Acutol replacement

Acutol S was quite different to Acutol, the S stood for Special. Neither Acutol or Acutol S gave quite as fine grain as ID-11/D76, but the did give better acutance.

Ian

Is Ilfosol a good substitute for Acutol, as far as ready-made developers are concerned?

What made it "Special?"

Ian Grant said:

Acutol S was quite different to Acutol, the S stood for Special. Neither Acutol or Acutol S gave quite as fine grain as ID-11/D76, but the did give better acutance.

Ian

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Any thoughts?

And would it be close enough to the sought after Acutol to not matter whether Special or Hum-Drum?

It came as a surprise to see a thread I posted two years ago suddenly popping up again. So I thought I'd better update on you all on where I am.
I use Rodinal 1+100 with Fuji Acros 120 and have found that to be a very succesful combination and haven't given Acutol another thought since.
Still it is interesting to see all the recent posts.

thanks all

Richard

Paul Verizzo said:

Any thoughts?

And would it be close enough to the sought after Acutol to not matter whether Special or Hum-Drum?

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I did test then try Acutol S, I think back around 1975 I can remember the FP4 negatives the tonality and grain wasn't as good as Acutol but it did give slightly more enhanced Acutance (edge effects).

The only developer I've found to give a good balance of actaunce tonality and fine grain is Sandy King's Pyrocat HD

Ian

So many developers......

Too bad, no more Acutol. Oh well.

I'd like to try PC-TEA, and Aculux 3 too, but right now I'm between proper darkrooms and not in a good place to be testing new formulas. I'm coming off of a long stint with APX400 with Rodinal 1:25. Moving back to Tri-x. TX/Rodinal is beautiful, but currently I don't want that much grain. Acutol/HP5 was really sweet..... Anyways! Pyrocat/HP5 also great combo, but I shy away from fast 35mm films and staining developers because I either want no grain, or GRAIN, not masked in the middle grain in my prints. Acutol struck a nice balance with high acutance, fine yet sharp grain, and nice tonality. I played around with FX-2 as well, but too grainy for my current use. Heck, I'll probably just toss it and use D76 1:1 !

For acros, I would recommend FX-39 or Pyrocat HD. FX39 will produce great acutance and control highlights nicely, and good speed, but poss a tiny bit less speed than Acutol, which I found gave well over box speed if using a spot meter. Pyrocat HD gives me approx half to 2/3 box speed for silver printing. FX-39 is also very nice with FP4+ and on a recent 20x16 print the hairs on a boys head looked incredibly crisp, but natural. Helped him stand out as the subject. Less fine grain than ID11/D75, but better acutance by far.

I use FX-39 1+9 and have even tried it with faster films such as TriX, where it produces amazingly sharp prints at 16x12, but above this tonality is starting to break apart very noticeably. Fine for gritty scenes, bad for smooth tones.