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Response to Divided D-23

from Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk)
You may want to try a compensating technique that I've been experimenting with lately. I came across it in an oldish book on developing, and it struck me as such a simple and elegant technique, that I can't think why it isn't more widely known and used.

Briefly: The technique is to use your favourite developer at your preferred dilution, (Ilfosol-s at 1+9 in my case), but cut the development time short by around 25 %. Replace the developer with distilled water, and give half a minute's agitation. Then simply let the film stand in the water bath, without further agitation, for twice the remaining development time.

Results so far are encouraging, in that there's a noticeable taming of Dmax compared to a normal development, while the shadow and mid-tones are still full.
The beauty of the technique is that it's immensely flexible. The time in the developer can be lengthened or shortened, depending on the degree of compensation required, and you can use any developer formula you like.
I've only been using it with T-max100 and Ilfosol at present, but I don't see why it won't work with any film/developer combination.
BTW; the reason for specifying distilled water is that the pH of tap water varies quite a bit, and tap water might give you slightly unpredictable results.

(posted 8204 days ago)

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