question about d76

[titrisol]

Ya mean the "old brown" technique?
That was saving 1/4 or 1/5 of your old developer for the new batch.
I think it was bromide accumulation that "softened" the image a little.

I used that technique with paper developers as well, but now have moved to 1 shot developers for convenience

I've heard old timers (relative to me) talk about a special (positive) quality of much-used and replenished D76. The older the batch, the better they liked the negs it developed. Whenever a fresh batch needed to be mixed up, several rolls of film would be sacrificed: exposed to light and developed so that the D76 would not be so "raw".