Response to Jobo-s et al.

Actually, the only reasonably reliable way I have found of putting a shoulder on the film is to reduce agitation - dilution etc on their own have never seemed to help in tests I have done. However, I must concur that the difference between continuous agitation and the usual (once every minute) does not change curve shape appreciably. I attribute this to the fact that most developers are reasonably powerful and so do not really exhaust appreciably in the highlights within 1 minute. I have found greatly reduced agitation (along the lines of once every third minute) does put a significant shoulder on the curve. Typically, this also has to be combined with increased dilutions for two reasons. One, since agitation is reduced, you want a long development time to ensure reasonably uniform development. Two, the increased dilution increases the rate of exhaustion in the highlights, the basis of the compensation mechanism. Other than this technique, I've found changing the curve shape for any film-developer combination to be remarkably difficult to do. Especially problematic is trying to get a long toe and increased contrast in the highlights - the only feasible method there seems to be using a staining developer, ideally with a long toe film. Cheers, DJ.

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