OK here's another of my little queries ...
What does it mean when a developer 'doesn't blow the highlights' ?
Specifically, Pyrocat-HD but any others too.
Picture the film response curve that starts out flat then proceeds past a 'toe' to a hopefully linear gradient upwards. If a developer didn't blow the highlights, the curve would again have a shoulder at the higher densities and would stop proceeding upward to level out again. To not 'blow the highlights' that shoulder would be at a density of around 1.35 to say 1.5 ?
So perhaps the tanning and staining does something the densitometer cant see and does it in a controllable and highly non-linear way just chopping the top densities off ?
I have numerous film tests that show the developer being as linear as you like all the way past a density of 2.2. Perhaps other developers see an increase in the gradient of the curve as the densities rise ! To infinity ! This would make it look as though Pyrocat-HD didn't blow the highlights - because it remains linear ...
I fear that what the phrase might mean is, "My developing solution is so weak and my developing times are so short that there is a shoulder to my response curve that I am not aware of and as a result, my highlights never go the chance to blow. My negatives are as thin as ..." !
:-)
Corrections to my reasoning are welcome.
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