Printing Ilford MG Classic and Cooltone with a Zone VI VC enlarger

[Michael R]

I think what Drew meant is not that a green filter would add green but that it could attenuate residual blue/violet.

[Drew Wiley]

Yep. That's how it works. I was under the impression that the VI unit has two tube grids, one blue, the other green. But my Aristo V 54 grid has only one grid, outputting blue-green. Either way, you attenuate one or the other color via filtration as needed.

[neil poulsen]

I like the chart provided by cowanw. I'd go with it.

Pick a contrast that you tend to like as a first exposure when printing a negative. Say . . . Grade 2, or a Grade 2.5? Then, if the you need more contrast, go up the chart. If less, go down the chart.

It doesn't matter if "2" is a true Grade 2, or if "2.5" is a true Grade 2.5. It's merely a starting point. Then vary your contrast as needed.

To maybe put this into perspective, I have a Beseler 45s mounted on my Zone VI Type II. My starting point is typically, NO Yellow and NO Magenta. (Cyan is always at zero.) So after testing for an initial exposure, I print with at "neutral" contrast with both Magenta and Yellow set at zero. If I need more contrast, I add some Magenta. If less, then I add some Yellow. (Note that either Yellow or Magenta will be at zero. They won't both be non-zero.) And so on, until I get the exposure, the contrast, and the dodging/burning that way that I like.

I typically finish a print with Magenta being between 2.5 and 3.5.

[Edward Pierce]

The Zone VI unit has two light grids.

[Edward Pierce]

I don’t have that type of head but I agree with the recommendation above to perhaps go for a min/max split exposure approach if you find it difficult to dial in small intermediate adjustments. This will work best with longer exposure times - a feature of the reformulated Ilford papers is that they are faster overall, as well as faster to wavelengths in the violet/blue range (relative to say Ilford Warmtone for example). This is indicated by both the wedge spectrograms and ISO paper speeds particularly under high contrast filtration of tungsten light.

The grade spacing of the new papers is different so typically you need to dial in lower contrast settings (or use a lower Ilford filter number) in comparison with say Ilford MGIV, which Classic replaces. Classic has a similar contrast range as other papers but Cooltone does indeed have a narrower range, not going as low-contrast.

One relatively simple way to get up to approximately an additional “grade” on the low contrast end is to flash the paper. I would suggest this over the use of so-called low contrast print developers as most contemporary enlarging papers really have their sensitometry largely baked in with respect to development characteristics.

Wow it’s been decades since I’ve done any flashing. I’ll try it.

I am happy to report however that using a soft developer, or divided developer, works quite well. Classic paper developed in Ansco 120, 1+2 for 3 minutes easily reaches a D-Max of 2.15 prior to toning with my setup.

For divided development, I use Ansco 120 1+4 followed by D-72 1+4, for a total of 3 minutes. Varying the time in each changes the contrast differently than changing the enlarger contrast settings. The difference is most notable in the darker areas of the print.

[Drew Wiley]

One problem with going with soft or highly dilute developers and a product like MG Cooltone is that you're not going to achieve a true cold tone print that way, if that is in fact what you're after choosing this particular paper. But MG Classic trends somewhat warmer anyway, so is a different story.

[Edward Pierce]

After continuing to experiment with different developer formulas I finally clenched my teeth, bought some glycin, and tried the Ansco 130 formula. Problem solved! Diluted 1+2 I’m able to get plenty of low contrast range with Ilford Classic.

Surprisingly, this developer is actually less expensive than the other formulas because you can keep using the same batch. Forty years I’ve been dumping my developer after one session. Now I just keep track of the number of prints. If I’ve done the math right, 4 liters of working solution at 1+2 is good for about 130 8x10’s. So far so good

[Larry Gebhardt]

Glad you’ve got it figured out. I love Ansco 130 for the longevity, cost, and the excellent look. I’ve stopped even keeping track of the number of prints. I just do a very quick drain before putting the print in the washer. That carries over about the right amount of developer and I top up at the end of a session.

[esearing]

Aged Ansco/PF 130 turns dark brown. I mix it 1:4 and use it like a softer working developer with Ilford MGFB warmtone. Or as a second pass developer to warm up a print 1:8 for 15-20 minutes after bleaching, but it does not always go as warm as I would like and can stain the paper base.

[cowanw]

I think what Drew meant is not that a green filter would add green but that it could attenuate residual blue/violet.

This was a really good point. It has taken me a bit of time as I was involved in a project with a different enlarger but I finally got to it. I used a Stouffer TP4x5-21 to contact print a set of green exposures to get tone into the deep shadow area. This took 20 units of time. If there was blue in the light and I could filter it out the tones would decrease contrast and move towards the white end. I then exposed an all blue print to bring tone into the highlight region, which required 160 time units. Filtering out any contaminating green would show as increased contrast. I measured the density of the print target with a densitometer.

I used a X-1 green filter and then a number 00 Ilford filter as my minus blue possibilities and a blue glass 1950's viewing filter (made to assess panchromatic scenes for ortho film) and a number 5 Ilford filter as my minus green filters. Clearly my filters are nowhere near as perfect as others may have but The Ilford filters should do something....

In both colours, the Ilford filters took away a stop of exposure but the contrast ranges stayed the same. The glass filters made no changes at all with the baseline prints, in contrast or exposure.
So either the enlarger lights are very good at putting out the blue or the green in isolation or both my glass filters and the Ilford filters allowed the same proportion of contamination that may have been made by the lights, to pass through the filters.

Well, since the Ilford filter have no further filtering effect, there is nothing I can reasonably do anyway, so I will wear my rose filtered glasses and presume the enlarger puts out pure blue and green.