Re: How to judge your negative (was Re: Times and

[Daniel Cardish <dcardish@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 06:47 PM 29/10/96 +0000, N. Remi Shih wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>Since there are so many debates about the developing time, temp, and
>developers, I cannot help to ask a silly question here.
>
>How to judge the IR negative without making contact sheet, enlargement...?
>I can used a loupe to look at the negative (in a way that I checked my color
>slides).  But I am confused about "fine grain", "details" and "contrast".
>Shouldn't a developer that gives fine grain will also give more details and
>render as "sharp" images?  Try to explain this to me please:  "HIE developed
>in XXX for XX min at XX C gives a sharp image but it's much grainer than CCC
>developer".

Fine grain is not synonymous with sharper images.  Many fine grain
developers have a lot of sodium sulfite in them.  This chemical acts as a
silver halide solvent, making the grains slightly smaller during
development.  The end result is finer grain, but the grain that is left has
a softer  "edge" to it.  Its acutance is lower.  You end up with a softer
looking, but very fine-grained image.  Developers such as Rodinal are the
opposite.  Grain can be very coarse, but the overall image looks very sharp