I recently rediscovered an old favorite paper developer, Ethol LPD. I like this developer because it has a good replenishment system, and because you can control print tone by changing dilution. Less diluted = cooler tones, more diluted = warmer tones. I used it years ago, and am glad to see it now comes in liquid form as well as in powder.

I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has played with this developer and am especially interested in how different papers react to it. I've used it primarily on Ilford Galerie and Multigrade RC and Fiber papers. Has anyone tried it on a variety of papers & compared results? How does it interact with toners?

-- Mason Resnick (bwworld@mindspring.com), February 04, 1999

Answers

I've been using it for years. FWIW used at 1:3 with ILford Warmtone fiber and RC it gives a nice slightly warm tone without the greenish cast usually associated with untoned warm papers. Those papers go a nice rich brown with selenium toner. LPD gives a very neutral tone with Agfa MCP, untoned or toned. I don't use the liquid; hate to pay for shipping water. I mix up a gallon stock and store it in a cubitainer; the stock keeps for a long time in a cube. Another big advantage of LPD is that it doesn't make black crud that gets on the tips of tongs and then makes half-moon stains on prints, as can Dektol and Ektaflo.

-- John Hicks / John's Camera Shop (jbh@magicnet.net), February 05, 1999.

Have used LPD for years. No matter what other developers I use with whatever paper, I keep coming back to LPD.

Subjective evaluation is that it provides better separation in the mid to low values than most other developers. I like the image tone and it has an extremely long tray-life since it is a phenadone base developer, i.e. self replinishing. The flexibility with image tone thru dilution is also quite handy.

I also agree with the comment about shipping water.

-- James D. Steele (jdsteele@erols.com), February 18, 1999.