I stopped developing at 68 degrees and my negatives got sharper

Everyone in the club kept telling me to stick with the standard 68 degree development for my Tri-X. I read an old Kodak datasheet from 1972 that said higher temperatures with shorter times can actually reduce grain if you agitate less. Last month I tried 75 degrees for 6 minutes with only two inversions per minute and the difference in sharpness was obvious on my 11x14 prints. Has anyone else experimented with temperature outside the standard range and seen better results, or am I just fooling myself?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilymurphy16d ago

Wait, 75 degrees and only two inversions a minute? That sounds like it should turn your Tri-X into a muddy mess, not sharpen anything. I gotta say, I'm kinda blown away you got that to work, let alone see a real difference on 11x14s.

diana_park13d ago

My darkroom timer from 1987 agrees with @lilymurphy, sometimes the weird stuff just works.