Surprisingly many people lack the confidence to choose the right developer or to adapt their development technique to suit their own preferences. Instead, they go along with whatever their favourite guru of the moment recommends, and blame themselves if the pictures don't come out right.
But it isn't hard to establish and follow your own preferences. It begins by looking at the print: which prints of your own do you like most? What is important to you: grain, tonality, sharpness...? It is then a question of working backwards from your favourite prints to establish the best possible development technique for you.
Even if you lack the experience to make absolute judgements, or to make the finest possible prints, you can always tell a better print from a worse print, and this is the starting-point for this module: instilling the self-confidence needed to judge your own prints.
Illustration from 'Negative Development Technique'
