Re: Neofin Blau HIE Developer

[boblong@xxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Long)]

On Thu, 10 Jul 97 18:22:35 BST, Clive Warren wrote:

|Well I suppose I am approaching IR photography from the opposite
|direction - knowledgable about Photoshop, but learning dabout chemicals.
|I guess the idea of a compensating developer is to improve grain/
|resolution (although for me grain is grain although you could do
|something about the space between grain by staining etc). =20

Grain is affected by the developer, but it is affected a lot more by
the inherent "design" of the emulsion.  In the Adox/Neofin
combination, it is the Adox film that is manufactured for finest grain
possible.  The result is a very slow emulsion that can develop good
shadow detail only if it is pushed a bit.  With a normal developer,
this would result in relatively high contrast and risk blocked
highlights.  To prevent this, a compensating developer is substituted
for a more conventional one.

Or maybe I should say a compensating developer/technique, because the
handling of the agitation is part of the approach that gets good
shadow detail while preventing excessive contrast and highlight
density.  The idea is to let the developer exhaust itself in the
highlights, which use developer rapidly, while it's still working on
the shadows--slowing development in the highlights but not the
shadows.  This requires moderate agitation, so that fresh developer
isn't brought to the highlights too frequently.

Where bright areas of the subject abut shadows, producing a relatively
high-contrast transition, some of the fresh developer from the shadow
area will keep development going at the very edge of the highlight,
thus dramatizing the edge much the way that a "sharpen" function will
in photo software.  The result is a greater appearance of sharpness
(or acutance) than one would otherwise expect from a film with the
same grain size but processed in a conventional, turly linear manner.


|Should I forget trying to use Neofin-Blue on HIE and stick to
|something like D-76, or will the experiment produce worthwhile
|results ie not trash the film?

I doubt it will trash the film, and the result may be quite pleasing.
But I'm only guessing, because I never tried the combination.  If you
want to try it to decrease grain size, I expect you'll be disapointed;
if you want to try it to increase apparant sharpness and reduce
contrast, then you may not be disappointed.

Bob Long
(boblong@xxxxxxxxxxx)
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End of Infrared-Digest V0 #122
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