Long life opened liquid paper developer

[tonyowen]

I'm after suggestions for a paper developer that has a long shelf life after the liquid concentrate has been opened
I use very little developer 270ml in a Jobo tank [for up to six 4x5 (paper) negatives] and do not develop many over a longish time. Consequently my developer seems to become useless long before I've used it up.
I changed from 1L bottle to 500ml bottles, but wonder if I need to go smaller though the cost per ml increases as the volume decreases.

Regards
Tony

[Tin Can]

Your technique in a Jobo is a limitation

I use only Ilford PQ from gallon concentrate bottles in trays

Which is development by inspection, not time

I buy PQ by the gallon, mix as directed a diluted gallon one at a time, stored in brown glass gallon bottle and pour off the top, never shaken of stirred, Mr Bond

I often use smaller trays with much less than a gallon of mix and may develop less than than capacity, so I pour all but the dregs back in the bottle

When development obviously slows I recycle all the old mix

I do something similar with TF5 fixer in 2 gallon floating lid tanks

I check fixer with test strips, 2 ways, bits of X-Ray film and a little bottle of something out of production

Lastly I also use DIY Citric acid stop on PAPER

[koraks]

Decant into smaller glass bottles, Bob's your uncle!

[stefn]

If you're not married to tank processing, have you considered buying raw chemicals & just mixing up D76 as needed. Works well as a one-shot paper developer (by inspection in a darkened bathroom).

Alternatively, go the marbles/protectcan route in glass bottles for any remaining concentrate of your choice.

[John Layton]

Moersch 4812 paper developer is great stuff - amazing shelf life...both of the concentrate after opened and of working dilutions, long open tray life also (even in very large trays), high capacity, amazing D-Max, neutral to slightly warmish tonalities (depending on paper) and as a true bonus - while it lives long...it dies fast, allowing for great print to print consistency until it quickly (and quite visibly) goes down. A bit pricy initially, but don't be deterred by this, as its large capacity and long keeping qualities equate with extreme cost-effectiveness.

[PRJ]

No reason to do anything differently or change developers. You just need to add something to the bottle to prevent oxidation. I use Butane which is "flammable" of course. You could use the stuff they sell for paint or wine. The Butane works fine for me and you can get it at the drug store for refilling lighters. Cheap too. Just don't smoke around it, duh. You only need the smallest amount.

Hope that helps you.

[Dugan]

I use the smallest bottles of Ilford Multigrade developer. I shoot Dust-Off in the bottle, and store it in the fridge. Seems to work ok for me.

[abruzzi]

deleted - misread the original question

[MartinP]

If you have a litre or 1/2 litre bottle of concentrate that isn't being used up quickly, simply open it to begin with then top up a 1/2 litre bottle (if you start from 1 litre) to the brim, then a 250ml bottle, leaving enough to use in the short term in another 250ml bottle which will be the one you use first. The smaller bottles will, of course, be reusable and you can get them from any online photographic place (maybe even a pharmacy). Note that plain polythene bottles for drinks etc. will eventually leak air through the walls, glass is good or PET. As to specific products, I can also recommend the Moersch developer which performs for a number of printing sessions if bottled up afterwards. Also, if you can use trays instead of the Jobo tanks it will make things much simpler.

[mike rosenlof]

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/hc-110-as-print-developer.168833/

here's a thread over on photrio, suggesting HC-110 and some sodium carbonate to raise the pH. Haven't tried it, but it's been done...

[mike rosenlof]

a year+ later, I have now tried this

About 1 oz (30ml) HC110 syrup per quart (1 litre) + 1 tbs (15g) washing soda and you'll think
you have Dektol.

and thought it worked just fine. Tray life was good enough for printing sessions on consecutive days. Dev. times were pretty normal for me. 2 min for Ilford MG FB.

[LabRat]

Another thing for mixing packaged developers is to mix in a small amount (1 gram) of sodium sulfite before mixing in developer contents to scavenge oxygen from solution which will age solution upon mixing...

Steve K

[Eric Woodbury]

Ds-14

[jnantz]

I have used ansco 130 (or something that is similar) as a film and paper developer for years
it will last for over a year as a stock solution. used for film, like its cousin ansco 125, it offers up. "crisp" negatives
as described by the PLI... 1:10 10 mins ( 1:x for x mins ) about 70 degrees F (glycin likes warm)
in open trays shuffled, or in small tanks normal agitation, your methods or processing might require a few tests..
good luck finding a developer that works for you!
John

[otto.f]

Moersch 4812 paper developer is great stuff - amazing shelf life...both of the concentrate after opened and of working dilutions, long open tray life also (even in very large trays), high capacity, amazing D-Max, neutral to slightly warmish tonalities (depending on paper) and as a true bonus - while it lives long...it dies fast, allowing for great print to print consistency until it quickly (and quite visibly) goes down. A bit pricy initially, but don't be deterred by this, as its large capacity and long keeping qualities equate with extreme cost-effectiveness.

+1. Can’t tell which paper developers I tried in 30+ years, but with Moersch eco 4812 the blacks are deeper than from any other. And it works very nice with warmtone papers because it doesn’t exaggerate ever, which is a true risk with warmtone, to my taste.

[John Layton]

...not to mention the stunning qualities possible with warm tone paper when souped in Moersch SE-6 (cold tone developer). Thing is, I'm having a bit of difficulty finding shelf-life info for SE-6 - so if anyone could chime in with this info...that would be great!

[Jim Noel]

If you're not married to tank processing, have you considered buying raw chemicals & just mixing up D76 as needed. Works well as a one-shot paper developer (by inspection in a darkened bathroom).

Alternatively, go the marbles/protectcan route in glass bottles for any remaining concentrate of your choice.

If doing this, why not d-72 which is a paper developer?

[j.e.simmons]

What jnantz said.

[esearing]

+1 on Ansco 130 (or the photographers formulary kit). I store and use about 2 liters stock in a gallon bottle over 12-24 months. Could probably go longer if I put it in smaller bottles. I also have a batch from 2018 that is still working but its dark, but doesn't seem to stain the paper. I mix old with new to temper it a bit when using warm tone paper , its just a tad warmer and less green. For use with Film, I tried John's method with HP5+ and got more contrast than I usually do with Pyrocat M, but it works beautifully, just need to find the dilution and time for my working method.

[Randy]

Figured I'd chime in real quick. I mixed up some Dektol stock solution, separated it all into completely full, to the top, 16 oz plastic bottles, and then didn't do any wet printing for 15 years. A couple years ago I decided to give it a try - the Dektol performed nicely.

[Sam L]

I print on traditional paper infrequently so I mixed up some ANSCO 130 from scratch based on its "legendary" keeping properties. It is over a year old now and works fine as of a few weeks ago. I'm quite happy with it.

There is a recipe here, copied below:
http://www.pictorialplanet.com/advanced_photography/ansco-130.html

ANSCO 130 Paper developer

Water 50C 750ml
Metol 2.2g
Sodium Sulfite (anhyd) 50.0g
Hydroquinone 11.0g
Sodium Carbonate (mono) 78.0g
Potassium Bromide 5.5g
Glycin 11.0g
Water to make 1 liter