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  #1  
Old 19th November 2009, 09:23 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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Default Agfa Adaptol

It was the link to Trevor Crone's interview( well worth listening to as an aside) that prompted this thread.

Martin is selling the above at what can only be described as a bargain basement price and I am tempted. However I think I should ask what it's advantages are compared to say Ilford MG dev.

It says it is a soft working developer but I am not sure how to "picture" what it would do to prints from my negs which usually require grade2-3 contrast.

I suppose that I am really asking what advantages it might confer on my print making versus Ilford MG dev and equally importantly does it have universal benefits or at least no disadvantages for negs such as mine.

I have a slotty thing : and would really try to use it for all my negs rather than just make it up for the odd print. Could I do this and would it mean simply adjusting the contrast so that a neg that was OK with Grade 2 in Ilford MG would then require grade 3 in Adaptol?

All comments, especially from users of Adaptol will be much appreciated. Thanks

Mike
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Old 20th November 2009, 07:13 PM
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MartinH MartinH is offline
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As noone has replied i'll add a little bit. I dont know much about hard and soft developers, im learning it at the moment after being on Les McLean course....

Your Ilford MG dev is known as a hard developer. Adaptol is known as a soft developer.

In a two bath printing process (1 bath hard developer, one bath soft developer) the hard developers will produce rich blacks where as the soft developers will not produce rich blacks.
Some people use this two bath process to further control the contrast and tone of the final print by putting the print through the two developers. By adjusting the time in each developer you can control the tones and contrasts a little more in the final print than just using a single hard developer

Both developers can be used separately in a single bath process also...

Hopefully someone with more knowledge than my self can add a bit more
M
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Old 20th November 2009, 07:19 PM
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Rob Archer Rob Archer is online now
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Soft developers, like adaptol can also be used with higher grade graded papers to control contrast on their own. One of my favourite papers, Kentmere Bromide is only available in grade 3, and the use of a softer dev can reduce the effective grade to a reasonable approximation of grade 2. The blacks can be controlled by the amount of exposure and the time in the developer. I use a home-brewed version of Kodak's Selectol-soft, or the soft part of Beers 2-bath.

Rob
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Old 20th November 2009, 07:31 PM
Alan Clark Alan Clark is offline
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Rob,
Just aquery.

You say Kentmere Bromide is only avaviable in grade 3. Silverprint list it in grade 2 only. I'm puzzled!
The reason I ask is that I used to get some nice results with this paper years ago, but had sort of forgotten about it, probably because I thought that grade 2 only wouldn't give me enough of a contrast option.
Is the paper the equivalent of grade 3? If so I might give it another go.

Alan
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Old 20th November 2009, 08:24 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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I have heard of the hard /soft dev option but have never tried it and about Adaptol's benefit in terms of effecting a grade change using graded paper but in my case I use MG and my printing isn't sophisticated enough to try the hard/soft option although with 4 slots on my Nova processor I suppose I could devote 2 slots to developer.

It sounds as if it should give good blacks but a better overall tonal range which might otherwise be sacrificed in a hard developer. I wonder there will be a noticeable improvement in my prints but I won't know until I try, I suppose. From what has been said it appears that using Adaptol on its own might just have the effect of making good blacks difficult and increasing grade to compensate would not be the answer or would simply put me back to where I might have been with MG dev and a softer grade.

So it sounds as if its not a developer to be used on its own with MG papers. It's a hard/soft combo or nothing.

Mike
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Old 20th November 2009, 08:51 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Clark View Post
Rob,
Just aquery.

You say Kentmere Bromide is only avaviable in grade 3. Silverprint list it in grade 2 only. I'm puzzled!
The reason I ask is that I used to get some nice results with this paper years ago, but had sort of forgotten about it, probably because I thought that grade 2 only wouldn't give me enough of a contrast option.
Is the paper the equivalent of grade 3? If so I might give it another go.

Alan
Sorry, I didn't make that very clear. Kentmere Bromide is only sold as Grade 2. However, Kentmere G2 is pretty close to Ilford Grade 2.5 - 3, and I tend to think of the paper as a grade 3 for practical purposes.

Sorry to confuse!

Rob
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Old 20th November 2009, 10:57 PM
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No need to apologise Rob. Thanks for the reply!

Alan
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Old 21st November 2009, 12:24 PM
Tom Kershaw Tom Kershaw is offline
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Alan,

Rob knows how to work with Kentmere Bromide, however, I've found it a difficult paper and I generally work more with ILFORD GALERIE. Perhaps it has something to do with subject matter and negative contrast or tonal distribution.

Tom
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