Caffenol Black

Caffenol Black is a minimal developer that uses only coffee as developing agent, Sodium Carbonate as accelerator and Sodium Chloride (salt) as restrainer. The recipe is as follows:

10 g soluble coffee

3 g Sodium Carbonate anhydrous or 6.6 g of heptahydrated Sodium Carbonate

2 g Sodium Chloride

Water to make 500 ml

Preparation: Dissolve by the given order in tap water (16-18ºC) and wait some minutes until all graininess is gone. Develop for 90 minutes, agitating each 15 minutes for 1 minute.

And here are some of the results you may expect:

The photos above were taken with a Olympus Trip 35 using Fomapan 100 (bulk).

Coffee as toner for salt prints

Just another experiment!

I am now enthusiastic with salt prints. The look depends on the negative, exposition, paper, coating of the paper, etc..

Here is one of my latest salt print:

The same print after a bath in a 10% solution of coffee, i.e. 10 g soluble coffee for 100 ml water.

I tried to give the scan a very similar look to the original, but it is not 100% identical. I think the original has a better look.

This is my suggestion for your next salt print.