Ilford film developer turned brown.

I have a open bottle of film developer that I think has gone bad. Is it suppose to sort of clear and not brown?

It may well have gone bad if it’s an old bottle that’s been open for a while. You can do a crude test by doing a clip test -develop a small piece of exposed film. It should turn black. This only proves the developer works at all, not that it works exactly as intended. Be aware some developers like Rodinal still work fine when they have gone brown.

If the developer has turned brown I would not use it, at least not on anything important, a rule of thumb for me with any film developers other than Rodinal is if it is darker than a light straw color then discard, it is not worth the risk of losing presious negatives, at least that is rule of thumb for liqued concentrate,
Richard

I've used both Ilfosol 3 and DD-X, and it seems when they're turning bad they start to turn a yellow color (like light straw as described above). Light straw color is fine, but when they turn brown they should be discarded. Brown in my experience is too far gone.

campy51 said:

I have a open bottle of film developer that I think has gone bad. Is it suppose to sort of clear and not brown?

Click to expand...

it's done.get some fresh developer.