----- Original Message ----- From: "Ryan Lee" Subject: Re: Developer for Fujicolor Press 800?
> Thanks for that info! More or less what I was after. But one thing, about > 'develop to completion' and 'no speed gains to be had by extending the > development', I'm a bit confused. Any chance of a bit more detail? So by > leaving it in a bit longer, I'd increase contrast, but would ' not gain that > one stop of light I lost in underexposing the film? Because I read several > places that I could gain up to two stops, maybe three, depending.. > What happens with C-41 is that the mask (thats the orange base colour) just develops more density. Since that is the D min, and the speed point is taken from it, all that over development is doing is masking any speed gains that you might get (not that I think push processing results in speed gains anyhow) with increased Bd+F. Anyone who thinks that you can gain that much speed gain off an emulsion by increasing the developer time hasn't actually done the legwork of doing static bench tests on the film and expressing the results on a chart. What happens when you under expose is that there is a drop in contrast as the low density areas fall onto the toe of the exposure curve, and the high density areas fall off the shoulder onto the slope. Increasing development will push some of these values back up the slope, (Zone System users call it "expansion"), but the actual speed point hasn't moved. You can get more contrast by over developing, but with C-41 you are also risking an off colour mask density that may respond badly to being scanned/printed, and you are certainly risking cross curves. I recall your original post mentioned a stop of underexposure, I would process normally, and then increase the contrast in Photoshop if you are printing that way. William Robb
