film and paper developers

[marcsv]

i found an image of an old rodinal advert. made me wonder what are the other universal developers out there

 

[jim appleyard]

To a certain degree, all devs are "universal". You can develop film in Dektol (rather diluted) if you wish and dunk your print in HC-110. It depends on what you want to do. Most paper devs have quite a lot of carbonate in them to bring out the contrast in a print. This would normally be too much for film.

The devs we now commonly refer to as "universal" were more popular in the past than they are now, but Anchell's "Darkroom Cookbook" lists a handful of "universals".

 

[removed account4]

hi marcsv

90% of the film i have processed in the past 6 years has been in ansco130 paper developer. someone once told me it was a universal developer ( gaf universal ) and i processed my film accordingly. later ( thanks to this great online forum! ) i learned that it wasn't gaf universal, but i still processed my film in it anyways

not sure, but i think a lot of the universal developers died out in popularity when more sophisticated developers for paper/film emerged ...

-- john

 

[Gerald Koch]

Universal developers probably declined in popularity with the rise of 35mm photography. These developers will usually give too much grain with such a small format. They can be used for MFand LF photography.

Examples, are Kodak D-72 and Ilford ID-62 (Bromophen). Typically, they are diluted 1+2 for papers and 1+9 for films.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Dektol or D72 was recommended for use with films at 1:3 for 3' or 1:7 for 7'. This was a standard for many years in the newspaper industry as the grain was just right for their purposes.

PE