Which developer for Tmax 100 & 400 film - Tmax or XTOL?

Arjay

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I am planning to run film/developer combo tests for Kodak Tmax 100 and 400 films. I am looking for a developer for these films that offers box speed EI, maximum shadow detail/tonality, fine grain and good acutance (grouped by their order of importance from very important to nice-to-have).

Looking at Kodak's specifications, my developer choices will be Tmax and XTOL.

I am using a hybrid workflow, i.e. I will scan my negatives after developing and then do all remaining processing digitally. That means, I am preferrably looking for moderately flat negatives with a wide range of tonality values.

Which developer would you suggest for these films?
 
I've not tried TMAX dev at all. I've been happy with XTOL so far with TX and TMZ. I just started with TMY (TMX will be next) and it was very easy to scan dev'd in XTOL.
 
The film was developed with D76 a decade ago, B4 Xtol. Works for me and I can mix a quart at a time for about a $1 . Keeps perfectly for 6 mo in full sealed glass bottle.

Xtol will give a slight improvement, but not woth the effort to me.

T Max is just a rough developer with high local contrast and big grain. Xtol can go bad and give no warning. After it ruined a roll of unrepeatable pic, that was the end. I sent numerous packages back to Kodak. They replace with two new ones.

Rodinal works ok. You will think HC110 is good, until you try D76.
 
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