap in available developer formulas: solvent developers with image stain. There are many occasions when highest acutance is not desireable and a less severe, possibly finer grained image is. There are of course many available solvent formulas that address this, but I am interested in staining ones specifically. Know of any?

Generally speaking, the sulfite that is the usual solvent prevents staining. Pyrogallol is more resistant to sulfite than are catechol and hydroquinone, but even with enough sulfite to inhibit most of the staining, I have not heard anyone say it was fine grain stuff. Thiocyanate has been used in fine grain developers as a solvent, but these are not very compatible with modern emulsions because of dichroic fog. I don't know if the thiocyanate would inhibit staining.

I forgot to say: there is another approach you might want to try. You can develop in a fine grain "solvent" developer, fix the image, bleach the silver back to chloride or bromide, and redevelop in any of the staining developers. The grain structure of the first image will remain and will be used to form the stain image. The bleach must be the type that is used in the bleach-redeveop method of sepia toning. The initial development should be to a lower than normal contrast, as the staining development increases contrast, especially for graded papers.

Hydroquinone is a staining developer in formulas that don't contain enough sulfite to have a solvent effect. I think you can make a staining version of D-76 by leaving out most of the sulfite. If you want to experiment, here's a good article on D-76 from Ryuji Suzuki, but it doesn't discuss the possibility of using it as a staining developer--

http://silvergrain.org/Photo-Tech/d-76.html

Adding solvent to most pyrogallol or catechol developers won't make them finer grained. Depending on the choice of the solvent, they probably become more coarse grained. I wrote several times on here and elsewhere that "solvent developer" does not mean "fine grain developer." They are simply not always synonymous.

In order to make pyro developers finer grained, you'll have to adjust the developer pH, developer concentration, etc. and solvent level. However, in my experience with ascorbate developers, fine grain ascorbate developers give enough accutance, fine grain and good density range. In other words, as long as printing on silver gelatin enlarging paper is concerned, I see no need to change my developers to something else.

Try adding sodium chloride to Pyrocat-HD or Pyrocat-MC. 30 grams per liter is a good starting point. Sodium chloride acts as a restrainer; it can affect developing times, also increased exposure may be necessary if high concentrations are used. I tried one roll at 100 grams per liter; expect to cut the film speed in half at this concentration.

I tried using sodium chloride with PMK with less success.

Ryuji said:

Adding solvent to most pyrogallol or catechol developers won't make them finer grained. Depending on the choice of the solvent, they probably become more coarse grained. I wrote several times on here and elsewhere that "solvent developer" does not mean "fine grain developer." They are simply not always synonymous.

Click to expand...

An interesting adjunct to this is monobath developers. After all, thiosulfate is a very strong solvent...

In my one experiment with this, I ended up with visible grain in a contact print from FP4+...

Sodium chloride is a mild solvent for silver bromide but the effect is very limited without adjunct use of sulfite or other solvents. Even then, "finer grain" is another story. If the grain gets finer with Pyrocat-HD with chloride, I think it's due to restraining action, salt effect (on gelatin) or both.

Another issue with chloride is that solution physical development is more likely in chloride-rich developer. This usually makes grains in highlight and midtone bigger. I tried this type of modifications to various ascorbate developers but I didn't particularly like any of them.

Ryuji said:

Adding solvent to most pyrogallol or catechol developers won't make them finer grained. Depending on the choice of the solvent, they probably become more coarse grained. I wrote several times on here and elsewhere that "solvent developer" does not mean "fine grain developer." They are simply not always synonymous.

Click to expand...

An interesting adjunct to this is monobath developers. After all, thiosulfate is a very strong solvent...

In my one experiment with this, I ended up with visible grain in a contact print from FP4+...

You might consider ammonium chloride or sodium thiocyanate. The latter has often been used as a solvent in developers at low concentration. Beware that dichroic fog may appear, but most modern films are designed to repress it.

PE

Could a staining developer be formulated using PPD?

Not unless a dye forming ingredient were present such as a Kodachrome like coupler. You can form an imagewise cyan/blue stain with PPD by using a p-chloro phenol, or a 4-chloro Napthol.

PE