Your paper and the developer?

I haven't printed much in the last year but plan to get back into a regular routine soon which will involve a lot of Fomatone MG Classic Nature II 532 and Rollei Lith developer

Fotospeed RCVC Oyster
Foma 532 II Nature
Fomabrom Variant 4 123

Ilford PQ Universal Developer
Ilford Warmtone Developer

Plus any odd bits I can pick up cheap.

Print paper, 1:a choice:
Ilford MGFB Warmtone, (IMO excellent paper – never liked MGIV), and Fomatone MG 131 (IMO nice tonality and somewhat stronger shadow contrast compared to MGFB WT which though have more beautiful highlights, and 131 is also very responsive to toning and Lith developing.)
Also:
Fomatone Variant 123, both graded and MG (IMO very good papers, somewhat thinner and cheaper papers.)
Kentmere VC Fine print (IMO also very good paper, good price; not as responsive to toning as Foma papers, in my experience.)
Adox MCC 110 (have a box but have just used a few papers, but seems to be a very beautiful and useful paper - perhaps a coming favourite?)

Never really found an interesting use for other than glossy papers.
Contacts for inspection, I use all kinds of cheap RC paper.

Paper developers:
The last years I have only used a version of Beers developer for different contrasts, normally Beer #5, using soft Ansco 130 for Beer A and ordinary strong Beer B.
With negatives of various contrasts and subjects, nice to control print contrast and print tone with the developer, and also print contrast with various filtration for MG papers - extending the MG papers contrast range with various combination av Beer developer.
Also some time used an Amidol developer (version of Westons folrmula) with good results, but nothing extraordinary in camparison to the "Amidol-cult".
For Lith, have only used LD20

Good luck with your choice of print material; try, inspect an judge according to your preferences!
/Bertil

Bruce Osgood said:

Presently Adox MC 110 with LPD 1:3.

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Ditto, but I play with Arista.edu Ultra for contact sheets, stuff to share with family and friends, and lith.

Adox Fine Print Vario Classic developed in Dokumol 1 + 6 for 3 minutes is what I use for everything.

I can thoroughly recommend it if you like your prints to be neutral to cool.

Best,

David
www.dsallen.de

Standard black & white printing:
Ilford MGWT fiber semimatte for portraits.
Ilford MGIV fiber matte for everything else.
Replenished Ethol LPD.
I think of toners as developers too; I use Moersch MT-3, Carbon, and Blue toners, and Harman Selenium toner.

Lith black & white printing:
Arista Lith developer
Agfa Portriga Rapid
Agfa Brovira
A mess of old Kodak paper

Ilford MGIV and Warmtone in LPD 1:3 or 1:4. Everything gets toned, atleast in selenium.

Multigrade IV Fiber + Dektol. The Ilford developers give too warm a tone to the paper. While selenium cools it down, I like the cold, almost purple tone of the paper in Dektol with selenium.

I use a wide variety of papers, I am gradually thinning out to Foma Chamois and Varient, Fotospeed Oyster, Ilford RC Warmtone (also, Tetenal Baryt and Bergger Prestige when I can). Probably @90% in Tetenal Eukobrom, as I prefer a neutral to cool result (and it seems to set the paper up for toning nicely), and @ 10% in Rollei Print WA (warmtone developer) that is available in convenient 300ml sealable pouches.
I've never dedicated myself to just one or two papers as I enjoy the variety of interpretation that different papers bring. I've settled on Eukobrom for the past few years as a measure of some consistency and it seems to do a good job on anything I put into it - no off putting tones (in my eyes) that I have had with Multigrade developer, for example. I will also mention that I find Eukobrom to be good at dealing with longer developing times if I have slightly misjudged exposure time or contrast: for me I would consider 2 minutes as normal, whereas I have gone to 3 to 3.5 minutes comfortably to pull out a little more in the highlights without muddying the print.

Regards, Mark Walker.

Fomatone & some Fomaspeed in LPD.

Ilford RC MGIV pearl or matte with Dektol 1:3

I tried out Arista Premium RC Multigrad (Pearl) with Dektol as well. This paper does the work, although it curls a little. I will stick to it, though, because it's much more affordable than Ilford.

chimneyfinder said:

I use a wide variety of papers, I am gradually thinning out to Foma Chamois and Varient, Fotospeed Oyster, Ilford RC Warmtone (also, Tetenal Baryt and Bergger Prestige when I can). Probably @90% in Tetenal Eukobrom, as I prefer a neutral to cool result (and it seems to set the paper up for toning nicely), and @ 10% in Rollei Print WA (warmtone developer) that is available in convenient 300ml sealable pouches.
I've never dedicated myself to just one or two papers as I enjoy the variety of interpretation that different papers bring. I've settled on Eukobrom for the past few years as a measure of some consistency and it seems to do a good job on anything I put into it - no off putting tones (in my eyes) that I have had with Multigrade developer, for example. I will also mention that I find Eukobrom to be good at dealing with longer developing times if I have slightly misjudged exposure time or contrast: for me I would consider 2 minutes as normal, whereas I have gone to 3 to 3.5 minutes comfortably to pull out a little more in the highlights without muddying the print.

Regards, Mark Walker.

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Is Tetenal Eukobrom available in the US at all?

Brian, I don't see any reference to a U.S. supplier on Tetenals website from my side of the Atlantic, seems to be Europe and India, but maybe someone over your way knows otherwise. Shame if you can't access it as they make excellent chemicals and the Oyster RCVC paper, I believe, is a superb, crisp semi-matt paper that can tone brilliantly.

Regards, Mark Walker

brian steinberger said:

Is Tetenal Eukobrom available in the US at all?

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Check with Freestyle; they started carrying the Tetenal color film/paper processing kits. I see nothing on their web site, but just give them a call.

Re: my previous comment, the Oyster paper I mentioned is of course by Fotospeed, not Tetenal, apologies.
Mark Walker.

Gelatin, sugar, carbon, and water mixed then poured onto fixed-out X-ray film. Sensitized, exposed, then developed in hot (120F) tap water.

Use to use Agfa Portriga Rapid 111 or Ilford Gallery developed in Dektol 1 to 2...occasionally some selectol-soft before the Dektol to split the grades.

Vaughn