A Good Cool Tone Developer?

[martha33]

I now have produced 4 "proof of concept" prints in my tiny "Dark Room in the John!" I'm happy to report that I have no light leaks and have figured out how to navigate with Safe Lights!

I am using Ilford Harman Warmtone Developer with some film that I had not previously printed. These were satisfying prints as they were the first produced here in my tiny darkroom! However, in general, I would prefer a cool tone developer. I have been browsing the "Photographers Formulary Catalogue" and see that there are many choices for me to consider. So, I am wondering what other folks have used? I would really like some recommendations.

[Jim Noel]

Good old Kodak Dektol would be a good place for you to start with cool tone developers. There are many others,but they are rather similar.

[Jerry Bodine]

The degree of warmtone desired is subjective; you could also sample papers that are more neutral or cooler in tone (e.g., Classic or Cooltone types). While your looking at the Formulary chems, I'd suggest you consider their Liquidol developer as an option to Dektol, since it produces results much like Dektol but has both much longer shelf life and tray life. It was "developed" for the Formulary by Ron Mowrey (retired Kodak engineer) with that specific goal in mind. I find it very impressive stuff.

[Drew Wiley]

What creates a cold tone is relative not only to the specific paper you choose, but how you plan to tone that paper afterwards. Dektol generally produces a greenish brown-black rather than a neutral black cold tone. There are tweaks of MQ and PQ developers which yielded a cold blue-black tone on certain papers like the now extinct Polygrade V. Certain amidol formulas give the coldest tones on Bromide graded papers (now gone), and also on the current Ilford MG Cooltone paper. But ironically, if you want a cold tone on a warm paper like MGWT, use a warmish developer like 130 which finely divides the silver, FULLY develop it, then tone it with gold chloride toner. Lighter parts of the image will be a bit warm, but the shadows will go deep blue-black if toned long enough. Not exactly split toning (more subtle); but that's an option too.

[LabRat]

With a Dektol type developer, for cooler tones you would use less dilution, but you will see the image will be more contrasty, and harder to get shadow detail...

You can start at a stock dilution, and see what you get, then do a little math and you can add more water to dilute more and test that, and so on...

A hot tip is to measure liquid volumes with the metric scale, as that makes it simple... (An example is 1 liter = 1000ml, so 1:3 is a total of 4 parts, with 1 part developer is 250 ml + 750ml water = 1000ml or 1 liter... And these are not far off the US standard sizes... And it's easy to figure out complex dilution on a calculator...

Make sure your darkroom graduates have a ml scale, it makes life very easy for you!!!

Good luck with your printing!!!

Steve K

[Mark Sampson]

I'll second the use of Liquidol. It's worked well for me since I re-established my darkroom this year.

[koraks]

I'm quite pleased with Burki & Jennings cool tone developer, which can easily mixed yourself. It gives a nice punch to the midtones. You can increase the amount of benzotriazole for additional coolness.

[andreios]

I use moersch Se6 Blur developer when I want something really "cool", makes beautiful results especially on warmer papers...

[esearing]

PF 130 (Ansco 130 formula) with Bergger NB Variable contrast is a bit bluer/colder than Ilford MGFB classic.

[Drew Wiley]

That's nice to know, but Bergger NB seems to be a darn hard paper to get.

[esearing]

That's nice to know, but Bergger NB seems to be a darn hard paper to get.

maybe you aren't trying very hard. I found it in all normal sizes within 3 vendors BH, Adorama, and Freestyle. I'm sure there are others who carry it. It was sold out in some sizes and special order if you want rolls of it. Even Ebay had some.

[Joe O'Hara]

Not to gainsay Drew, but I have found that I get nice cool tones with Ilford MG Warmtone by using the D-72 formula from Steve Anchell's Darkroom Cookbook and substituting 15 ml of 1% benzotriazole per liter for all of the potassium bromide, and using it at a 1:1 dilution. It also tones nicely in selenium. To be clear, I have not tried his suggested strategy.
(NB 1% benzotriazole is 10 g of benzotriazole in a liter of water.)

I've gotten to really like MGW but it's quite expensive, and according to Ilford, not packaged in larger boxes than 50 sheets of 11x14.

[martha33]

I am learning a lot from all these suggestions but keep in mind that I am fairly new at all of this so please be sure that no too many "strange abbreviations" make your contribution difficult for the uninformed to understand!

[martha33]

A number of folks have mentioned paper as being a key piece to the "cool tone prints" that I am hoping for. This makes perfect sense and I probably should have included it in the first place. I was a Senior Citizen and went to school a few years back (Herron School of Art and Design, IUPUI in Indianapolis) and I have some paper left over that has been saved and is turning out to be just fine. So, the papers I have are:

1. Ilford Multigrade FB Classic, Glossy
2. Ilford Multigrade IV Fiber Matt
3. Ilford Multigrade FB Classic, Matt
4. Ilford Hahnemühle MG Art 300 Textured (I have not yet tried this, but it was recommended by one of my instructors)

I also see lots of recommendations that I tone my prints and this is something that I also have not yet tried. Perhaps this information will help folks focus there responses to my query. I really do appreciate all the helpful suggestions from everyone!! Thanks!

[Drew Wiley]

Martha, none of those papers are truly cold tone. Multigrade Cold Tone would be if you use an appropriate cold developer. But the papers you do have can be tweaked via specific developer choice and toning method to achieve a colder tone than they generally would render. But that's exactly where opinions begin to differ. Some cite MQ developers like Dektol, but to me they render an off-greenish tone on such papers that I don't personally classify as cold. So you just need to experiment to decide what you like best for a given image. I do not believe that one shoe fits all, not only with regard to personal preferences, but with what is appropriate to one specific images versus another. But unfortunately, in this day and age, very few true cold papers still exist to choose from. That wasn't always the case.

[John Layton]

I'll second the earlier suggestion of Moersch SE-6. Works some magic with Ilford MGWT (great also with Forte if you can find it), cools MG Classic quite a bit, and cools Cooltone even more. Personally, I'm currently finding that I can usually cover most of my needs by keeping a supply of Moersch 4812 and SE-6 on hand, along with stocks of both MG Classic and MGWT. The Moersch developers do cost a bit by volume...but they (especially the 4812) have generous capacities/shelf lives.

[Ian Gordon Bilson]

A number of folks have mentioned paper as being a key piece to the "cool tone prints" that I am hoping for. This makes perfect sense and I probably should have included it in the first place. I was a Senior Citizen and went to school a few years back (Herron School of Art and Design, IUPUI in Indianapolis) and I have some paper left over that has been saved and is turning out to be just fine. So, the papers I have are:

1. Ilford Multigrade FB Classic, Glossy
2. Ilford Multigrade IV Fiber Matt
3. Ilford Multigrade FB Classic, Matt
4. Ilford Hahnemühle MG Art 300 Textured (I have not yet tried this, but it was recommended by one of my instructors)

I also see lots of recommendations that I tone my prints and this is something that I also have not yet tried. Perhaps this information will help folks focus there responses to my query. I really do appreciate all the helpful suggestions from everyone!! Thanks!

With the Ilford emulsions you have ,and using ,in my case, home mixed D72, and Dektol previously , I would strongly suggest finishing with a gentle treatment in Selenium Toner. I use Kodak,but Ilford should be similar. 1 to 20 dilution for 3-4 minutes. The idea is for the print to not appear "Toned". You should expect a cooler effect,with richer blacks. Comparing two prints should prove my point.