ModernLithRetro is a new formulation in my ModernLith developer series. It reverts to a more traditional lith developer formulation, but uses a specific discovery I encountered early on in my experiments. It isn’t quite as versatile or tray-stable as ModernLithEZ, but tends to give more consistent results. It also incorporates allowances for old brown addition to further tune the results and basically give the same general “feel” as a traditional lith developer. It also gives good results on many vintage and modern lithable papers, while also working with a few modern non-lithable papers.
I had a long form write up like I typically do written up, but ultimately all the concepts and such are still not quite clear enough I can explain it. So, instead, I’ll do basically the bare minimum here which is give the instructions, formula, and some guidance on paper choice.
Ilford MGV RC (with edge fogging from adding thiocyanate but no benzotriazole)
Oxalic Acid Solution
Before we get into the formula, we must make at least one solution ahead of time. Oxalic acid is kind of a devil to work with when consistency is needed like here. Since the amount of acid is rather critical, and oxalic acid really loves to absorb water, a consistent concentration of it in solution must be made first before mixing the final developer. This is the easiest way I could figure to do it
Start with 400ml of distilled water, room temperature
Add 50g of oxalic acid (dihydrate)
Stir for several minutes, not all will dissolve.
Top to 500ml with water and stir a bit longer
If all of the oxalic acid dissolved, then add ~5g more at a time with stirring until it doesn’t dissolve.
The solution will have cooled down and may even have some condensation on the container
Finally, put the solution into a bottle. Do not worry about filtering. Make sure the bottle is clearly labeled and marked as POISON
Put the container in a refrigerator, preferably kept at ~5C. If the refrigerator is not dedicated to chemical use, then first put the bottle into a plastic bag and then put the container and bag into a bowl that would catch any spills. Oxalic acid is poisonous and any spills in a food containing fridge would necessitate throwing away all the food and doing a very thorough cleaning
Leave the container in the fridge for at least 24 hours
Filter the solution afterwards through a simple coffee filter. There will be many crystals caught by the filter. This can be dried and put back into your oxalic acid container or just disposed of.
The resulting solution should be kept at room temperature. The resulting solution will be somewhere around 4.8g oxalic acid per 100ml of water, or a 4.8% solution.
The reason for doing it like this is that it’s nearly impossible to keep oxalic acid in a dry form. If you pour out a standard grade you’d buy for cleaning, it will be clumpy and sticky as if it was wet. This is because it basically is. The problem is that the mixture is unevenly wet. The stuff at the bottom might be less wet than the top, and these errors in measurement can actually matter in this formula due to the relatively tight control on pH that is needed. In some experiments the amount of oxalic acid actually contributed by a single weight of the powder at separate times could vary by 10% or more. Thus, making a saturated solution, then using the common refrigerator (since not everyone’s house temperature is the same) to standardize on a solubility temperature is the easiest way to ensure that the amount of oxalic acid is consistent across environments. Also, if you have actual dried oxalic acid, that can work too in this, you just wouldn’t need as much. Basically regardless of source or dryness, it’ll all turn out the same.
Fomatone Warmtone Classic FB
Formula
The formula has a number of optional parts. See below for details. All parts should be mixed with distilled water
Part A:
120ml of water
Add 60ml of oxalic acid solution
6g hydroquinone
Top to 200ml with water. May require heating to dissolve all of the hydroquinone
Part B:
Start with 140ml of water
0.8g sodium hydroxide (note: mine is nice and dry. If yours is clumpy and with a wet appearance, you may need to figure out drying, buy a better grade, or make a similar hydroxide solution)
36g potassium carbonate (sodium carbonate can not be substituted)
1.2g potassium bromide
1ml of 1% PEG-3350 solution (optional-ish)
10ml of 1% sodium thiocyanate solution (optional)
15ml of 0.1% benzotriazole solution or 1.5ml of 1% benzotriazole (optional, can be dissolved in either 80:20 water to alcohol, or water to propylene/ethylene glycol)
4.9g sodium sulfite
20-40g of potassium oxalate (optional-ish)
Top to 200ml with water
The solution will appear slightly cloudy and slightly thick. Heat if needed
PEG-3350 can be sourced as MiraLAX over the counter laxative in the US. It is otherwise known as Polyethylene Glycol of molecular weight 3350.
Sodium thiocyanate and benzotriazole should both be used, or neither. Without benzotriazole, thiocyanate will cause fogging. Without thiocyanate, benzotriazole will cause excessive cooling of image tone and may prevent development. The combination gives a little more contrast, more grain, slightly slower development, brighter highlights, very slightly cooler tone results, and deeper blacks.
Potassium oxalate is used here as a preservative. Sodium oxalate can not be substituted due to solubility limits. As much as can be dissolved is the ideal amount of oxalate, but less can be used. Less than 20g in this formula seems to do so little as to not bother adding any at all. 40g may be difficult to dissolve and require heating. This developer will work without oxalate with minimal if any tonal difference, but the lack of it will reduce the tray life by around 50%.
It is possible to synthesize potassium oxalate from potassium hydroxide and oxalic acid. I’ve done it a few times, but I’ve yet to find an easy and consistent procedure for it considering both chemicals will absorb unequal amounts of water. If interested, please leave a comment. If potassium oxalate is really that expensive to source then I’ll work further on the synthesis process and document it later
Oriental FB (earlier prototype with uneven development)
Usage
Rinse all papers under running water before development to remove incorporated developers. For mixing the working solution, use between 20-80ml of part A with a matching amount of part B to 1L of water. Mixed ratios of A to B is completely untested with this formulation, but in previous formulations has given poor results. Add old brown as desired, typically between 50ml and 200ml. Too much old brown might cause uneven development, pepper fogging, or shorten tray life. Old brown that was tested in this case is exhausted solution from 50+50ml and 100+100ml to 1L solution. Personal recommendation as a starting point: 50+50 with 100ml of old brown added to 1L of water. Average development time with this personal recommendation is around 5-15m with most papers at a room temp of 72F. Compared to off the shelf commercial lith developers, the concentrates for this formula are about 60% strength (specifically, less hydroquinone in part A)
Regarding temperature, 90% of my testing was done at room temp, or slightly elevated (maybe ~85F). With very hot developer it tended to be much more likely to give uneven development and weaker blacks (due to infectious development taking off too early). Some papers however give the best results in hot developer, such as Ilford Warmtone FB
Foma Retrobrom (note edge “drags” aren’t too noticeable here due to vignetting and busy subject, but also this was an earlier prototype. Still unsure what the difference is)
Papers
The following papers were tested with this formulation or late prototypes of it:
Ilford MGV RC — Good, warm toned and high contrast
Ilford Warmtone RC — Similar to MGIV, but with colder brown tones
Fomaspeed VC RC — Decent, colder brown toned, moderate contrast. Susceptible to uneven development
Fomaspeed Grade 3 RC — Good, Similar to the VC version, but a bit better contrast and less likely to give uneven development
Fomabrom FB — Unsuitable, bad blacks, pepper drags
Foma Retrobrom FB — Decent, moderate contrast, olive tones. Susceptible to pepper drags and snow balls at times but not always. Outer edge of paper will over develop (edge “drags”)
Fomatone Warmtone Classic FB — Great, very warm, easily controlled moderate contrast, sometimes susceptible to uneven development
Ilford Cooltone FB — unsuitable, no shadows or black tones, pepper balling
Ilford Warmtone — ok, warm brown tones, gives kinda weak blacks, requires hot developer to prevent snowballs
Ilford MGIV RC — Ok, more reluctant to enter infectious development than MGV
Kentmere RC — Similar to MGIV, but with cooler tones
Kodabrome II RC (discontinued) — Bad, weak black tones, warm brown tones
Oriental FB — limited testing, gave good results
Fomaspeed VC RC (notice black “smudging” from nearly dead developer)