Post #1777392
2026-04-17 15:44 UTC
2/
It would be easy for the uninitiated to read my recent comments and think that the choice of b&w developer is a big deal. It isn't.
Not that there aren't differences between developers, but (for ordinary traditional developers) those differences are negligible compared to differences in development time, temperature, and agitation, and (let us be honest) the random variables you will introduce by not knowing yet exactly what you're doing.
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@bosak@flx.masto.host 2026-04-17 15:44
3/ There's still the question of which developer to settle on at the beginning, but this one is easy. Kodak chemists spent years formulating a developer that would provide "greatest shadow detail on panchromatic materials" while maintaining the grain structure of roll films, and decades since have confirmed that there is no better all-around general-purpose developer for b&w roll film than the one they designed. It's known as D-76.