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How do you determine the optimum paper development time? Phil's book points out that there is no real change in the paper's characteristic curve shape after some point, thus that would seem to define the optimum time. How would we test for that? One web posting suggested exposing a sheet of paper to roomlight, then sliping it in the developer step-wise, developing each step at successive devlopment times, looking at the stripes for the minimum time before no further blackness is seen (a min time to max black concept). But I have concerns that this may give misleadingly short development times because we don't give so much exposure when making prints. Alternatives, as food for thought, are (i) make an exposure of the sheet through a fb+f negative and then do the successive development times, (ii) print a step wedge, develop at various times, (iii) print a normal neg at various times, or (iv) do BTZS paper tests with each batch at differenct development times. I'm confused about the optimum time since various people say 2 min is better than 1, but 4 - 6 better again.
I appreciate any thoughts.
John Burns
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