neutol plus paper developers

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I remember mention being made (I think) of Agfa Neutol plus being made on this forum, but cannot now find any threads. I want to move away from hydroquinone based developers and wondered if anyone had any experience of this type of print developer. I would be thinking of using it with ilford mg4 but am very open to suggestions of other papers. Also, I use nova tanks - is the storage likely to be a problem with an ascorbic acid based dev. like Neutol plus. Any help and/or suggestions would be very helpful - if I can't reduce/eliminate the suspected mutagens/carcinogens in the house I think my wife will insist I try the dreaded digital...

-- steve (stephenjjones@btopenworld.com), March 21, 2002

Answers

Might be easier to try a new wife.

-- ricardo (ricardospanks1@yahoo.com), March 21, 2002.

You certainly will never eliminate them. But thats another thread on another forum. If you are using liquid developers the risk from hydroquinone is virtually zilch. With powder it is probably zilch plus .0001. The bigger risk from hq is eye problems, but thats only with prolonged and repeated exposure to the dry chemical in air. Of course one should always try to keep their chemicals out of the air...

Anyway someone else will no doubt have more to say about the Agfa developers. I've used Neutol WA, didnt like the color but thats personal taste. Recently I've been using Neutol Plus that just happened to be sitting around, opened last April, because I didnt feel like mixing up anything. I've been pleasantly surprised at how nice it's worked on a few prints with Seagull graded fb. I plan to do some more experimentation with it. It has been expiring rapidly though, after only a couple hours in tray, but I'm pretty sure thats only because its old and partly oxidized to begin with.

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), March 21, 2002.


I recently mixed it up from a brand new bottle, and it still didn't last out the afternoon! It is nice when fresh, but it dies WAY too fast for me. I have decided to go back to Dektol. In fact, the really old, scuzzy Dektol I had in a jug is what I used to finish the printing session when the Agfa died early, and the Dektol was great, even with crystals floating in it! Of course, it got replaced soon after. But the point is, I found really old, yukky Dektol to be better than 2 hour old Agfa. Pretty pitiful.

-- Chris (bwdesert@yahoo.com), March 21, 2002.

I've been using Neutol with Forte Neutral Tone FB. The combination produces great tonal separation and a very cool/neutral tone. I'm only on my second bottle of Neutol, but I'm fast becoming an avid fan. The combination of this developer with Forte paper is really outstanding.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), March 21, 2002.

Ted, how long does it last for you?

-- Wayne (wsteffen@skypoint.com), March 23, 2002.


I probably don't get as much tray life out of Neutol Plus as I do, say, LPD or even Neutol WA. But it certainly lasts long enough, and it's so cheap, I just dump it if I suspect a loss of performance. The thing I really love about it is the cold tone it produces. I've never seen another paper developer achieve the look I get with Neutol. With Agfa MPC RC, Kodak Polymax Art and Forte Neutral Tone FB, I get no trace of olive or green whatsoever; the gray values are so clean they almost look blueish, especially with FB papers. This clearly seems a characteristic of vit-c, since I have noticed a similar look using Pat Gainer's vit-c formula on negative film--no color stain at all, just pure grays.

-- Ted Kaufman (writercrmp@aol.com), March 23, 2002.

Has anyone tried Neutol with Bergger NB? How about Agfa Insignia?

-- shannon (shannon76@angelfire.com), March 23, 2002.

Steve, if you ever decide to mix your developer from scratch, take a look at Ascorbic acid paper developer

I use this formula in Nova slot processor without floating lid but the chemical is good for a month. I'm thinking about making a floating lid out of corrugated plastic sheet.

To Ted - I get no greenish tint with my formula even without phenidone or benzotriazole. The tone is not too dissimilar from PQ with a bit of KBr but I like my formula a lot! (of course, some of my statement is personal bias)

-- Ryuji Suzuki (rsuzuki@rs.cncdsl.com), March 24, 2002.


I use Neutol Plus and Agfa multicontrast glossy papers (RC). Never used any other developer, so I can't comment on how it compares to anything else. On Agfa papers the color seems to be neutral (on Kodak Polycontrast it was a bit warm). I use it at the maximum recommened dilution (1+9), and it was good even after 10 days in a full bottle, plus several hours in a tray. The concentrate will also last quite long (a few months), and the yield from a 500 ml bottle is not too large, so that's not a problem either. I store it in plastic bottles, so can't comment on how it'll work with metal tanks...

-- Peter Langfelder (plangfel@insti.physics.sunysb.edu), March 26, 2002.

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