[albada]

The other reason I"m intrigued with this concept is that, let's face it, B&W developers pretty much stagnated years ago. Yet, at least up until digital putting the wooden stake in the heart of C-41 processing, C-41 got all of the attention of the Big Minilab Boys. Surely they kept tweaking the chemistry. Finer grain, better acutance. Anyway, what I"m hoping for.

Paul, it's good to hear from you again! As a reminder, you and I independently discovered that s. metaborate dissolves in propylene glycol. But you discovered it a few years ahead of me.

Anyway, as I understand it, one reason for the fine grain of color developers is dye-clouds. Each little silver-grain is surrounded by a larger cloud of dye, so the grain does not need to be developed as much. That lower development means finer grain. But B&W films don't contain color-couplers, so they will need more development than C-41 to make grains larger, so grain probably won't be as fine. But I encourage you to try it and prove me wrong. I'm not joking! I'm surprised at how often I get surprised by developers.

Mark Overton