Focal Press Book: The Film Developing Cookbook by Steve Anchell

Photographic processing is a chemical process. While it is not necessary to know anything about chemistry, it is necessary to understand what photographic chemicals do, and why. The Film Developing Cookbook will help photographers acquire a working knowledge of photographic chemistry that is relevant to black and white film developing and serve as a reference and refresher for photographers at all stages of their skill.

This companion to The Darkroom Cookbook will help photographers become familiar with different developer formulas for achieving a wide range of pictorial effects, and teach them how to mix and use photographic solutions from scratch-even to create new ones. Many of the developing formulas and archival fixing solutions contained in The Film Developing Cookbook have never before been presented. Topics covered in this manual include:

1. Films
2. Developer ingredients
3. Types of developers
4. Formulas
5. Speed increasing
6. Mixing and storing stock solutions
7. Stop baths, fixers, and washing
8. Safety
9. Chemical and equipment suppliers
10. Recommended development time for hundreds of films and developers

The Film Developing Cookbook is an up-to-date manual for modern film development techniques. While the original Darkroom Cookbook focused entirely on photographic chemicals and formulae, this book concentrates on films, their characteristics, and the developers each requires for maximum control of the resulting image.

The Film Developing Cookbook specifically addresses the difficult subject of T-grain film development. It includes rarely found information on film development and the nature of film developers. The authors take bold and controversial stances on many widely accepted film developing dogmas. They tackle many of the widely accepted "myths" of film development. They reject the trend toward `scientific evaluation' of films and developers in favor of the photographer developing a personal aesthetic without relying exclusively on densitometry or H&D curves.

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Developer Categories
3. Films
4. Developer Ingredients
5. Developer Procedures
6. Solvent Developers
7. Non-solvent Developers
8. Super-fine Grain Developers
9. Tanning Developers
10. Special Developers: Two-bath, High Contrast
11. Ascorbic Acid
12. Increasing Film Speed
13. Document Films
14. After Development Processes: Stop Baths, Fixers, Washing
15. Appendix 1: Reference Formulas
16. Appendix 2: Mixing and Storing Stock Solutions
17. Appendix 3: Safety; Chemical and Equipment Suppliers
18. Table of Abbreviations
19. Table of Equivalents
20. Bibliography
21. Index
22. Chart 1: Ilford Temperature Conversion Chart
23. Chart 2: Recommended Developing Times for Films and Developers

Readership: Photographers working in black-and-white, amateur or professional, students of photography. Contains the most current material available on film developing. Filled with relevant, hard to find information. A companion volume to the bestselling The Darkroom Cookbook

About the Author: Steve Anchell is a contributing editor to Outdoor Photographer and PhotoWork magazines. He has written columns, feature articles, and interviews for Camera & Darkroom, View Camera, PIC, Shutterbug, Photo Shopper, and PhotoPro magazines. His previous two books with Focal Press, The Darkroom Cookbook and The Variable Contrast Printing Manual are photography best-sellers.

Steve's photographs have been exhibited in galleries and are shown in private collections. He photographs and prints both color and black-and-white with 35mm, 2< and large-format ccameras. He has conducted over 80 photographic and darkroom workshops since 1979. Steve is currently the program director for the Photographer's Formulary Workshops in Condon, Montana. In early 1998, the first collection of his personal work, entitled The Nude at Big Sur, will be published by Whitefish Editions