D23 Stock or Diluted

[Raffay]

Hello, I am using D23 for over a year. Today I took a picture of my kids and I think it would be the best composition so far. I want the development to be perfect, just wanted to check if I should continue with stock to try diluted,mid yes then how much and what would be the benefit. Would the development improve significantly?

Would appreciate a few quick responses, as I would be developing tonight.

Cheers

Raffay

 

[Ian Grant]

It was formulated to be used at full strength, I'd keep using it that way. If you want to experiment with dilution do that separately.

Ian

 

[Gerald C Koch]

I agree with Ian, if the photo is important to you then use it undiluted. Never try out something new with important photographs, always test first.

In the future if you decide on using D-23 diluted I would not recommend any dilution greater than 1+1. With dilution you will get a small increase in sharpness. D-23 can be used with replenishment, use replenisher DK-25R.

 

[Raffay]

Ok, I will use stock. Just for learning I shot Efke yesterday and recommended development for Efke was diluted 1+3, so for Efke should I also use stock if I am using D23. I posted the result in the still life thread by the name hand carry please have a look and let me know your thoughts. Also, dust is becoming an issue, for instance in the hand carry picture I have to manually remove a lot of it in PS. Is there a way to reduce dust?

Cheers

Raffay

 

[Ian Grant]

I agree with Ian, if the photo is important to you then use it undiluted. Never try out something new with important photographs, always test first.

In the future if you decide on using D-23 diluted I would not recommend any dilution greater than 1+1. With dilution you will get a small increase in sharpness. D-23 can be used with replenishment, use replenisher DK-25R.

The replenisher is also published as D-25R it does contain Sodium Metaborate (Kodalk) but I guess Kodak didn't always use a K in the formula name because there's not a DK-25 developer.

Ian

 

[Gerald C Koch]

The replenisher is also published as D-25R it does contain Sodium Metaborate (Kodalk) but I guess Kodak didn't always use a K in the formula name because there's not a DK-25 developer.

Ian

An interesting conundrum, neither developer contains Kodalk but the replenisher for them does. Do you use the K or not? In addition this is the only Kodak replenisher I know of that is used for more than one developer.

 

[Ian Grant]

An interesting conundrum, neither developer contains Kodalk but the replenisher for them does. Do you use the K or not? In addition this is the only Kodak replenisher I know of that is used for more than one developer.

Even more importantly once replenished both D-23 & D-25 change significantly because there's a pH change alongside a build up of bromide and with modern films iodide. After a few additions of replenisher it would hardly matter whether you'd started with D-23 or D-25

Henn and Crabtree claimed that D-25 gave finer grain than Kodatol (DK-20) the then commercially available Kodak Extra Fine Grain developer (which they'd also formulated).

Ian