Developing for shadows

[Bruce Watson]

So, if shadows go to exhaustion during development first, then the highlights...

The reason you can "develop for the highlights" is that in normal use, the highlights (most dense) do not, in fact, develop to completion. Which is why we often use stop baths -- to force development to stop when we want it to. So... If you increase development time, you increase highlight density. And really exposed highlights can be developed to a very high density indeed. Way higher than you can print.

OTOH, a two bath developer can, and most of them probably do, run to completion, sorta. But it's really running to exhaustion of the developer. A duplicate sheet of film (same exposure) developed in a single bath developer would likely continue to develop density in the highlights as you left it in the developer longer.

And stand development or "compensation" techniques do something similar -- they run to exhaustion locally. That is, the developer that's in the emulsion itself can run to exhaustion in the densest highlights because of the lack of agitation keeps fresh developer from getting in.

...I really do need to understand now the little nuances of developing the film now.

You could read the massive two volume Grant Haist book Modern Photographic Processing if you want (a lot of) extra credit. Not for the faint of heart. It lays out in amazing detail all that Haist learned in his decades as a research chemist at Kodak. And that man learned a whole lot, and kept amazing notes.

A better starting point might be Anchell and Troop's The Film Development Cookbook, whatever the newest edition might be. It covers the practical side of film development and is a much easier read than most of the other books out there IMHO.

That said, there are of course dozens and dozens of books on all kinds of darkroom topics. And all kinds of exposure and development systems. You just have to find the ones that work for you.

[Paul Ron]

once you master developing film, you still have a way to go printing. my problem for many years was, the more i learned, the worse my pictures became. it takes time n alot of experimenting. but once ya got it, hang on... it will all make sense then.


keep the faith.
patience brudah

[Steven Ruttenberg]

The reason you can "develop for the highlights" is that in normal use, the highlights (most dense) do not, in fact, develop to completion. Which is why we often use stop baths -- to force development to stop when we want it to. So... If you increase development time, you increase highlight density. And really exposed highlights can be developed to a very high density indeed. Way higher than you can print.

OTOH, a two bath developer can, and most of them probably do, run to completion, sorta. But it's really running to exhaustion of the developer. A duplicate sheet of film (same exposure) developed in a single bath developer would likely continue to develop density in the highlights as you left it in the developer longer.

And stand development or "compensation" techniques do something similar -- they run to exhaustion locally. That is, the developer that's in the emulsion itself can run to exhaustion in the densest highlights because of the lack of agitation keeps fresh developer from getting in.



You could read the massive two volume Grant Haist book Modern Photographic Processing if you want (a lot of) extra credit. Not for the faint of heart. It lays out in amazing detail all that Haist learned in his decades as a research chemist at Kodak. And that man learned a whole lot, and kept amazing notes.

A better starting point might be Anchell and Troop's The Film Development Cookbook, whatever the newest edition might be. It covers the practical side of film development and is a much easier read than most of the other books out there IMHO.

That said, there are of course dozens and dozens of books on all kinds of darkroom topics. And all kinds of exposure and development systems. You just have to find the ones that work for you.

That is a nice simple explanation.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

once you master developing film, you still have a way to go printing. my problem for many years was, the more i learned, the worse my pictures became. it takes time n alot of experimenting. but once ya got it, hang on... it will all make sense then.


keep the faith.
patience brudah

I have already noticed that. My first set of negatives and such after my initial attempts, got better, but then as I started to learn more, they did indeed get worse. At some point, they will get better again.

[Leigh]

Hi Steven,

Please realize that all areas of the negative develop at about the same rate.
What changes with exposure is how long it takes to reach the final density.

Shadows, being the least dense areas of the negative (just above base+fog),
develop to final density before any mid-tone or highlight areas.

- Leigh

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Hi Steven,

Please realize that all areas of the negative develop at about the same rate.
What changes with exposure is how long it takes to reach the final density.

Shadows, being the least dense areas of the negative (just above base+fog),
develop to final density before any mid-tone or highlight areas.

- Leigh

Understood.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Let me know if I'm drifting off-topic, but is anyone familiar with intentionally 'shooting on the toe' of the exposure curve and processing just for that part?

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Perhaps, an example would help, at least for me. I can sorta picture what you are asking, but exactly how would you go about that. Not off topic.

[Doremus Scudder]

Digression Alert!

Let me know if I'm drifting off-topic, but is anyone familiar with intentionally 'shooting on the toe' of the exposure curve and processing just for that part?

You first need a film with a pronounced toe like 320 Tri-X. The toe of the film will has a lot of latitude, i.e., it will hold a lot of exposure information, but at the expense of separation, i.e., lots of stops of exposure captured, but no contrast in the very lowest bunch. If you, say take the same image on 320 Tri-X and 400 TMax (which I do often), you can see that the Tri-X negative actually has more information in the very least-dense shadow areas, and that the TMax negative doesn't render the very darkest areas of the scene at all, but then densities increase rather rapidly with exposure change.

"Shooting on the toe," as I understand it is intentionally placing a lot of the shadows of a scene rather low on the exposure scale, but then developing a bit more to get lots of separation (contrast) in the mid-tones. This is a bit similar to "pushing," but you're not really losing shadow detail, just "suppressing" them on the toe of the film. Portrait photographers used this technique a lot to get the separation and tonalities they wanted in the skin tones.

I often to just the opposite: In order to get more separation in the shadows with a film that has a long toe, I'll overexpose the film, thereby getting the shadows up into the straight-line portion of the film's curve. I find long-toe films really flexible in this respect; I can leave the shadows low on the toe and get a lot of mid-tone separation or I can move them up the curve and get a result similar to films with a straighter curve. What's harder to do is to get really black inky shadow by dumping them off the bottom of the film's curve. Long-toe films seem to hold on to detail in the darkest shadows rather tenaciously.

Best,

Doremus

Okay, back on-topic now

[Jac@stafford.net]

Perhaps, an example would help, at least for me. I can sorta picture what you are asking, but exactly how would you go about that. Not off topic.

I do not know if this qualifies. One of my PJ photos. 6x6cm printed on expired Agfa grade 6.