Instant low cost 8x10 prints

alecrmyers · Wednesday at 1:50 PM

I've posted about this elsewhere on this forum in the alternative processes thread but I think it deserves a bit more exposure (no pun intended) than being buried at the end of a six (so far) page thread, and it's really just an offshoot of traditional BW chemistry rather than an "alternative" process as it's understood, so I hope that's ok with the moderation team,

I've resurrected/adapted/renewed the chemistry for diffusion transfer printing (popularized by Polaroid in the peel-apart pack film) and applied it to 8x10 format. Material cost (including the film) is about $0.50 per exposure. The prints come out dry and ready for display. Other than the materials all you need is a cheap office-type laminator.

Film is Fuji x-ray film HR-U widely available for cheap on Ebay (although other films will probably work too) and the paper and developer are things I have developed. It seems to work at an EI of about 200-400.

There's some work to do on quality control, as you can see there are some image defects, and I'm certainly no master of the view camera movements, but it's a lot of fun peeling off the image to see what comes out!

Peter Schrager · Wednesday at 4:14 PM

what is CMC???

OrientPoint · Wednesday at 4:20 PM

I'm testing this material right now. It's pretty amazing, and not difficult to use.

alecrmyers · Wednesday at 4:35 PM

Peter Schrager said:
what is CMC???

Carboxymethylcellulose. Buy it on Amazon. it's the principal ingredient in, uh, personal lubricants.

Peter Schrager · Wednesday at 4:55 PM

will the coated receiver paper keep or do you have to use it right away after coating??

NedL · Wednesday at 5:04 PM

Peter Schrager said:
will the coated receiver paper keep or do you have to use it right away after coating??

Also, how well does latent image last, if you wait until you get home to peel?

I looked at the older thread but need to revisit it and look more carefully.

Don_ih · Wednesday at 5:06 PM

Personally, I find this amazing and applaud you for all the work you've done.

alecrmyers · Wednesday at 5:49 PM

Peter Schrager said:
will the coated receiver paper keep or do you have to use it right away after coating??

It keeps for at least three weeks. That's the oldest piece I've used, but after a lot of testing I don't see any deterioration by that time. I've put dated paper aside for tests in a few months. And - the liquid coating for the paper lasts (up to) two weeks or so, possibly longer.

But, to be honest, I'm half expecting to produce new, different paper formulations as time goes on - I've a lot of ideas to improve things, so that might change.

NedL said:
Also, how well does latent image last, if you wait until you get home to peel?

You need a darkroom to remove the film from the film holder and assemble it with the printing paper so it's unlikely you would do that in the field. I haven't re-engineered the paper envelope and developer pod assembly that Land designed, and that's not my intention. I'm just working on the chemistry.

Horatio · Wednesday at 6:44 PM

Cool.

OrientPoint · Wednesday at 7:18 PM

Does the chemistry for 8x10 differ in any way from what we've been using for 4x5?

alecrmyers · Wednesday at 7:24 PM

OrientPoint said:
Does the chemistry for 8x10 differ in any way from what we've been using for 4x5?

The pictures at the top of this thread are the same chemistry. But I'm working on new stuff and new processes all the time. It just seemed that getting some 8x10 prints out marks a milestone of sorts.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Thursday at 12:40 AM

Excellent work and impressive result @alecrmyers! Congratulations and thanks for sharing your results and knowledge.

A biproduct of your process is the X-Ray negative. Any thoughts on how good this negative is for susbequent use for contact printing? What is the density range?

Will be watching your original thread for the progress that you continue to make. Someday I would like to try the process myself.

richyd · Thursday at 3:07 AM

I'm testing this at the moment with 4x5. I showed the process to my brother, an ex commercial photographer, whose first reaction was that it would be great in 8x10 and this is what I see the scope for.

"A biproduct of your process is the X-Ray negative. Any thoughts on how good this negative is for susbequent use for contact printing? What is the density range?"

I intend to try the negative to make an argyrotype print, my usual alternative process. Some years back when experimenting with kallitype I made a direct print off a Type 55 negative and it came out great. I haven't looked at the negatives in detail yet.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Thursday at 4:24 AM

richyd said:
"A biproduct of your process is the X-Ray negative. Any thoughts on how good this negative is for susbequent use for contact printing? What is the density range?"

I intend to try the negative to make an argyrotype print, my usual alternative process. Some years back when experimenting with kallitype I made a direct print off a Type 55 negative and it came out great. I haven't looked at the negatives in detail yet.

Thank you. Will look forward to know if the negatives worked well for Argyrotype when you get a chance to test it.

BHuij · Thursday at 12:24 PM

Ah man. Why are there so many people trying to convince me to buy an 8x10 camera...?

alecrmyers · Saturday at 2:17 PM

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Excellent work and impressive result @alecrmyers! Congratulations and thanks for sharing your results and knowledge.

A biproduct of your process is the X-Ray negative. Any thoughts on how good this negative is for susbequent use for contact printing? What is the density range?

Will be watching your original thread for the progress that you continue to make. Someday I would like to try the process myself.

Sorry - I didn't answer your question. As far as I can tell the negatives look "good" - but I haven't tried a contact print from them. I was doing some experiments today by spreading the developer directly onto the negative (no transfer paper, no rollers.) Development is complete within about 10 seconds. There was a thread on this forum (I think) where someone was suggesting an instant development paste, which is what I suppose I've (re-)invented.

An unsolved issue in that case is then what to do with the negative, it's still going to need washing and permanently fixing, but that shouldn't be too hard.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · 2025-04-06T13:01:42-0400

alecrmyers said:
I was doing some experiments today by spreading the developer directly onto the negative (no transfer paper, no rollers.) Development is complete within about 10 seconds.

That's very impressive! Was this developer the same as recipe 114?

Developer (recipe 114)
60g 2% CMC (optionally 1%)
1.2g sodium hydroxide
1.2g sodium sulphite
0.3g sodium thiosulphate
0.5g ascorbic acid
1.0g hydroquinone

From your video, it seems the above recipe gives about 30 ml of developer paste. Assuming that ~ 5 ml of the developer paste is required to develop 8x10 film sheet, it's amazing that development happens so fast to give a well-developed negative given the small amounts of developing agents in the paste. Or am I missing something?

alecrmyers · 2025-04-06T13:23:06-0400

No - I’m now using a very very different developer similar to but not the same as recipe 143. About 1.6g - maybe 2ml - for an 8x10 sheet.

I’m not sure the developer formulation is the difference though. 114 is probably quite fast when spread onto the film, although I haven’t tried it.

Instant low cost 8x10 prints

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