Bill Troop an American writer, photography specialist, and type designer. He is the principal author of "The Film Developing Cookbook",Troop, Bill and Anchell, Steve (1998) "The Film Developing Cookbook". Focal Press/Reed Elsevier, . in print continuously since 1998, and widely considered to be the standard contemporary work on black and white film processing and chemistry. An expanded 2nd edition was published in November 2019Routledge, ISBN 1138204870 and a French translation was published in 2021."La Bible du développement de films noir et blanc", Éditions First, ISBN 2412061335 As a chemist, he has designed products for Photographers' Formulary, Inc., including TF-4, the first alkaline fixer for black and white film and papers to be sold, and TD-3, a film developer which was reported to provide superior speed and dynamic range and lower grain in the category of low contrast film developers designed for high contrast films such as Kodak Technical Pan and similar. TF-4's use as a helpful adjunct to tanning developers was discussed in detail by Gordon Hutchings in "The Book of Pyro" Hutchings, Gordon (1992) "The Book of Pyro". Bitter Dog Press, ISBN B0006P3UEW. Alkaline fixing for black and white silver halide films and printing papers was considered revolutionary when Troop introduced it. Though still controversial, it has since become a recognized technique in photographic processing as it offers reduced washing times, increased archival stability, and reduced environmental impact. Troop published the first formulas for alkaline fixers, and several manufacturers now produce them. He has written for several computer magazines, including

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a digital magazine and website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG. History ''Macworld'' was founded by David Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard (publishers) and Andrew Fl ...

, MacWEEK, and MacDirectory. His 1993 article "Silicon Valley IDE mirror card: safety in numbers" described the then-revolutionary first

RAID RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

product available for personal computers. The Wall Street Journal has described him as a "kitchen-appliance junkie" Home Cooks Pull the Plug On Kitchen Appliances
/ref> and he has written about kitchen technology for

The Lady (magazine) ''The Lady'' was a British women's magazine. It published its first issue on 19 February 1885, and its last in April 2025, at which time it was the longest-running women's magazine in Britain. Based in London, it included classified advertiseme ...

. He has designed several typefaces for Canada Type, including Busted, Didot Display, Didot Headline, and Semplicità Pro. Earlier typefaces were released through the now-defunct foundry Precision Type, and he has worked for Adobe and Monotype. He was married to the writer

Elspeth Barker Elspeth Barker (16 November 1940 – 21 April 2022) was a Scottish novelist and journalist whose gothic novel ''O Caledonia'' became a cult classic, known for its combination of detailed imagery of Scotland and its ironic dark humour. Early life ...

from 2007 to 2013 and is reported to be working on a novel.Collins, Ian, 2007. "Tell me the truth about an animal attraction," Eastern Daily Press, 27 December 2007.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Troop, Bill Living people 21st-century American chemists American science writers Year of birth missing (living people)