Best all round paper developer

[arpinum]

No one mentioned Liquidol? 100L of working solution for $15, great keeping properties, liquid stock solution, 60 second developing time.

It beats dektol in every way.

 

[Roger Cole]

All things considered, Dektol is hard to beat. It's cheap, gives excellent results, last reasonably long, and can be bought (as Dektol) almost anywhere or mixed from scratch (as D-72). That said, there are just too many factors that go into the choice of a print developer to give absolutes. A lot of them are matters of personal choice; some are matters of availability; some of cost; and some have to do with the technical workings of the developer with a particular paper. Dektol works reasonably well with most all papers, sort of like D-76 works well with most all films. But others have advantages, too. Liquidol is a liquid concentrate that has long life, is somewhat colder than Dektol, gives great results, but is a bit costly. There are other liquid concentrates that are not so expensive, but don't last as long and maybe do not give as good of results. If you are dealing with warm toned papers, Dektol is not the answer, and you need to look at specialized warm tone developers, which is often a very fussy choice.

Dektol works fine but in my experience (this is an old thread and I think I mentioned this before and others had different experiences) spoils quickly at working strength and also stains everything in sight. LDP lasts a lot longer and stains a lot less. Those are the main reasons I prefer it.