John may be on to something. I've found Vestal's Divided D76 (or similar) to be sharper than Divided D23. I've used the version without any hydroquinone as listed in either Darkroom Cookbook or the Film Developing Cookbook (I forget which one) Its a very good developer for all around use.(posted 8161 days ago)Another thought is to use your regular D76 formula with an afterbath of borax or sodium metaborate. Run the film for perhaps 70-80% of its normal time then move it into the afterbath and let it sit for a few minutes. This might give you gentler highlights and still good shadows. I've used this quite a bit with several developers and it does help but its pretty subtle (and I found generally not worth the trouble).