Response to Beginner developerI wants whiter whites and blacker blacks.

The comment about possible safelight fog is very pertinent when you are getting grey where you want white. To see if your safelight is fogging your paper, put several coins on a sheet of paper and leave it exposed to the safelight for 5 to 10 minutes. Develop and fix the paper normally. any fogging will show up as white circles on a grey backdrop. If your safelights check out OK, and you are mixing your developer as recommended by the mfgr (as a starting point) you might want to make some contact sheets which are keyed to just maximum black in the areas with no neg over them. Fred Picker gives some good advice and instruction on how to do this in Zone VI manual. Once you have made a "proper" contact sheet, you can evaluate your film developing, and/or paper contrast needs. E mail me for more on the last topic.

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