Uneven Freestyle APHS

[silvergrainz]

Hello everyone
I've started to use Freestyle APHS film for enlarged negatives. I want to start trying out some gum printing. I used to use this film about 5 years ago and it worked wonderfully. I've tried Dektol at 1:9 for two minutes and 1:12 for three and no matter what I try I can't get even development, my darks are really mottled. I've also tried Tektol standard at whatever the bottle says for paper. I also have HC-110 and Rodinal at my disposal if those are better solutions, but I'd rather keep my times as short as possible(but at this time I will do just about anything if it will work). Has there been a change with this material? Does anyone have a bullet-proof procedure for it? I really don't want to have to do the computer thing. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[fschifano]

Admittedly, I haven't used a lot of this material so take this for what it's worth. My main concern when using this stuff is to control the contrast to a point where it can be used as an enlarged negative for cyanotypes. More contrast is needed for this printing process than is required of silver papers, but not as much you'd need to make a half tone screen. Speed of processing isn't an issue for me, and if it takes 5 minutes to fully develop the film, so be it. To that end, I've tried Dektol at the strength I use for silver papers. Not good. Too fast and too contrasty. Tried the same at 1+9. Still too fast. Then I tried HC-110 at 1+63. Now I was on to something. It was still fast, but the contrast was coming under control. In fact it was good enough to make an enlarged positive that stood up well to a back lit display or projection. Still too much contrast to bring it to the next step, which would be making an internegative by means of a contact print. My next round experiments with this stuff will try even higher dilutions of HC-110 at 1+100 and Rodinal at 1+100. Processing can be done in trays, by inspection, under a red safelight. OC and OA safelights are not good.

 

[Lowell Huff]

I would recommend Arista Premium Ultra Cold Tone developer for this application. Dilution should be approximately 1+15. I hope the film is not five years old?