Pyro in the May/June "Photo Techniques"

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Kevin C, you do have a point! I just bought a couple of 120 plus x rolls ( the only ones I could find here in Mexico) I think I am going to develop one in pyrocat and one in HC110 and see what happens. I will let you all know next week.

[Kevin M Bourque]

Glad to hear it, Jorge!

It is likely that straight prints from your two test negatives WILL be different. The key will be to match the scales of the two prints using appropriate filtration.

I had done a similar test about a year ago and found the differences to be subtle, at best. When I matched the contrast (using VC filtration), most of the differences seemed to disappear.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I disagree Kevin, if you develop both negatives to the same CI to match the paper scale a work print made on the same paper grade should show which negative is easier to print. The idea is to show which developer produces the easiest negative to print. Anybody can mak two prints look the same depending the amount of effort they put into it. If I make a work print with no darkroom manipulation and one looks better than the other then that will show that the corresponding developer is better, or produces better negatives.

[Kirk Keyes]

Jorge,

I've always been curious about determining the CI on a pyro neg - do you use the blue channel CI, the green channel CI, the visible channel CI, and average of the blue+green? I get a different CI from the same neg when comparing the blue and the green - blue has a higher number. It would make a difference when using VC papers?

Also, for general information, I did find that the new 100TMX stains much better than the old TMX100 and with a lower b+f value.

Kirk

[sanking]

I have finally had an opportunity to read Howard Bond’s article “Pyro Investigation” in the May/June 2004 issue of Photo Techniques and I am really greatly under whelmed by his “investigation” and conclusions. The article attempts to make three points.

1. Comparison prints made from D76 and PMK negatives of the same scene do not appear to show any greater ability of the pyro developer to hold details in the greatest highlights.

2. The comparison prints at 4.5X magnification look equally sharp.

3. The use of pyro developers may cause Parkinson’s disease.

Item #1 shows that Mr. Bond apparently did little or no research before conducting his tests. I say apparently because in the absence of any mention of filtration in making the comparison prints one must assume that he used graded papers for the tests, which suggests he does not even understand the nature of the issue. The claim made by Gordon Hutching for the ability of PMK to hold upper highlight values without compressing shadow values is based on the use of VARIABLE CONTRST papers, not graded papers. Anyone who wants to understand the issue better should consult both Gordon’s Book of Pyro and/or my article on pyro developers at http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/PCat/PCat3/pcat3.html. The use of graded papers by Mr. Bond renders this part of the test useless and a waste of time. He spent his time disproving what no one who really understands how pyro developers work has claimed, i.e. e. that you can get highlight compensation with graded papers.

Item #2 is more complicated. Sharpness is a perception of clarity and is quite subjective, therefore in the eye of the beholder. However, at 4X magnification we would expect any differences in sharpness to be very subtle and the subject chosen, a natural scene set a considerable distance, is totally inappropriate for the evaluation of sharpness. A much better scene would have been one with a lot of textured man-made objects, such as distance views of brick buildings, signs in the distance, textured foliage, trees against the horizon, etc. Finally, Mr. Bond notes that the D-76 print with an unsharp mask was much sharper than the pyro negative printed straight. Duuuuh!!

On Item #3 I don’t have much to add to previous comments by Jorge. But I will remark that I consider Bond’s comments on the dangers of pyro to be typical of what we see in most popular publications: inadequate and selective use of research and shameless fear-mongering.

Mr. Bond is without doubt a very fine photographer. In my opinion he should stick to what he does best without getting into thesis “investigation.”

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Kirk, I use the blue channel exclusively. If you use the red channel you get the silver density, the green gives you in between numbers and the blue is the one that has the highest and most accurate. But then I use a x rite 369, which has a blue light for both vis and UV, it is not a color densitometer. When I was using an x rite 810, I got the same results you mention and always based my testing on the blue channel.

Now here I am going to paraphrase Phil Davis, I asked him why he did not recommend the BTZS for stainning negatives. He had a two part objection, one that he was not sure the stain was constant from developing session to developing session. This might be a problem with developers like PMK or even WD2D where the overall stain might change depending on an after bath, etc. It is not a problem with Pyrocat HD, since it is a proportional stain developer, there is very little stain the the shadows, and the stain seems to be constant.

The other objection was that he was not sure of the spectrum of the blue light. IOW how blue should be the light in the densitometer. With the 369 densitometer I use, I have gotten very good results obtaining accurate speeds and development info. Seems whatever the 369 or the 361T use for vis and UV is a good wavelenght.

If you are working for silver the blue channel should give you pretty accurate results.

[Kevin M Bourque]

Jorge –

I wanted to encourage you to do the test you described. Most people will not take the trouble.

Here was my methodology. I developed the two rolls of film (same scenes and exposures) but didn’t especially try to match them by development. I have a densitometer but pyro is well known for fooling densitometers that can’t read color (mine can’t).

I got a printed high value I liked from pyro neg and then let the rest of the values fall where they might. Then I adjusted the contrast of the D76 print (with filters) until the same high and low matched in the print. As I recall, the D76 negative needed about 20M to match the pyro neg.

I decided that there wasn’t much real difference between the two prints. They weren’t identical, but it was not obvious that one was better than the other. The differences were subtle and may have been simply errors in my ability to exactly match the contrast.

I also tried burning some highlight areas. There was no effect with the pyro neg I couldn’t match with the D76 neg.

Since it’s your test, please conduct it as you see fit. I just wanted to lest you know what I had done. I didn’t try to decide which one was “easier” to print since that is a highly subjective quantity and might change from negative to negative.

Good luck!

[sanking]

Jorge,

Are you abel to take Visual readings with your X-Rite 369? If so I suggest that you get a 47B filter and use it in Visual mode for evaluating effective negative printing density for Variable Contrast papers. Blue mode will work fine for graded papers but VC papers have sensitivity to green light in the low-contrast layer and the 47B is a broad band filter that allows quite a bit of green light to pass.

To make the measuremnt just place the 47B filter over the meauring aperture and null you densitometer to zero, then take the readings. Your readings with the 47B filter will be consistenlty lower than than with the densitoimeter in Blue mode and provide a more accurate idea of effective printing density than Blue mode unadjusted.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Kevin, I understand but I think you made the same mistake in evaluating the developer as Bond did. IMO I think Sandy has it right, he is fond of saying that all developers will work to 95%, it is that extra 3% that you can squeeze from the better developers that make the difference.

The magazine has not come out here in Mx yet, so I have not read the article, but from Sandy's comments I can see where are the problems with the comparison.

For one, an accomplished darkroom printer can grab an absolutely horrible negative, make contrast masks, sharpening masks, bleaching, etc, etc. and make a great print, but what is the point of this? I think the capabilities of a developer are shown in the ease of making a good initial print. Funny that Bond admits in his article that with a "little more work" D76 is just as good as pyro....well duh! Of course! but that is the main point I think Bond is missing, we or at least I are looking for negatives that require the least amount of darkroom manipulation to produce a good or great print.

Sandy, I also have a color densitometer which can read on the green channel. I agree with you that the stain is more relevant with VC papers, but it should also have some importance when printing with graded paper. In my comparison of Pyrocat HD, PMK and WD2D, all three developers had beautiful clouds that printed beautifully in grade 2 paper with no effort whatsoever. All 3 prints were made with no manipulation and all 3 showed great separation in the clouds. This was a shot of a chapel in full sunlight with an SBR of 9. I seriously doubt that d76 or hc110 would have been able to handle the same separation in the highlights even if developed to the same CI.

I dont know, I will see if I am wrong.

[Francis Abad]

I must have taken it for granted but Jorge makes a very good observation - using Pyrocat HD does almost eliminates the need to burn the sky in to get the clouds to come out. Funny that I forgot how much burning in of sky areas I used to do before using Pyrocat HD.