Developing vs. Processing

Leigh B said:

One universal characteristic of newbies and uninitiated devotees...

They always use whatever jargon they've heard, in an attempt to portray themselves as "experienced".

In fact they're just stamping "NEWBIE" in large read letters across their foreheads.

- Leigh

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Same thing with the word "chemistry". You'll never hear a chemist use this word like some do here. "I mixed up the chemistry at 20 degrees C", or "be sure to cover the film with enough chemistry or it wont develop evenly".

Chemistry is the name of a science. Chemicals are the components studied in that science.

I tried souping film, but tbh it just tasted horrible.

Cholentpot said:

After I burn a can I drop a mix and soup the roll in the tank. Once the fix is in I give the whole thing a cool bath with some soap and then let hang until the tack is gone.

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Dat's so kewl, doooood!

(Edit: fixed typo!)

fdonadio said:

Dat's so kewl, doooood!

(Edit: fixed typo!)

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Nah, brah. I only shoot square on fast glass now. I pull three stops and cook with extra shaking to get my nitro thick.

In my experience, "process" and "develop" are interchangeable. I've always thought of it this way...I am developing the film in order to make negatives....and I put the film through a process in order so to do.

Souping.....when I was a lad the phrase "souping up" was still occasionally used to describe slight modifications to a car engine to get a bit more power from it. As in, "He's got a souped up Mini Cooper". Souping film leads me to imagine someone attempting to develop it using Campbell's cream of mushroom 1+4, standing for an hour....but then with people using booze and coffee to develop film who knows what the k3wl k1ds are doing these days...

I go with processing and developing film as effectively interchangeable, but tend to subconsciously go towards 'processing' if talking about more complicated or extended steps, and developing if nothing overly interesting is going on. However I'm horribly inconsistent with it, and would like to apologize to any non-native English speakers (and probably any non film enthusiasts) who ever get to sit down to talk photography with me.

If I'm going to develop, review, make notes, scan, catalog, keyword and cross reference, then I tend to think "Processing", and the act extends well beyond just the chemistry stage. Processing may also mean dealing with stuff that has already been developed and sat in the in-box for the last week or two while I dealt with other things.

Language is fun and wonderfully inconsistent.