film highlights placement

[Jason]

Hello all, new to the forum (just one other post)...

I was taught with film about 20 years ago and am just getting back into it and as you would imagine am very rusty!!

Apologies if this is a dumb question but things have moved on a fair amount and web searching is not giving me clear enough direction...

When I was previously using film we were always taught to push and pull dev times (using ID11) for highlight placement (Zone 7 etc).

I really like the sound of the properties pyrocat HD and wanted to try this out but I can't seem to find decent reference to shorter or longer dev times to place highlights depending on the contrast of the scene - I will of course do my own tests when I am up and running but was hoping to do some reading on the topic in preparation. Might someone be able to give me some pointers ?

thanks!

[dasBlute]

sandy king has a lot of good info

http://sandykingphotography.com/resources/technical-writing/pyro-staining-developers

[ic-racer]

In general, one would adjust development times to match the printing paper. Multigrade paper is nice and makes it easier to process 10 sheets of film in a drum.

[David Schaller]

You can do N- development with Pyrocat as you would with other developers. I usually reduce the time by 15% for every zone but I have not tested precisely. Blown highlights are very rare with Pyrocat in general, and the speed holds up well with reduced development times. If I were in an extreme situation (N-4 or beyond), I might add a stop of exposure to the shadows.