I processed an Ilford HP5+ in XTOL as I usually do but somehow the film turned out to be underdeveloped. It may have been the developer or my timer going wrong. The image is there, but very weak.

Does anyone know of a convenient method to intensify the film to salvage my images?

All help is appreciated.

-- Jon Ogmundsson (jonogmun@simnet.is), May 21, 2001

Answers

Dear Jon,

I see one possibility. You can use a so called intensifier. The problem is that most of them are at least hazardous. I found a formula which looks not as dangerous. It is a silver intensifier. Solution A: citric acid 3 g Hydroquinone 3 g water 1000 ml Solution B: silver nitrate 5 g water 100 ml Short before usage mix up 100 ml of solution A with 10 ml of solution B. This mixture is not very stable. After intensifiing the negative it shall be washed for a short time. After that treat it for 2 min with a fresh acid fixer. After rinse well. Treatment time: as required. Regards Wolfgang

-- wolfgang reinhard (wolfgangrh@gmx.net), May 22, 2001.

Hi Jon,

Before you play around with the negatives, try printing them first. They wont print normally, but with a short exposure on high contrast paper you might be surprised. I pulled some remarkable images from very thin negatives that suffered from under development. The negatives I had were also developed in XTOL and it's probably a result of the developer failing. This has been a problem that numerous people have reported and is a shame as XTOL is a nice developer when it works. Good luck!

Regards,

-- Pete Caluori (pcaluori@hotmail.com), May 22, 2001.