"Richard Knoppow" wrote in message
...

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Hello,

sorry, it's been a long time since I read this group. I
need a book
of film and paper chemistry recipes. I believe there was
a book (out
of print) called "the Photographer's formulary". does
anyone know of
this book or a similar book??? Please email me with a
reply as I
don't check these posting regularly. Thanks in
advance....

BTW if anyone wishes to sell their copy.....

Larry Kriese

Photographers Formulary is the name of a company who
sells chemicals needed to mix your own processing solutions
and also sells kits for popular formulas. They are on the
web and are a very good source if you intend to mix your
own. See their site for more.
What you are thinking about is the _Darkroom Cookbook_
by Steve Anchell. I believe the second edition of this is
still in print. It has a good collection of formulas but I
warn you that it has the same problem as other collections:
the authors probably never tested very many of them. The
book is available from many sources (the Formulary may even
have them) do a Google search for it.
The Digital Truth site at:
http://www.digitaltruth.com/
Has a large section of on-line formulas for developers
and other processing solutions.
Also see Ed Buffaloe's site at:
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/De...evelopers.html
Which has a pretty good explanation of the functions of
the various components of developers.
Also see Ryuji Suzuki's site at:
http://www.silvergrain.org for some very reliable discussion
of developers, fixers, etc., by someone with an excellent
knowledge of modern chemistry.
Also see a small collection of stuff incuding a
bunch of conventional Pyro formulae at:
http://www.nonmonotonic.net/Photoche...ard%20Knoppow/
Also, I've posted a lot of formulae to rec.photo.darkroom over the
years as well as the Pure-Silver mailing list. Check Google for these
posts.

This is not at all an exhuastive list of stuff
available on the web. A Google search will find more.

Note that not all published formulas are practical.
Many are very old and never worked well but have been
carried over for many decades because it was simple to "cut
and paste" into later books. Some were more alchemy than
chemistry. Some are based on serious misunderstandings of
the the functions of chemicals in developers. A great many
are simply small variations of the same thing by different
manufacturers and are essentially identical as far as
practical performance. For example every paper manufacturer
has a developer similar to Kodak D-72 (essentially identical
to Dektol). AGFA and Ansco, which they owned for some time,
specified potassium salts for some developers. While
potassium may have slightly different photographic activity
than the sodium equivalents the main reason AGFA used them
is that they had a very cheap source as by-products of their
chemical manufacturing business.
The same for exotic developing agents, mostly they have no
advantage over conventional ones and that's why they fell
into obscurity.
So, experiment but don't go broke or go through a lot
of trouble over stuff that is expansive and hard to find,
most of its isn't worth the bother.

From my current favorite vendor of black and white film products:

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_pro...t_id=&pid=2655

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_pro...t_id=&pid=2626