Hi Dan
I take it that you are talking about the two bath dev, for contrast control. Les McLean is still using a double dev and has been pushing me to try it.
Unfortunately 1/2 my fibre printing these days is mural size and Harmon Digital Fibre which is a red sensitive emulsion so all processing is in the dark.
For single images I think the control would be amazing but in complete darkness with large sheets of paper 30inch x 60 inch, the transitions from dev to stop/fix is critical and delicate. Introducing a third tray in the dark may be a bit more than I could handle. I would need a second set of hands to minimise damage on the larger prints.
With the digital wet prints, making slight contrast adjustments are time consuming as though the Lambda has a curve for this adjustment it is basic and like a sledgehammer on a finishing nail, finetuning is better in the L channel which means leaving the darkroom, going back to the original print file make the changes , reload to the Lambda and then rehit. When all the chems are mixed and ready to go this is a pain in the ass adjustment to do and if you are working on multiple images running back and forth can kill the day. maybe just a longer time in the soft dev or longer in the hard dev would do the trick as most of the time the contrast adjustment is very little.
Thanks for the suggestion I will give one of these devs a try and hopefully add it to my weapon list.
I think my main area of need now is a rapid fix which I can easily mix to large working solutions.
I never reuse my chems so each day is a challange to set up my trays with fresh chemicals so I not only am looking for a great combination that works with my current workflow, but as well it must be easily mixed from a stock solution.
I thought with a 40ft sink I would be in good shape but I need a extra 20ft for toning purposes. You cannot imagine how labour intensive doing a full print run from exposure to final tone in one day is like. Any way to save time though seemingly insignificant adds up in a big way.
People make fun of my orange jumpsuit, but it saves my wife killing me when I get home with ruined clothes.
All suggestions are greatly appreciated about simple chemical mixtures as this is not a strong area for me in my printing knowledge.
best regards
Bob
Consider Beer's and Adams' version of Ansco 130.
Both are contrast control developers. Beer's I know
will allow a grade or better control. I've not tried Ansco's
Adams' version but likely it will do as well. Both add a
hydroquinone component for increased contrast.
Beer's is frugal in it's use of chemistry. Dan
Dektol is packaged in such a way that the HQ and Metol are protected from being destroyed by oxygen, and there is a sequestrant in the prepackaged version. The last formula I saw used Quadrofos.
