If you only take one thing from this: Ansco 120 developer made the single biggest difference to contrast in black and white paper reversal, more than any paper I tested. And bromide papers, whether resin coated or fibre, simply do not work with this process. Not “work badly”. Do not work. I spent the best part of a day proving that to myself so you don’t have to.
The cheapest papers gave me the best results, which I am still slightly delighted about.
What I was actually trying to solve
Everything I had made with black and white paper reversal up to this point came out far too contrasty. I want to shoot portraits with this process, and brutal contrast does not flatter a face. Darkroom filters do control it. I tested that in an earlier video and a 00 yellow filter brings contrast down to something usable. But it costs about four stops of exposure, which for portraits means exposure times long enough to be impractical.
So the question for these four days was narrow and specific. Is there a paper and developer combination that reduces the contrast of this process on its own, without filters, without that loss of speed?
This is groundwork for a portrait box I am building. A wooden box about a metre across, with a five-kilo World War II Air Ministry lens on the front, shooting twelve-by-sixteen portraits using black and white paper reversal. No point building it until I know what to load it with.
![PLACEHOLDER: the test setup in the darkroom, multiple papers and developer bottles arranged on the bench]
The maths and why I did not test everything
Sixteen papers, eleven developers, plus pre-flash or no pre-flash. That gives 352 possible combinations. Obviously I was not going to do all of them.
Here is how I narrowed it down:
- Test pre-flash versus no pre-flash first using my known control combination, Ilford MGRC plus Bellini D100. If pre-flash makes a meaningful difference, carry it forward. If not, drop it.
- Test all eleven developers against a single known paper (Ilford MGRC). Pick the best two.
- Take the best one or two developers through the sixteen papers.
- Go back and re-test specific combinations if anomalies emerge.
The control combination throughout was Ilford MGRC plus Bellini D100 at 1+9.
The developers I tested
Eight were commercially available, three were mixed from recipes in Steve Anchell’s Darkroom Cookbook or Ansel Adams’s The Print.
- Ilford Multigrade
- Ilford PQ Universal
- Photo Speed Warm Tone 10
- Rollei RPN
- Adox Adol Constant
- Adox 105 (homemade)
- Ansco 120 (homemade)
- Beers Two Solution Part A only (homemade, only the metol section, in theory the minimum contrast that developer can give)
I did not have high hopes for the Ilfords or the Photo Speed warm tone. None of them make any claim to be low contrast.
Pre-flash: nothing useful
Pre-flashing is the technique of giving photographic paper a brief, very low-level exposure before the real exposure, the idea being to get the whites over the paper’s inherent exposure threshold so that highlight detail starts reacting earlier. In theory it should reduce contrast by giving you some tonality in the highlights.
In practice, with this process, I could not see a meaningful change between pre-flashed and non-pre-flashed prints. There was a marginal difference in face exposure, but no real change in the transitional areas. Not enough to warrant the faff.
Pre-flash is off the list.
![PLACEHOLDER: side by side comparison of pre-flashed vs not pre-flashed prints]
While we are on it: I also confirmed early on that you cannot get away without using clarifier in this process. I tried. The first prints came out with a grimy cast that disappeared the moment I mixed clarifier from scratch and started using it properly. From that point onwards every print included the clarifier bath.
Developers tested in order
I started with the ones I had the least hope for and worked towards the ones I thought might actually do something.
Ilford Multigrade and Ilford PQ Universal. Pretty contrasty as expected. Maybe a slight improvement from the PQ Universal over the Multigrade. Nothing to write home about.
Photo Speed Warm Tone 10 and Rollei RPN. Pretty Punchy contrast wise. Slightly better results from the Photo Speed Warm Tone than the RPN. Not a transformation.
Adox Adol Constant and Adox 105. I had hoped for more from these. Adol Constant is sold as a soft developer. The Adox 105 gave me slightly lifted blacks but nothing remarkable. The Adol Constant gave me almost nothing. I was disappointed.
Ansco 120 and Beers Two Solution Part A. Here we go. The Ansco 120 immediately gave me visible tones in the face. The Beers Part A was also a solid result. Highlights better controlled by both, with a slight advantage to the Ansco. After fourteen hours in the darkroom I was snow blind and not entirely sure what I was looking at, so I left them to dry overnight.
In the morning, with fresh eyes and the prints laid out together, the difference between the worst and the best was striking. The Ansco 120 was clearly different. Identical exposure times, much better-controlled highlights.
![PLACEHOLDER: four-up comparison of developer test prints, side by side, in order from worst to best]
So the two to take forward into the paper tests were Ansco 120 and Beers Two Solution Part A.
The papers
A quick tour through what was on the bench:
Donated by Tim at Negative Thinking, all sixteen-by-twenty fixed-grade fibre papers, all discontinued.
- Oriental Seagull 2.1M (grade 2)
- Oriental Seagull 2.24M (grade 2, second box)
- Oriental Seagull 2.24M (grade 2, third box)
Out-of-production but interesting.
- Ilford Bromide B1K (grade 1)
- Ilford Bromide B21P (grade 2)
- Ilfospeed (grade 3, RC)
- Ilfospeed RC (grade 2)
- Ilfospeed 2.1K (grade 2, opened box)
- Ilfobrom Gallery fibre professional (grade 3 supposedly)
- Sterling (unbranded but likely Ilford, grade 3, very old)
- Multigrade Fibre (long expired, unopened)
Currently in production.
- Kentmere VC (variable contrast, RC)
- Ilford Multigrade Fibre (still made)
- Foma Retro Brom SP52 (uncertain whether graded or variable contrast, the descriptions I read disagreed)
- Foma Speed N312 (turned out to be a graded paper equivalent to grade 3, not the multigrade I initially thought)
A big part of what I want from this whole project is a sustainable process. There is no point building the portrait box and then needing papers nobody makes anymore. The discontinued stuff was useful for context but not a long-term plan.
The Sterling debacle
I started with the Sterling because if it was screwed by age, better to find out fast.
It was screwed by age. There was something coming through. Initial exposures at ten and twenty seconds were too much, so I reduced to three and four. The paper turned out to be old enough to be fogged, took most of a day to properly dry, and looked terrible until it did. I moved on quickly.
![PLACEHOLDER: Sterling test print, showing the fogging and uneven tone]
The Foma Retro Brom SP52 disaster, in full
I want to give this one its full space because it taught me the single most important thing in the whole experiment, and because I want anyone googling “Foma Retro Brom SP52 paper reversal” to find the answer here before they waste three hours of their life.
I tried a one-second exposure. Nothing came back.
Two seconds. Nothing.
Three seconds. Still nothing usable, but maybe a hint of something.
Four seconds. Same.
The paper is stiff as a board, which I noticed straight away. I did not need the double-sided sticky tape I had been using for everything else. That was the only positive aspect of working with it.
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Still nowhere near.
Then I noticed something else. My safelights, which had been fine with every other paper, were fogging this one. There were square corner marks on the prints where one sheet had been partially covered by another. The covered sections were lighter. The exposed sections, exposed to the safelights, had taken on density. The head torch went off and never came back on for the rest of the project. The Foma still did not work.
Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty. Forty-five.
Forty-five seconds of exposure. Highlights still murky. They actually look better in the scans than in real life.
That was three hours of my life gone. For portraits I cannot use forty-five-second exposure times.
I went to bed.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Foma Retro Brom test prints, all of them, in order, including the 45 second one that still did not work]
Day three: trying to save the Foma
Overnight I had been mystified by it. So on the third day I came back and tried to systematically rule things out.
Tungsten balance. There was a note in the instructions saying the paper is set up for tungsten balance lights. I switched the lights over. No difference.
Clarifier. Maybe the clarifier was interfering. I tried a test print without the clarifier bath. No improvement.
Longer bleach. Maybe the fibre paper needed more time in the bleach bath to clear that first exposure. Three minutes in the bleach. Slight improvement, still not right.
Exposure times all the way up. Forty-five seconds, then a minute, then two minutes, just to see if it was even possible to blow everything out. Baffling results. The only thing I could be sure of was that it was not working.
The Foma Retro Brom SP52 does not work with this process. That is the conclusion.
Bromide papers in general
Next I tried the ancient Ilford Bromide grade 1 double weight soft glossy, just to see whether the issue was the Foma specifically or bromide papers as a category. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Performance very similar to the Foma Retro Brom. The Ilford Bromide also does not work.
So now I had two data points telling me bromide papers do not work with this process. But I needed to rule out one more thing. Was it the bromide emulsion that was the problem, or was it the fibre base?
Multigrade Fibre: the test that isolated the variable
I took a sheet of Ilford Multigrade Fibre paper, a fibre base, but not a bromide emulsion. One second was too little. I did a spread of other exposures up to five seconds. The four-second print was lovely. Smooth tones across the face. Clear whites and clear blacks.
So it is not the fibre base. It is the bromide emulsion. There is something specific about bromide that does not work with the reversal process. If someone with the right photochemistry knowledge wants to drop me a line and explain why, I would love to know.
![PLACEHOLDER: side by side of Ilford Multigrade Fibre (works) and Foma Retro Brom (does not), same exposure, same developer, dramatically different results]
Back to the resin-coated world
After the Foma three-hour adventure I was yearning for the simplicity of resin-coated paper.
Ilfospeed RC grade 3. Twelve seconds, overexposed. But look at how differently the two developers handle the overexposure. The Bellini D100 produced a much harsher result than the Ansco 120. Same paper, same exposure, two very different prints.
Ilfospeed RC grade 2. Four seconds. The Ansco 120 print started to look genuinely good. Tones across the face. Workable contrast.
Kentmere VC. Familiar territory. Hardcore contrast back, in the sense that this paper is more reactive than MGRC. One second was overexposed. Two seconds was overexposed. I had run out of Ansco 120 by this point (I had not mixed much, and to keep the experiment moving I switched to Beers Two Solution Part A, which had given very similar results to Ansco in the developer tests). A quarter of a second and half a second were both underexposed. So somewhere around one second is correct, which is now in the realm of normal exposure times.
A direct one-second-on-the-shutter comparison between MGRC and Kentmere VC, identical lights, identical everything apart from the paper: Kentmere VC is very slightly lower contrast, definitely more sensitive (one second versus one and a half on the MGRC) and gives a slightly warmer tone.
![PLACEHOLDER: side by side of Ilford MGRC and Kentmere VC, identical exposure, showing the slight contrast and tone difference]
Foma Speed N312
I had dismissed this one too quickly the first time. Going back to it: four seconds. Nice results. Resin-coated. Deeper blacks than the Ilford Multigrade Fibre. A direct comparison of the two showed the Foma Speed N312 with deeper blacks, the Ilford Multigrade Fibre with a flatter image generally. Both produced something worth working with.
The numbers I came away with
For replication purposes, I metered the highlights with the spot meter and worked out effective ISO speeds for the two best paper-developer combinations:
- Ilford Multigrade Fibre in Beers Two Solution Part A: ISO 0.3
- Kentmere VC in Beers Two Solution Part A: ISO 1.4
These are not encouraging numbers, but they are repeatable, which is what matters. With identical lighting I should be able to reproduce these exposures in the field.
The final shoot
Before putting everything away I wanted one real portrait, not a mannequin shot, with the best combination. The plan was a self-portrait on Ilford Multigrade Fibre developed in Beers Two Solution Part A, in the flattest light I could find. Self-portraits on large format are not easy. I had to spot-meter my own face. The brightest part came in at about two seconds.
The result is the best face print I have produced with this process. Compared to where I was earlier in the year, the progress is real.
![PLACEHOLDER: the final self portrait, with a side-by-side comparison to one of the early high-contrast attempts from the start of the journey]
What I am taking forward
Ansco 120 is the developer that makes the difference. More than any paper choice. The single most useful finding from these four days.
Bromide papers do not work with black and white paper reversal. Do not waste your time. Move on.
For the portrait box camera I will be using Ansco 120 paired with one of two papers:
- Ilford Multigrade Fibre if I want the flattest result and I am willing to put up with the cost and the faff of fibre paper
- Kentmere VC if I want simplicity, speed, and lower expense
Fibre paper is significantly more expensive than resin-coated. Fibre paper is also a pain in the ass to work with. There is more texture to it, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do like the sharpness of resin coated. The choice will depend on the specific portrait.
There are still combinations I want to test in real-world conditions rather than under controlled lights with a mannequin. But for this round, under those controlled conditions, I have learned as much as I am going to learn.
What’s next
The next videos in this series cover the portrait box camera build, then portrait shoots with the final combination, then assorted kit reviews of the equipment used during this test. If you want to follow along, the channel is the easiest way.
Drop a comment if you have ideas about why bromide papers fail this process. I would genuinely like to know.