Latest Film Developing Cookbook: Incorporating Barry Thornton/Jay de Fehr's Developers?

ame01999 · Sep 19, 2025

I was thrilled to find a new edition to the Cookbook. But given the authors' evident interest in innovative developers, and in the solving of classical chemistry problems, I was surprised to see Barry Thornton's work mentioned just in passing. DixActol is the only one of his several developers mentioned, and there is no evidence the authors' have actually tried it out. Just a tiny summary of its ingredients, and no mention of Precysol at all.

Jay has been publicizing innovative formulas for years. I still use his GSD developer for reduced agitation or stand development of t-grain films. There's an entire chapter devoted to staining developers in the cookbook, but no mention of 510 Pyro or Hypercat. But the Cookbook devotes ample discussion to historical developers of no particular distinction.

Just curious why those developers got left out.

Don_ih · Sep 19, 2025

Do you mean the new edition of the Darkroom Cookbook? The most recent Film Cookbook is 2nd edition from 2020.

Milpool · Sep 19, 2025

Not that I’m a fan of the cookbooks (the opposite in fact) but I guess they can’t talk about literally everything - none of the Barry Thornton developers are special / different / innovative so that’s no loss. The other guy, his concoctions are nothing special and have no real objective data or science behind them so there’s no loss there either. Understand that throwing some things together that will develop film is almost trivial.

John Wiegerink · Sep 19, 2025

Milpool said:
Not that I’m a fan of the cookbooks (the opposite in fact) but I guess they can’t talk about literally everything - none of the Barry Thornton developers are special / different / innovative so that’s no loss. The other guy, his concoctions are nothing special and have no real objective data or science behind them so there’s no loss there either. Understand that throwing some things together that will develop film is almost trivial.

I don't think either fellow, Jay or Barry, just threw things together and some of there developers are pretty darn good. 510 pyro has some very devote fans and Barry was always trying to get every last gran to be razor sharp. Both of these folks put an awful lot of thought into each of their concoctions and it shows in the end results.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Sep 20, 2025

ame01999 said:
I was thrilled to find a new edition to the Cookbook.

Don_ih said:
the new edition of the Darkroom Cookbook?

The 5th edition discusses GSD-10 and 510-Pyro, both creations of Jay DeFehr.

retina_restoration · Sep 20, 2025

Milpool said:
Not that I’m a fan of the cookbooks (the opposite in fact) but I guess they can’t talk about literally everything - none of the Barry Thornton developers are special / different / innovative so that’s no loss. The other guy, his concoctions are nothing special and have no real objective data or science behind them so there’s no loss there either. Understand that throwing some things together that will develop film is almost trivial.

John Wiegerink said:
I don't think either fellow, Jay or Barry, just threw things together and some of there developers are pretty darn good. 510 pyro has some very devote fans and Barry was always trying to get every last gran to be razor sharp. Both of these folks put an awful lot of thought into each of their concoctions and it shows in the end results.

I think the actual bones of the truth lies somewhere in between. I've used Barry's divided developer, performing A/B comparisons with other developers and found it actually has some valid, worthwhile properties (definitely an improvement over Divided D-23). Is it "special" or "innovative"? No, not really, but neither is it the result of "just throwing things together" and lots of wishful thinking. Karl Matthias's "2B-1" divided developer is similar to other divided developers, but generates more contrast than — say — Barry Thornton's version, and so it offers something useful and is worth exploring.

On the other hand, I recognize that there are some developers that people have created that — in their own minds, at least — offer something unique and superior, but in fact do nothing special. I have not used 510 Pyro myself, but I know people who have done comparison tests with it and found it didn't do anything that PMK or Pyrocat HD didn't do at least as well. There are lots of recipes to be found that are variations on standard themes, and at best many of them offer no meaningful improvements over what preceded them, or are inferior in one way or another. There are dozens of variations on the "Xtol-type" ascorbate developer but I doubt that any of them offers any meaningful differences in terms of results. They may offer conveniences, or make home-brewing easier for the DIY folks like myself (I use FX-55 specifically because it makes concocting the developer easy and offers long term shelf life) but they are otherwise virtually interchangeable with Xtol.

My guess is that if Anchell and Troop don’t mention something in their writings, it’s probably because it doesn’t provide results that are significantly different from other formulas within the same family of developers. By including “historical developers of no particular distinction,” they provide a meaningful context for what we know about the evolution of film developers. Besides, Anchell & Troop are free to pick and choose what they want to write about, and if they make choices that seem arbitrary or dismissive to some readers, that's ultimately their decision to make, whether or not it appears to leave out content that some feel important top include.

koraks · Sep 20, 2025

retina_restoration said:
I have not used 510 Pyro myself, but I know people who have done comparison tests with it and found it didn't do anything that PMK or Pyrocat HD didn't do at least as well.

I think every developer is a compromise and 510 is no exception. It does some things better than X, other things better than Y - but it's no silver bullet, just like anything else.

I really don't know what the inclusion criteria are for A&T. Maybe ask them directly? Perhaps @Steve Anchell can comment, in case he happens to hop by.

darkroommike · Sep 20, 2025

The Film Developing Cookbook takes a different approach to formulas that does the The Darkroom Cookbook.
In broad strokes:
Bill Troop offers a lot more WHY and HOW, I don't consider it a cookbook at all.
Steve Anchell's approach (when he is compiling the Darkroom Cookbook) is more a recipe book and less a tutorial.

Generalizations? You betcha!

retina_restoration · Sep 20, 2025

koraks said:
I really don't know what the inclusion criteria are for A&T. Maybe ask them directly?

That's what I was about to say. Why bring this to Photrio without asking the authors for their opinion?

John Wiegerink · Sep 20, 2025

retina_restoration said:
I think the actual bones of the truth lies somewhere in between. I've used Barry's divided developer, performing A/B comparisons with other developers and found it actually has some valid, worthwhile properties (definitely an improvement over Divided D-23). Is it "special" or "innovative"? No, not really, but neither is it the result of "just throwing things together" and lots of wishful thinking. Karl Matthias's "2B-1" divided developer is similar to other divided developers, but generates more contrast than — say — Barry Thornton's version, and so it offers something useful and is worth exploring.

On the other hand, I recognize that there are some developers that people have created that — in their own minds, at least — offer something unique and superior, but in fact do nothing special. I have not used 510 Pyro myself, but I know people who have done comparison tests with it and found it didn't do anything that PMK or Pyrocat HD didn't do at least as well. There are lots of recipes to be found that are variations on standard themes, and at best many of them offer no meaningful improvements over what preceded them, or are inferior in one way or another. There are dozens of variations on the "Xtol-type" ascorbate developer but I doubt that any of them offers any meaningful differences in terms of results. They may offer conveniences, or make home-brewing easier for the DIY folks like myself (I use FX-55 specifically because it makes concocting the developer easy and offers long term shelf life) but they are otherwise virtually interchangeable with Xtol.

My guess is that if Anchell and Troop don’t mention something in their writings, it’s probably because it doesn’t provide results that are significantly different from other formulas within the same family of developers. By including “historical developers of no particular distinction,” they provide a meaningful context for what we know about the evolution of film developers. Besides, Anchell & Troop are free to pick and choose what they want to write about, and if they make choices that seem arbitrary or dismissive to some readers, that's ultimately their decision to make, whether or not it appears to leave out content that some feel important top include.

I've used both, but only occasionally use BT2B now. New concoctions are not only about better end result, but sometimes more about things like ease of use or storage/shelf life. All of this is fine, but if the new concoction doesn't do any one thing better and still give results you like, it ain't worth it. That's why I just "tried" 510 pyro and didn't stick with it.

chuckroast · Sep 20, 2025

retina_restoration said:
I think the actual bones of the truth lies somewhere in between. I've used Barry's divided developer, performing A/B comparisons with other developers and found it actually has some valid, worthwhile properties (definitely an improvement over Divided D-23). Is it "special" or "innovative"? No, not really, but neither is it the result of "just throwing things together" and lots of wishful thinking. Karl Matthias's "2B-1" divided developer is similar to other divided developers, but generates more contrast than — say — Barry Thornton's version, and so it offers something useful and is worth exploring.

On the other hand, I recognize that there are some developers that people have created that — in their own minds, at least — offer something unique and superior, but in fact do nothing special. I have not used 510 Pyro myself, but I know people who have done comparison tests with it and found it didn't do anything that PMK or Pyrocat HD didn't do at least as well. There are lots of recipes to be found that are variations on standard themes, and at best many of them offer no meaningful improvements over what preceded them, or are inferior in one way or another. There are dozens of variations on the "Xtol-type" ascorbate developer but I doubt that any of them offers any meaningful differences in terms of results. They may offer conveniences, or make home-brewing easier for the DIY folks like myself (I use FX-55 specifically because it makes concocting the developer easy and offers long term shelf life) but they are otherwise virtually interchangeable with Xtol.

My guess is that if Anchell and Troop don’t mention something in their writings, it’s probably because it doesn’t provide results that are significantly different from other formulas within the same family of developers. By including “historical developers of no particular distinction,” they provide a meaningful context for what we know about the evolution of film developers. Besides, Anchell & Troop are free to pick and choose what they want to write about, and if they make choices that seem arbitrary or dismissive to some readers, that's ultimately their decision to make, whether or not it appears to leave out content that some feel important top include.

I have done a fair bit with 510 recently. It is quite different than PMK in that it can do semi stand or extreme minimal agitation and pmk cannot. In my observation , it also is delivers flner grain.

It is closer to Pyrocat in practice but it stains more deeply like a true pyrogallol developer.

For smaller formats especially, 510 will give you a PMK like look with less noticeable grain in my experience

Latest Film Developing Cookbook: Incorporating Barry Thornton/Jay de Fehr's Developers?

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