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Henry Yorke
17-Jun-2019, 08:27
Hi, everyone.

I came across an issue of the Jobo Quarterly that features an article by Chuck Farmer where he discusses developing film with pyro in the Jobo tubes:

http://www.jobo-usa.com/images/archive/JQ6.pdf

He writes about using the used pyro solution after the film has been fixed to restain the film:

"After the fix, dump the saved Pyro developer back into the drum for two minutes or so. Even though the developer is completely oxidized, it will re-stain the film in proportion to what the fix removed. I like a fairly heavy stain because it will mask any sign of grain even in a very large print. Stain can be add by lengthening the re-staining time or be removed to taste by a soaking in hypo clearing agent."

Does anyone do restaining with their pyro developer? Does it do as Farmer suggests - mask any sign of grain?

Sal Santamaura
17-Jun-2019, 09:45
...Does anyone do restaining with their pyro developer?...Not anyone who knows that Gordon Hutchings subsequently advised against doing it.


...Does it do as Farmer suggests - mask any sign of grain?No, it only adds to general stain. Which is why Hutchings changed his approach.

koraks
17-Jun-2019, 10:10
What Sal says, apparently this piece of lore refuses to die. I stand corrected if I'm ever presented with evidence that the second round of stain is indeed proportional.

Pete Roody
17-Jun-2019, 10:20
What Sal says, apparently this piece of lore refuses to die. I stand corrected if I'm ever presented with evidence that the second round of stain is indeed proportional.

Photographers Formulary still has the second round of staining in their instructions for PMK. If you want to create ‘bricks’ that take an hour or more to print, by all means do it! I made that mistake once and never used PMK again.


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Sal Santamaura
17-Jun-2019, 10:34
...I made that mistake once and never used PMK again...That's a second mistake. PMK without the afterbath yields wonderful negatives.

Pete Roody
17-Jun-2019, 10:36
That's a second mistake. PMK without the afterbath yields wonderful negatives.

Noted!


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bob carnie
17-Jun-2019, 10:39
I have stained every film I have ever processed since 94 with PMK...

Pete Roody
17-Jun-2019, 10:44
I have stained every film I have ever processed since 94 with PMK...

Just curious. With or without the afterbath?

And I am not knocking PMK. Just the instructions that should be corrected. I didn’t try it without the afterbath because I went back to Pyrocat and I am happy with that.


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bob carnie
17-Jun-2019, 11:07
I split the developer into two baths split the time.. I use the first bath as a final stain.

Mark Sampson
17-Jun-2019, 11:11
I began using PMK (with TXP) in about 1992, after reading Mr. Hutchings' article in 'View Camera'. Of course I followed the instructions and used the after-bath. At some point I gave up on the after-bath... perhaps because someone on line made a credible argument against it. In any case I never saw much difference in the printing qualities of my negs. I didn't do any measurements before or after.... so if my newer negs printed better or easier, I'll just say that my practice improved over time. Were I to go back to PMK now (having used Pyrocat in this decade) I wouldn't bother with the after-bath.

koraks
17-Jun-2019, 11:28
I have stained every film I have ever processed since 94 with PMK...

And I trust the negatives are just fine. The issue is: would they have been any less so without the second staining bath?

bob carnie
17-Jun-2019, 11:43
Hard to say.. I have placed silver prints in Museums, Gallerys and private collections world wide and never once did anyone ask me did I use a staining bath. This issue reminds me of the silver bullet many look for in printing.

Drew Wiley
17-Jun-2019, 14:44
I've done it both ways. Sal is right. It just adds extra staining overall and not selectively, so does nothing except to in effect increase fbf and slow printing speed.

bob carnie
18-Jun-2019, 06:07
Here is a novel idea for the OP or others who have not tried this before.

Expose two identical pieces of film, process one with stain , one without.

Now try to make an identical print from each negative... Upon reflection pick the method that most suits you. then move on.

Kiwi7475
18-Jun-2019, 07:38
Here is a novel idea for the OP or others who have not tried this before.

Expose two identical pieces of film, process one with stain , one without.

Now try to make an identical print from each negative... Upon reflection pick the method that most suits you. then move on.

And that scientific method, if done by more than one person, as the method demands, will yield all answers.

Isn’t that what Hutchings already did and found that there’s no proportional difference, publishing this, and yet here we are years later asking the same question again? :-)

Pere Casals
18-Jun-2019, 07:50
Expose two identical pieces of film, process one with stain , one without.


Yes... it would also be interesting to plot the two curves from Stouffer contact copies, as the silver density will be the same we would see if added density is more proportional or more general.

PRJ
18-Jun-2019, 08:33
There is no right or wrong answer to this. If you do it and you like the negs, fine. If you don't and you like the negs, fine too! People make too much of these things.

IIRC I used to do the afterbath, but I am too lazy these days so now I don't.

John Layton
18-Jun-2019, 09:07
actually, the above mentioned test should not seek two identical prints...but each (with and without afterbath) negative should be printed to its own best possible outcome prior to making a judgement about which is process variation is "better."

Pere Casals
18-Jun-2019, 09:28
There is no right or wrong answer to this. If you do it and you like the negs, fine. If you don't and you like the negs, fine too! People make too much of these things.

Well... if you scan later you bend the curves like you want. A pure optic print is way more difficult to control.

Say that you calibrate that process, in the case that second stain is proportional then you can adjust the yellow stain level with a longuer or shorter second bath. This would allow to adjust how highlights depiction is.

A darkroom silver print is something great, but we need every available trick if we want to control what we craft.

Drew Wiley
18-Jun-2019, 09:57
Here's something everyone is missing so far. When you do the alkaline afterbath, whether metaborate or recycled PMK dev itself, you risk an even greater differential edge fogging than otherwise, into the perimeter of the image area itself, potentially requiring much more edge burning during printing to correct. It depends on the film. Old-fashioned thick emulsion films were the most susceptible, but newer ones like HP5 and dual-emulsion types bothered quite a bit too; thin emulsions like T-grain films not much at all. That extra stain soaks into the edges and corners more than the main body of the image, so it's not even. You don't gain anything except a headache. Gosh knows how many hundreds of prints I've made both ways, with all kinds of films. The tanning and staining advantages of using pyro to begin with aren't necessarily enhanced at all with the afterbath. You just make the image harder to print. But there are probably miles of past threads on this subject if someone wants to dig them up. I have no interest in starting yet another pyro war.

NER
18-Jun-2019, 21:02
Sorry, but I can't resist jumping in here. I feel somewhat qualified to speak to this issue by virtue of the fact that I've probably used PMK longer than just about anyone on this board, and that's so because Gordon gave me the formula in 1984 to test out and give him feedback on before he published "The Book of Pyro" in 1991. Finding PMK to be completely satisfactory, I've used no other developer since obtaining the formula PMK from Gordon in 1984. Here, as I see them, are the facts as they relate to after staining:

(1) The added stain is general, not proportional;
(2) The added stain is negligible (at least that is so with AgfaPan 100 which I was using at the time, BPF 200 which I ill-advisedly went to when AgfaPan 100 was discontinued, and FP-4 which I have used exclusively since abandoning BPF 200 ... all rinsed in a plain water bath after developing and then fixed in a plain sodium thiosulfate bath without metabisulfite, sodium sulfite, or alum; and
(3) The negligible added stain neither helps nor hinders silver-gelatin printing to any significant degree; however, it does lengthen the amount of time you spend processing the negative. I used to opt for the second bath if I had a negative that seemed a bit thin, but I never found the procedure to be useful in salvaging such negatives. These days, I discard them and move on.

N. Riley
http://normanrileyphotography.com

ps. In addition to me, Gordon also gave the formula to Steve Simmons, Ralph Talbert, Jim Galvin, and one or two others for testing.

Vaughn
18-Jun-2019, 21:42
Glad you did not resist -- thank you! I found that Bergger200 stained pretty heavily compared to other films...but it has been awhile and not a controlled experiment.

Drew Wiley
18-Jun-2019, 21:48
Please read my previous post. The second round of staining is NOT negligible with thicker emulsion films but can be quite heavy and require substantially longer exposure times. I also differ on your opinion of Bergger 200 and PMK, which was a marriage made in heaven - but I'm referring to 8X10 format; I'd never use it for small or medium format. Bergger 200 would of course be classified as a somewhat thick emulsion, not to the degree of Super XX, but analogous, so absorbed a lot of the staining property.

Pere Casals
19-Jun-2019, 00:40
I used to opt for the second bath if I had a negative that seemed a bit thin, but I never found the procedure to be useful in salvaging such negatives.

Perhaps a more effective method woud be a selenium bath, this may deliver +1N equivalent contrast boost, but of course it won't recover shadow detail that's not recorded.

Vaughn
19-Jun-2019, 07:53
And like pyro developing, selenium toning will not help/save an underdeveloped and/or underexposed negative. One has to have some silver on the neg to work with.

Doremus Scudder
19-Jun-2019, 11:53
Perhaps a more effective method woud be a selenium bath, this may deliver +1N equivalent contrast boost, but of course it won't recover shadow detail that's not recorded.


And like pyro developing, selenium toning will not help/save an underdeveloped and/or underexposed negative. One has to have some silver on the neg to work with.

Pere,

Selenium intensification on negatives developed in PMK (and possibly Pyrocat as well) neatly removes the image stain, making the net gain in contrast just about zero. It does work well on negatives developed in non-staining developers, though, giving just about an N+1 increase in contrast. It doesn't help the shadows any, however, as you and Vaughn point out.

For intensifying PMK negatives, I bleach and redevelop in PMK, which gives an additional layer of stain and results in more contrast. Interestingly, this does seem to help shadow detail a bit. I'm not sure why, but there is a small, but noticeable increase. I've found bleach-redevelop to be a good tool for the occasional weak PMK negative.

Best,

Doremus

Pere Casals
19-Jun-2019, 12:02
Pere,

Selenium intensification on negatives developed in PMK (and possibly Pyrocat as well) neatly removes the image stain, making the net gain in contrast just about zero. It does work well on negatives developed in non-staining developers, though, giving just about an N+1 increase in contrast. It doesn't help the shadows any, however, as you and Vaughn point out.

For intensifying PMK negatives, I bleach and redevelop in PMK, which gives an additional layer of stain and results in more contrast. Interestingly, this does seem to help shadow detail a bit. I'm not sure why, but there is a small, but noticeable increase. I've found bleach-redevelop to be a good tool for the occasional weak PMK negative.

Best,

Doremus

Thanks, I'll keep that information.

Drew Wiley
21-Jun-2019, 11:03
I once concocted a pyro tweak which left only the stain itself, and no visible silver image at all, yet involved no bleach step. I have no idea why it worked, and it worked only with HP5. But once HP5 was "improved" to its current "plus" version, it didn't work anymore. A mystery. Those experimental 8x10 negatives looked totally blank to the naked eye. You could detect the image only through a deep blue filter. But they printed magnificently with an especially full range of tonality on a very hard grade of paper, or onto certain VC papers exposed through a deep blue filter. I forgot where I put my formula notes, having misplaced them ever since no other film proved amenable. But it was an interesting brief episode. I rarely selenium enhance pyro negs. It has only a minor effect anyway; and in my case, selenium intensification never reduced the pyro stain a bit. So my method of using it must differ from Doremus. I take that route only when I want to differentiate contrast locally, to just one dippable section of a neg and not the rest, kinda like AA did with his Moonrise neg.