I've just picked up a copy of Ctein's excellent "Post Exposure" book in which he describes the use of a special developer for developing TMX 100 for use as a mask for both B&W and colour prints. He mentions a home-brew developer for TMX masks that provides a neutral mask image tone that doesn't effect colour balance when masking colour prints.(posted 8153 days ago)The results he achieves with such masks, particularly for colour prints, are stunning. To further improve my B&W and colour printing, I'd like to give both B&W unsharp masking and colour contrast masking a try.
As the chemicals required to brew this developer are somewhat nasty (KOH, etc.) and difficult to source locally, I'd like to know if anyone has found a commonly available B&W film developer that can be used to develop a mask with a neutral mask image tone - any ideas?