Watery development?

I have read in some old photography books that its a good idea to

start the development process with a solution of weakly-diluted

developer, then continue with the full-strength working solution, on

the theory that the weaker developer dilution will allow the mid-

range tones to develop fully.

 

What do you think. How exactly is this done, and how does the timing

work?

What test data do you have supporting this "theory?" Today's emulsions are far more sophisticated than this approach gives credit. If you want more mid-tone development and less contrast, because that is the trade off, use a low contrast developer. This also presupposes that you can duplicate this result each time you do it. My opinion, it is a waste of time.

Aslan,

 

Interesting question. This could be argued from two different points of view. The weak developer would exhaust in the high densities very quickly and the very low densities would develop normally. When full strength developer is added the high densities would be developed and the very low densities would continue to develop to a greater density that would favor shadow detail. The other point of view would be the densities that you are trying to favor, the very low densities of the negative, would be developed to their maximum and stop, and would not truly be increased with the two development scheme. Any increase in density is "development fog" in the low values. This type of development might work for a very contrasty developer, but most modern developers can be tailored to the film and I do not see the above approach having any merit.

 

Paul

Paul, the first theory is the one proposed by the book. In fact, I have read something along the same lines for paper development too:

 

"The process of water development is useful in reducing contrasts and building highlight detail without blocking up the shadow areas. After the paper has been exposed, it is placed in a tray of plain water and allowed to soak for a few moments until saturated and limp. It is then drained and placed in a developer until the image starts to become visible, whereupon it is immediately transferred to the water tray and allowed to continue developing until the action seems to have stopped. It is then given another quick dip in the developer and again shifted into the water tray. The process is repeated until the desired tone is reached in the highlights when the print may be transferred back to the developer to bring up the shadow areas to the desired strength"

 

SOURCE: Better Prints -- Camerette Photo Library Volume E, published by The Camera Magazine, 1950

 

(I wonder if the chemistry has changed all that much since 1950?)

Yes, this is still very useful, although I prefer using highly diluted one bath developer. these methods bring excessive contrast down to a workable range. Best to do it with the negative once, rather than having to do it every time with a print. Check out a.adams "the negative" book for details.

 

My best yet was bringing a full 15 stop range down into a printable negative needing only minor dodging and burning in the extreme areas.

Aslan,

 

Since you posted your question in the B&W Photo - Film & Processing Forum, I made the assumption you were asking about film processing, and your question does not indiciate you are asking about developing prints. My answer to your question was directed to developing film. There have been many developers that use a two bath technique for paper development. The most famous is Dr. Beers' two solution formula. Solution A is a Metol (Elon) solution that is a low contrast developer and Solution B is a Hydroquinone solution that is a high contrast developer. You can start the development in Solution A then move the print to Solution B to finish. Using a 3 minute total development time, how you partition the time in the two developers will determine the contrast of the print. The modern approach to Dr. Beers' developers was to subsitute Kodak Selectol Soft for Solution A and Kodak Dektol for Solution B. In the first development tray mix 1 part Selectol Soft + 1 part water; in the second development tray mix 1 part Dektol + 1 part water. Using these two developers you can vary the contrast range on graded papers. Since you are asking about paper development, timing is much easier to determine. Start with a total development time of 3 minutes split 50/50 between the two developers. If the print is weak and needs more contrast, decrease the time in the soft developer. If the print needs less contrast, increase to time in the soft developer. Keep the total time constant. If you really want to make up Dr. Beers' developers, I can locate the formula and send it to you. In addition to the active ingredients mentioned above, you will need Na-Sulfite, Na-Carbonate and Potassium Bromide.

 

Paul

This was originally a question of developing film -- the same principle seems to be applied to paper too though: using one developer solution (either a diluted one or a low constrast one) to develop the midranges and then using another developer solution to develop the highlights and/or rest of the print/film. I suppose as Ken says, its easier to do this once on the negative than repeatedly on the print.

Perhaps what is being referred to here is water-bath development, useful for both compensating development of films and contrast reduction of papers. The technique is basically this:

 

Film(or paper) is immersed in full strength developer for a short time (30 seconds or so) with constant agitation. The film or paper is then transferred to a water or water/alkaline bath and left there without agitation for some time (up to two minutes or more). This cycle is repeated until the desired development is reached.

 

The idea behind this is that the emulsion in the film or paper absorbs developer that begins to work on all parts of the exposed silver halides. However, after transfer to the water bath, the developer in the areas with more exposure exhausts relatively quickly and stops working while the developer in the less exposed areas continues to work. This results in a proportional compensating effect, preserving shadow detail in films and highlight separation in prints.

 

I have used this technique successfully in the past for contrast reductions of up to N-4 (I now use SLIMTs), and when printing very contrasty negatives. For paper, when combined with a soft working developer, it is very useful for older negatives and plates intended for contact printing on POP, many of which have contrast ranges much higher than commonly found now. The split development technique for papers is also very useful (Beers 2-solution developer or separate trays of a soft and hard-working developer).

 

I would not hesitate to recommend water-bath development for modern films, with the reservation that it probably works best with sheet films that can be laid flat in the water bath. Roll films in tanks may have streaking problems.

 

Ansel Adams describes this technique in deatail in "The Negative". Others as well.

 

Hope this helps,

Aslan,

 

Sorry, I read your response to my post incorrectly. Doremus has given you a good discussion of a two solution compensating development for film. There is also a single bath compensating development for film. Using a very weak solution of a film developer you saturate the film and let it stand for 3 minutes. Then agitate the film for 10 seconds and let it stand for another 3 minutes. You keep this cycle up for 20 minutes and it will control the high values and preserve the shadow detail. I have used HC-110 developer at 1+127 dilution with exposures that need N-2 or N-3 development.

 

Concerning, has chemistry changed since the 1950, no chemistry has not but film has changed dramatically. Most developers that were around in the 40's and 50's are still around today. But film is very different and there are new developers to take advantage of the modern films. Modern films do not have the shoulder in the higher densities that made for poor separation of highlights. Therefore modern films are more forgiving with over exposure. But back to your original question, the usual rule for controlling exposures of high contrast scenes is to saturate the film with developer and let it exhaust in the high densities while the low densities continue to develop. Could you control a high contrast exposure with "watery development" as described; it would take a lot of experimenting to see how long in the dilute developer and how long in the normal developer would control the contrast. The time in the normal developer would have to be very short to keep it from developing the high densities.

 

Paul

RE: Low Contrast Development<P>

 

I would suggest people also look into the Selective Latent Image Manipulation Technique at <A HREF="http://www.codemastersworkshop.com/frontdoor/cont_pt3.htm" target=new>SLIMT</A>. This is a pre-processing step taken just before development which reduces contrast by proportionally removing latent image silver.<P>

 

I was trying to make B&W negatives from 4x5 Ektachrome slides on Ilford 100 Delta via contact printing. With a density range in the slide of over 3 (1:1000+ in regular language), I needed a gamma of roughly 1/3rd in the B&W material to end up with a negative with a density range around 1 that would print more or less normally. (The other way to look at this is that I had a range of ten zones or more in the original "scene" and needed to bring it down nearer to 7-8 zones, or something like N-3 developement.) I had pushed normal things like dilution, development time, and using weaker accelerators in the developer mix to their plausible limits but was still getting very contrasty negatives -- too contrasty to print even on low-grade papers w/soft developers. Post-processing reduction of the neg in a supposedly proportional two-step version of Farmer's Reducer was bringing the highlights down but causing me to loose shadow detail too with this particular film (ie, the reducer was acting more like a subtractive one than a proportional one).<P>

 

Well, my very first shot at SLIMT basically worked. It can certainly be tweaked some, but the results are pretty amazing considering the net simplicity of it.<P>

 

My recipe is as follows:<P>

 

Start with 1) a ½% sol'n of potassium ferricyanide; for my granular chem this is ¼ tsp into 9 fl. oz. (266.31 ml) of water; 2) a 10% sol'n of potassium bromide; for my granular chem this is 2 tspn in 125 ml of water. There's nothing sacred in these proportions -- I happened to have the first solution on hand from the Farmer's Reducer experiments and the second is just something one might have on hand if working with developers which sometime need added restrainers (which KBr is).<P>

 

Take 59 ml of the first and add 1 ml of the second to it. This gives the proper ratio of the ferricyanide and bromide. 5 ml of this combo diluted down to 125 ml of working sol'n gives the weakest dilution Mr. Kachel mentions. It turns out to be a bit on the potent side IMO with this film, so you may want to use 3-4 ml instead. Scale volumes up or down depending on how much sol'n your processing operation requires, using the same amount of this pre-bath as you would developer.<P>

 

I gave my exposed but un-developed film 6 minutes in this bath (72°F), which turns a blue-black by the end of the treatment. But don't panic, things will work out. Even though it looks awful and you're sure the film is ruined, or that carryover will wreck the developer, there is no rinse step and it goes immediately into the developer. One stops, fixes, and washes as usual.<P>

 

I still had some soft-working developer (maybe an N-1 or N-1½ developer) on hand which I used, increasing the development time 12-13% to partially compensate for its inherently low contrast nature. Mr. Kachel recommends using a normal developer and developing normally. My results back up this recommendation. My negative contrast came out a little on the low side, but maybe only one paper grade's worth -- ie, not a disaster.<P>

 

I did note a loss in film speed, which Kachel says shouldn't happen, but it's maybe on the order of ½ stop or less. There was no fog, though when wet the negative had a pinkish cast to it in the clearer areas which vanished almost entirely upon drying.<P>

 

I was just about to start trying two-bath and water-bath development methods when I turned up SLIMT and as you can see I'm an instant believer. For what I was trying to do it seemed like the answer to what was starting to look like a possible dead-end.<P>

 

P.S. - some of the other pages at that site will perhaps make one think differently about a phrase like "...will allow the mid-range tones to develop fully"; at least one of the techniques there is designed to do exactly the opposite. Worth reading about...<P>