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Analog photography shops are becoming scarce, it may become difficult to find the chemicals and preparing them out of raw chemicals is advantageous.
If, for color work, it's a bit complex due to difficult to find chemicals, the story is much easier to make them for B/W work.
Main advantages are:
Drawbacks are:
Required hardware is the following:
Where could you find the formulas ?
Where to find the chemicals ?
This is extremely variable from a country to another, you can start by looking at following shops:
Photo Forums
You can also ask on some forums specialized in analog photography, like:
And a mailing-list where you'll find pretty advanced folks:
What chemicals do I use ?
| Kodak X-Tol has no published formula but two reasonably close equivalents are often mentioned: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| MyTol
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DS-10 Increase development durations by 20% compared to genuine X-Tol.
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D-76
| Chemical | Quantity | Comments |
| Water | 750ml | @ 50°C |
| Metol | 2.0gr | |
| Sodium Sulfite | 100.0gr | Anhydrous |
| Hydroquinone | 5.0gr | |
| Borax | 2.0gr | Granular |
| Water to make | 1000ml |
Rodinal
We can find lots of formulas indicated as being Rodinal, in reality, very few
are close to it, so I actually prefer to use commercial products that are really
close to the real thing (Adox Rodinal, Calbe R09 One
Shot, ...).
D-72
This is a formula published by Kodak and indicated as being very close or even giving identical results compared to their commercial product Dektol.
| Chemical | Quantity | Comments |
| Water | 500ml | @ 50°C |
| Metol | 3.0gr | |
| Sodium Sulfite | 45.0gr | Anhydrous |
| Hydroquinone | 12.0gr | |
| Sodium Carbonate | 80.0gr | Monohydrated |
| Potassium Bromide | 2.0gr | Anhydrous |
| Water to make | 1000ml |
E-72
This formula gives results that are nearly identical to D-72 but using
less polluting ingredients.
Phenidone does not dissolve in water and because quantities required are very
small and could result in measurements errors, it is better to dissolve
Phenidone in glycerine, alcool (>90%) or propylene glycol to a ratio of 2, 5 or 10%,
and then recalculate the required volume as to get the amount of dry Phenidone
as stated in the formula.
You can also replace Phenidone by Metol which is more readily available and
simple to use.
| Chemical | Quantity | Comments |
| Water | 750ml | at 50°C |
| Phenidone | 0.3gr | or 3gr Metol |
| Sodium Sulfite | 45gr | anhydrous |
| Ascorbic Acid | 19gr | or 21.5gr sodium ascorbate |
| Sodium Carbonate monohydrated | 90gr | or 77gr potassium carbonate |
| Potassium Bromide | 1.9gr | |
| Cold water to make | 1000ml |
Stop Bath
Some replace the stop bath by a simple water rinse but I do prefer to keep a real stop bath as to immediately stop the development before fixing..
It is made of a very diluted acid, like citric acid @ 15 gr/l
(odorless) or acetic acid (significant smell) you can find in various dilutions
from pure
(glacial) @ 20ml/l or the more common
28% where you need 48ml/l.
In my case, I chose the citric acid that is more agreable to use than the acetic
one.
Fixer
I use an odorless, rapid and neutral fixer that simplifies the following wash
sequence.
Papers and films must be washed between the stop bath and the neutral fix to
avoid any acidification of the fixer and release of sulphur dioxide that is very
disagreeable.
| Chemical | Quantity | Comments |
| Water | 600ml | |
| Sodium Thiosulfate | 360gr | crystalline or 230gr anhydrous |
| Ammonium Chloride | 50gr | or 60gr ammonium sulfate |
| Sodium Sulfite | 15gr | Anhydrous |
| Sodium metabisulfite | 5gr | |
| Cold water to make | 1000ml | pH around 7.0 |
Wash Aid
The active ingredient of all wash aids is sodium sulfite to which are added
several conservatives.
The simplest is to use plain sodium sulfite @ 20gr/l and dump it once your
printing session is finished.
Paper Stabilizer
This product improves permanence, especially for fiber papers.
I don't have a formula for this product and use the commercial product Agfa
Sistan New.
Film Wetting Agent
Here too, seen the low cost, I prefer to use a commercial product, Tetenal Mirasol 2000, that also contains a biocide/fungicide.