I have found some Actol developer and am going to give it a try. I read about it in Anchell Film Cookbook and was going to mix my own when my dealer told me Patterson was putting it "back"(?) on the market. Anyone out there played with this developer? I will start with the manufactors recommendations and go forward from there, just checking the pulse of the world

-- Ann Clancy (clancya@mediaone.net), April 05, 2001

Answers

Response to Actol

if i could spell it might help. I think this should be spelled Acutol.

-- Ann clancy (clancya@mediaone.net), April 05, 2001.

Response to Actol

It's a fairly unexciting developer IMHO. Results are somewhere between Rodinal and D76 1:1 in both tonality and sharpness. Grain size is reasonably controlled, but at the same time it's 'well defined', and Acutol doesn't really suit 400 ISO and higher speed films. It really went well with FP4, but that's now been replaced by FP4plus.
All credit to Geoffrey Crawley for formulating an acutance developer that was also able to deliver a good tonal scale, but I think the whole world has moved on a bit since the 1960s.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), April 06, 2001.

Response to Actol

thanks, for the info. I was planning on using it with Agfa 25 (Ha) or perhapes Ilford PanF, not the higher speeds.

-- Ann Clancy (clancy@mediaone.net), April 06, 2001.

I have tried Acutol and it works good with lower speed films like Efke R25 and R50. I haven't tried it with Agfa films though. I also like Aculux 2. It gives VERY fine grain with higher speed films like Tri-X. I once shot Tri-X at 250 Asa and developed it in Aculux 2 and showed the results to a portrait photographer and he thought that I must have used Plus-X and not Tri-X. :-))

I think Acutol can work good with APX films, but I would use Rodinal instead, diluted 1+50 and at little shorter times than Agfa recommends.

-- Patric (jenspatric@mail.bip.net), April 10, 2001.