The captions explain the treatment of each picture. They come from a black marker pen squiggle that I put on the back of the paper negative. The white squiggle on each picture is there so that ‘paper white’ can be seen (they show white on my prints but not on my screen!). For example the baths change in chemical composition as you push more prints through them). Here are the results of my experiment (this is not a scientific experiment as not all of the variables are easily controlled. Using an acid stop bath would have made for less consistency since Catechol is more sensitive to low PHs than is Hydroquinone and therefore multiple transfers between an acid stop bath and Catechol would have reduced the Catechol effect more than the Lith effect. I developed each print by inspection and used two water stop baths between each developer bath to reduce cross-contamination.
I used Ilford FBWT semi-matt paper which does not lith without snowballing. I used the Catechol bath first to avoid any lith effect which would result from using the Lith bath first. Part B is simply the alkali Potassium Carbonate. The Moersch Lith developer only has Hydroquinone without Bromide in Part A. A couple of other developers are also present in small quantities. The primary restrainer is Potassium Bromide which slows the reduction of the silver halide, reduces the contrast and adds a warm tone to the image. The two molecules are related, Catechol being the ortho version of the C 6H 4(OH) 2 molecule whilst Hydroquinone being the para version (therefore more of a redox effect). Moersch Catechol is a hard working developer with both Catechol and Hydroquinine present as developing agents. The catechol bath was Moersch SE 20C Catechol. I chose to use a Catechol bath and a Lith bath after seeing some interesting results from film-based pictures on social media.
For example one could use a soft developer in one bath (such as Metol only) and a harder developer in the second bath, such as Hydroquinone coupled with Metol for super-additivity. It is the latter type that I explore here.Ī large range of two-bath options are open to us.
DOES THE AMOUNT OF STOP BATH USED AFFECT THE FINAL PRINT FULL
There are two types of two-bath development: divided development where the active ingredient is isolated in one bath and the activating alkali in a second bath and true two-bath development where each bath has the full complement of chemicals necessary to develop the print. Playing with the chemical composition of each bath, the development time and their dilutions gives you a wide range of results. This involves developing the picture in two different developing baths and cycling the print between them. It was processed in 1:18 Ilford Multigrade developer at 20 C.Ī quick word about two-bath development. The picture was taken using grade 2 Ilfospeed RC paper at an EI of 12. The indoor scene had a limited range of tonality (about a span of 8 stops). I started with a 7×5 paper negative taken in-camera with my Walker Titan 7×5 camera and a 210mm lens. Yesterday I experimented with two-bath development. Until a year ago or so, I had laboured under the false assumption that there was limited scope for altering the look of a picture through paper negatives.
Paper negatives open up many possibilities for self-expression. Following my posts about contrast control at the paper negative development stage, I now look at print development techniques …
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