A Look At Darkroom Formula Books

Let’s look at a selection of books from my own library that discuss a variety of formulas for use
in the darkroom. I have several books from Kodak, three different editions of The Darkroom Cookbook, and an enormous book called Photo-Lab Index. Let’s see what books you might want to add to your own library.

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[MyNikolaas]

There's a soviet photo- recipie book from the 60s. It's only about 200 pages, takes up little space and it pretty much is entirely photo chemical formulas. My daily go to for black and white stuff. It's got pretty much all the classic kodak black and white stuff, also stuff from agfa - it has many cool soviet formulations as well. At the end there is a section on agfacolor chemicals but all that is pretty much obsolete. It's "the photo recepie book" by Mikulin . The only issue for most of you is that it's in Russian. I really ought to sit down and translate it one of these days - it's just where to find the time? Thank you for the video! As always great content!!!

[bobgoogwin]

i have the darkroom cookbook 1st edition and film developing cookbook 2nd edition. my darkroom cookbook is all written up with notes and extra formulas while my film developing cookbook has the spine tattered by how much i have been reading it.
both are great resources.

[randallstewart]

Keep in mind that it is one thing to have the formulas, and quite another to be able to use them to create working chemistry. Aside from scales to weigh chemicals, beakers, magnetic stirring device, and variety of other equipment, you also have to lay in a variety of bulk chemicals, which can cost from $10 to $75+ each. To explore half a dozen of the developer formulas you might find can require an initial outlay of $250.The positive side of that is that once you make your investment, you have the resources on hand to produce fresh photo chemistry as needed, and in amounts which would cost thousands of dollars over the counter, as well as products no longer available at any price.

[photog]

Nice...very nice! This is the video I hoped you'd produce. I have the Anchell (sp?) books...love them all.

[Kitsaplorax]

I've got the Photo Lab Index from 1942, as well as the Mees book on photochemistry, as well as a few others, plus the Darkroom Cookbook (prior edition). There's a lot of good research online-the sulfite free formulas come to mind. Hubl Paste is still one of my favorite formulas. Slow working, single agent glycin and staining (in an alkaline fixer).

[MrPeetersmark]

It would be awesome to see some comparisons between home brew formulas

[michelhv]

One item you definitely want to understand photo chemistry and get a good number of formulas is Modern Photographic Processing by Grant Haist, from Kodak.

[robhalliburton]

Thanks for the video - some new material to look out for. However, I suspect you may have bought a copy of the Photo-Lab-Index that has had all the interesting bits removed. My copy was an ex-serviceman's, kept up to date between 1959 & 1963 & it has 100's of formulae from Ansco, Ilford, Gavaert, Dup Pont, Kodak, Agfa & more. It also has some interesting entries such as direct positive film developing with Ilford chemicals & HP5. Your reference to Sulfate & Sulfite may well not be typos, as they are different compounds, similar, but different.

[rlfsoso]

aaaah. New nice intro. Self isolating in (hot) darkroom helps ;-) . But the digital pixels should be… analog (towel per(t)haps).

My daughter (10) noticed me chuckling and wanted to see… got her mom, who suggested I should do same on my Darkroom. 17°C duh! Women!


Would LOVE to learn a bit more about toning variations and influence of (paper) developers! Great stuff again.

[iNerdier]

Would it be possible to have a list of the books in the video description to aid in finding some of them?

[thomasbarker]

A very nicely presented video and very informative. Thank you and I look forward to your next one.

[Ethaningramphoto]

Interesting. I’ve got an older photo-lab-index and it’s got close to 300 formulas in it. I think they were assembled based on technical publications as they came in. Not all are the same.

[randallstewart]

Another resource which is only marginally available so far as I know is the collected issues o a magazine originally named Darkroom Photography. I think it started publication in the mid-1970s and ran for about 15 years. It started with a narrow focus on darkroom techniques, film developing, print making and DIY photo chemistry. Over the years as digital invaded the space, it modified its name and expanded its content to try to reach a wider audience. In summary, it fully covers all aspects of wet printmaking including B&W and color chemistry and how to make it., along with nearly every other aspect of the darkroom experience. It was published by a small family operation and back issues are practically not available. However, I think it can be found in libraries of most medium to larger urban areas. Near its end, it had a series of articles I still intend to explore showing the use of film scanning and inkjet printing onto transparency sheets to produce printing masks to micro-manage selected area contrast and density variations. Sort of high tech split tone printing and burn/dodge in complex image areas.

[dangoldbach]

Would like to see some formulas for cyanotypes in a video, I kinda like the old 1860's era look. As photography changes towards digital more and more I actually find the older more involved processing technology more interesting! Subscribed.

[guillermoperezsantos]

That 4 edition is huge!!!, my 1st one is half the size :(

[guillermoperezsantos]

The Darkroom Cookbook is like the bible for the lab hehehe.
If you loke old clasic formulas I recommend "Agfa formulas for Photographic use" there are several editions, and the mostly unknown "Dupond´s Defender Formula Book" can be found by googling

[michaeloconnor]

Have you come across a formula close to Edwal's Ultra Black print developer. I like using it with Ilford warm tone multi contrast paper.

[simons_pics]

Looking for a fixer formula similar to TF5 .

[chengzhang]

100 likes now, I really don’t want to break this

[GreyGhost-rz]

Lol intro. Don’t laugh. It’s actually easier to develop this way. No clothing stains.