> "(long development times with highly dilute developers creates a smoother, finer-grained image)" which is just the opposite of what I have been told in the past regarding grain.(posted 8524 days ago)To specifically address this, there's been two schools of thought regarding development time and developers that contain sodium sulfite. One is that the sulfite concentration is predominant while the other is that the contact time has much more effect than the concentration. Personally I think the two considerations pretty much balance each other out regarding graininess, while the weaker developer can allow more edge/adjacency effects to enhance acutance.
I'm not any sort of chemist so I can't tell you which way it really is, and of course I may be full of it.