Low contrast developing for high contrast scenes: D-23

 

Source: D-23

One of the facets about analog photography that I really enjoy is the huge amount of ways to change or influence the look of an image.   Developing chemistry is such a huge topic and I’ve barely scratched the surface on this.

I’ve been reading about two bath processing that supposedly reduces contrast and holds shadow tones and highlights well.  Here’s a few reasons why it might be useful:

  • Low contrast negatives scan very well
  • Low contrast negatives print to PT/PD well
  • Processing negatives for  low contrast can result in more information kept in both shadows and highlights
  • Processing a negative for lower contrast may make the grain less visible
  • Possible recovery of exposure errors

Here’s some more articles on D-23 for reference

Unblinking Eye Divided D-23 developer

Kenneth Lee – D-23 Technical discussion

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