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Two bath development

from Nigel Craig (Nigel_ Craig@btinternet.com)
Hopefully this will look like a question not a monologue. My substantive experience of black and white development stems from decades ago when I thought I got good results from FP4 and ID11 and slightly less pleasing results from HP5 and ID11. Looking back now I can see the prints lacked the punch I can see in the best printers work. Recently I have started to dabble in B&W development again but recently DD-X. I just don't have time to test thoroughly so I'm looking for short-cuts. It occurs to me that a large part of the trick is to get a really good negative to start with and trying to do adjust ths development time of each film to match the brightness range doesn't work for me. I'm attracted by the idea of divided devlopment to enable full detail to be developed in the shadows without blowing out the highlights; also not having to get time/temperature right seems even better. However I don't want to mix powders up, let alone raw chemcals, so what options are there. Diafine isn't available in the UK, but I know I can get Tetanol Emofin and Dixactol (which sounds a bit toxic). Which will give me best combiantion of fine grain, sharpness and separation of tones? I have been using Delta 100 and occasionally Tech Pan and Delta 3200.
(posted 8279 days ago)

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