over developed negatives

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I developed some TMY in Xtol 1:2 last night for 12 1/2 minutes which was too long and ended up with fairly dark negs. What would be the compensation I need to make for the enlarger times, longer or shorter than properly developed negatives?

Please excuse this basic question as I'm new to 'rolling my own'.

-- carol nemes (ccnemes@xtra.co.nz), January 23, 2001

Answers

There's no way to know how much correction to make. Just try printing them & experiment. Your print time will have to be longer than usual. If you are using VC (variable contrast) paper you can try using your softest setting.

Overdevelopment increases grain size and contrast, so the pictures might not be to your liking. I would suggest with a small enlargen, rather than larger, since smaller enlargements take a shorter exposure than large ones.

The Massive Developer Chart (www.digitaltruth.com) shows normal time at 10.5 minutes for ASA 400, and 12.25 minutes for ASA 800, so you basically overexposed by 1 stop. This shouldn't really be a problem to print, though the contrast might be too high.

-- Charlie Strack (charlie_strack@sti.com), January 23, 2001.


There is also a Farmer's Reducer formula that will cut overdeveloped negatives.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Developers/Formulas/formulas.htm

-- Ed Buffaloe (edb@unblinkingeye.com), January 24, 2001.


If you want to see what one can do with "overdeveloped" negatives, take a look at the work of Gene Smith. Print on them & do a number of print variations & see how they work for you. It might be an excellent learning experience that can stimulate your creativity even more.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), January 24, 2001.

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