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Mike O'Pray
15th April 2013, 06:05 PM
Apart from Roger Cole who is a regular user of the above, do we have anyone else who uses this?

My interest was sparked by a thread on APUG stating how well this stuff kept and I did a bit of research. It appears that you can get a range of tones from warm to cold, even with neutral paper such as, presumably Ilford, Kentmere etc RCVC by altering the dilution

Of course the warmth is much more pronounced when used with WT paper but Les McLean himself on APUG several years ago gave a list of categories for cold/neutral paper from: Very light to warm silver down to cold to blue black depending on the dilution.

The real purpose of this thread is to see if anyone other than Roger has had experience of this stuff with neutral paper and can compare it to say his experience with any other developer producing warmth

Roger, I am pentaxuser on APUG, so thanks for your contribution to my thread there. No need to feel you have to add anything here unless you want to.

Thanks

Mike

Roger Cole
24th April 2013, 04:41 AM
Silence is deafening, eh Mike? I can see, given the price, why it's not as popular on your side of the pond. When I get a chance I'll mix some up to warm dilutions and compare to Harman WT.

Mike O'Pray
24th April 2013, 06:39 PM
Roger I didn't really expect many, if any, apart from yourself to be familiar with this stuff although somebody or bodies here in the U.K. or rest of Europe might have used the stuff given that AgPhotographic stock it but is currently awaiting fresh stocks.

Yes it is quite expensive over here but might be worth trying if it does things that other developers fail to do.

I look forward to your results. On APUG some seem to say that it doesn't produce any warmth with neutral paper and I certainly wasn't expecting anyone to say that the warmth compares with Ethol or other WT developers and WT papers but hopefully there may be a subtle warmth with neutral papers

Mike

Mike O'Pray
24th April 2013, 08:08 PM
Just a quick follow-up for all although it looks like it is just Roger and I on this thread :D. I came across another thread on Ethol LPD and Mr Cad and Maco Direct were mentioned as stockists in Europe so I thought I'd have a look.

It now appears that neither has any LPD so given that Matt at Ag is out of the stuff as well, I suspect there is a delivery issue from the U.S. or even a production issue. While the latter seems unlikely I suppose that if U.S. retailers have large stocks in hand then a production issue might not show itself for a long time.


Mike

Roger Cole
26th April 2013, 07:42 AM
Don't scare me like that Mike!

The one thing it does better than anything else I've tried is last and last and last. LPD stands for Longlasting or Longlife Paper Developer, I think.

Honestly I could get by with another developer of course but I do really like LPD. It seems quite popular over here, as you probably noticed from the discussion on APUG.

Bob
26th April 2013, 01:01 PM
It may only be the two of you posting, but the thread has been read nearly 150 times. We await any further info with bated breath! ;)

Mike O'Pray
26th April 2013, 09:11 PM
Sorry Roger, it wasn't meant to scare you. As it is Edwal, I think a production issue is most unlikely and reading Matt's announcement at Ag it would seem that an up-to-date position on the situation on delivery can be obtained by contacting Ag.

I might just do this

Mike

Roger Cole
26th April 2013, 11:53 PM
It's Ethol not Edwal. :) But it seems alive and well here. If it were as expensive here as it is there I might not use it either so I can understand the lack of popularity. OTOH I don't know why it should be so much more expensive. Even liquid chemicals from the UK and EU don't seem that expensive here compared to American brands and LPD being powder should be less expensive to ship over. Well there is a liquid version but it's roughly twice the price here too so less popular.

Mike O'Pray
23rd May 2013, 08:18 PM
Roger, have you had a chance to compare the warm tone dilutions of LPD with Ilford WT developer for either WT paper or neutral tone paper?

This question becomes pertinent now as I can give an update:

I received a "swatch" of Ilford paper( both MG and WT) developed in stock LPD and 1+3 and with and without selenium. I owe this to a very helpful APUGer who is an ex Derbyshire man living in California

Here's my findings:

MG paper: There appears to be a difference between stock and 1+3. Even stock isn't that cold but 1+3 is slightly warmer and while it wasn't my paper or my printing so not scientifically a like for like test, the 1+3 certainly looks different than my prints in standard 1+9 Ilford MG developer.

The difference with and without selenium is very slight.

Ilford WT paper: Both 1+3 and stock LPD gives a much more obvious warmth but I'd still call it subtle. Nothing like a sepia or Viradon brown but then you wouldn't expect it to be like that.

Again the addition of selenium appeared to make the most marginal of difference. If I had been looking at both prints quickly I might have said they were the same prints. However this could be my inability to pick up subtle differences.

So to conclude I'd give LPD a try for both MG and WT paper as even with MG paper the print colour looks attractive.

It might be that paper like Fotospeed RCVC reacts even more favourably but this is pure speculation based on others' comments about its propensity to deliver a different look compared to Ilford. Same might be true of Kentmere as well but I just don't know

So now to the question of obtaining the stuff. I have e-mailed Matt at Ag and he is saying that he believes that Freestyle in the U.S. will deliver to him but this can only be done when he is ready for a stock investment which I can understand. Given the logistics it is never going to be the kind of stuff that make sense to be ordered a few cans at a time.

No doubt Matt will inform us as and when he is able to about its arrival but while it is more expensive than 5L of the likes of PQ or MG developer, it compares much better with smaller quantities of WT and MG developer at 1+9 dilution given that you get 1 US gallon of stock(3.8L) which seems best diluted at 1+3.

I am going to give it a go in the future.

Mike