Is Pyrocat HD a waist of time if you only have access to multigrade papers?

[Andy F]

Hi,

I am about to do some experiments with different film developers. I am looking forward to understanding how to use Pyrocat HD. I am trying to figure out when to use it but more importantly when not to use it. Am I right in understanding that the developer will cause highlights (ie clouds) to become muddy and that the mask it creates is similar to having a yellow filter on your enlarger while printing with VC papers. If this is true to people just use Pyrocat HD to scan into the computer.

Graded papers really don't even exist anymore so what am I missing. Do people mostly use it to lower the contrast on high contrast scenes and get detailed images on bright contrasty days. Can people let me know how they shoot with Pyrocat HD because I would like to know how to use it properly.

-Andrew

[gypsydog]

"Graded papers really don't even exist anymore" This statement is false!

[Michael R]

Andrew,

The short version is Pyrocat HD and most general purpose developers will work fine for whatever you need to do whether printing on VC papers, graded papers or scanning or whatever else. That old lower highlight contrast VC papers thing about staining developers is...(don't worry about it). Whichever developer you decide to use, you can use it for pretty much everything unless it is either highly specialized or poorly formulated nonsense.

Michael

[Andy F]

"Graded papers really don't even exist anymore" This statement is false!

Maybe I am wrong and I should not be so dismissive of the papers that are currently out there. I prefer to use fiber papers that are matte and not glossy with a cool tone. What would you suggest. I wonder what people use. Anything affordable?

[Michael R]

There aren't many graded papers for enlarging. Fomabrom is one. My suggestion would be to use VC papers anyway. They give you so much more control.

The only paper I know of that is cool in image colour right out of the box is Ilford Cooltone - however as far as I know it is only available in glossy unless you get the RC version which can be had in "pearl" finish which I always found ugly. Similar would be Kentmere - again RC and not really matte.

If you are set on matte FB and cool image tones I think your best bet is to add a cooling agent (Moersch makes one) to the print developer. Then you can use pretty much any FB paper so you'll have more VC matte choices. Foma, Ilford Classic, Ilford Warmtone.


Maybe I am wrong and I should not be so dismissive of the papers that are currently out there. I prefer to use fiber papers that are matte and not glossy with a cool tone. What would you suggest. I wonder what people use. Anything affordable?

[Corran]

I use Pyrocat HD for most of my film and make prints on VC papers or sometimes old Graded papers that I still have/find. There's absolutely no issues, assuming the usual well-exposed and developed image. Go make images/prints and be happy, and dial in whatever you need to do to make images you envision. You might not like Pyrocat (I didn't, for a long time, due to some early experiences) but it's certainly not a developer you "can't" use with standard / modern VC papers.

[Alan9940]

Andrew,

In general, staining formulas based on catechol pyrogallol, like Pyrocat HD, produce a brown(ish) stain vs the yellow/green stain of, say, PMK. All the formulas I've ever worked worked--and I've used quite a few--fall somewhere within this range of stain color. ABC Pyro, for example, in my experience produces such a subtle stain that you probably wouldn't know it has a stain, unless compared to a "normal" developed negative.

Anyway, popular theory has it that a yellow/green stained negative will tend to suppress highlights while the highlights remain unaffected by a brown stained negative. Personally, and after having printed many negatives on VC papers from both types of negatives I've never noticed an issue. Pyrocat HD and PMK are probably the most popular formulas around and each have an ardent fan base. You couldn't go wrong with either, IMO. But, if you decide on a staining formula make sure you follow good safety precautions!

[Oren Grad]

I am looking forward to understanding how to use Pyrocat HD. I am trying to figure out when to use it but more importantly when not to use it. Am I right in understanding that the developer will cause highlights (ie clouds) to become muddy and that the mask it creates is similar to having a yellow filter on your enlarger while printing with VC papers. If this is true to people just use Pyrocat HD to scan into the computer.

Graded papers really don't even exist anymore so what am I missing. Do people mostly use it to lower the contrast on high contrast scenes and get detailed images on bright contrasty days. Can people let me know how they shoot with Pyrocat HD because I would like to know how to use it properly.

Carl Weese has taken advantage of the staining properties of pyro developers to produce "switch-hitting" negatives that have sufficient density to make good prints in Pt/Pd but also work well with variable-contrast silver papers. He had an article on this in the old Photo Techniques magazine, I believe in the Nov/Dec 1999 issue.

[Larry Gebhardt]

The stain is roughly proportional to the density of the developed silver in the film. The stain is brown and probably blocks blue and green light slightly differently, which would affect contrast on VC papers. But since the stain is proportional to image density once you figure out your development times for a contrast range that will have taken the stain into account. It's likely that a graded paper and a VC paper will have different effective grades for a particular negative, but I haven't tested it. It's also possible your graded filters may not have exactly the same contrast effect as if you were using a non stained negative. Having some density made up of stain and not silver results in slightly less grainy images, which is nice for smaller formats.

[nolindan]

The effect of pyro stain on VC paper contrast seems to be nil. For an interminable argument on the point see: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/the-effect-of-pyro-stain-on-vc-paper-contrast.73866/

However, the ratio of pyro stain to silver density does seem to vary with silver density. This can affect effective paper contrast but the effect will be there for all grades of VC filtration/paper and all for graded papers.

--

BTW, the "waist of time" did coincide with the development of photography - ~1850-1915; a possible area of future study "Photography and corsets, who influenced who."

[Doremus Scudder]

Think about this for a minute:

If you needed to print with VC paper at the highest-contrast filtration (i.e., all the magenta you can get, or all the blue you can get) and then put a yellow filter over the lens, what would be the outcome?

Well, since you're using only magenta or blue light, which has very little, if any, yellow component (yellow being green-red and the wavelengths in between), and since yellow effectively blocks blue light (remember, the color separation "minus-blue" filter is the yellow Wratten #12), then you'd end up with almost no actinic light being transmitted to the paper, since the yellow filter is blocking the blue light that the paper is sensitive to and the magenta (or blue) light source has no green component to start with. The red that gets transmitted has no effect on the paper.

So, if the stain from catechol or pyrogallol (they are two different chemicals) blocked a lot of blue light and, since stain is proportional to density in a negative developed in staining developers, then by dialing up the filtration to a higher contrast setting with a stained negative, the stain would work as a proportional neutral-density filter, having its greatest effect when the filtration was mostly, or all, blue light and where the stain was densest, i.e., in the most dense areas of the negative.

This would actually increase contrast when the filtration was approaching the maximum contrast setting, not vice-versa. Any decreases in contrast in denser areas of the negative due to the staining would occur at low-contrast filtration settings.

If the stain, indeed, has a blue-light-blocking effect, it would simply skew the contrast settings a bit from those for non-stained negatives, but actually have more effect one way or the other as the extremes of filtration were approached.

Best,

Doremus

[Michael Wellman]

You have had some great replies as to why it is valid to use Pyrocat HD with MG papers. Instead I wold recommend you check out Steve Sherman's website. He is one of the best printers out there today and has been using Pyrocat HD for 20+ years and MG papers. His images should ease your concerns about the developer. He also has some videos on YouTube. https://www.powerofprocesstips.com

[Andy F]

Hi Doremus,

Your response seems so concise my guess it must be absolutely correct. Sadly I might not be smart enough to understand it. Help a friend out here. As a bottom line what effect will the stain from Pyrocat HD have on VC papers. Raise the contrast, lower the contrast or nothing and why? Also, do you think it makes sense to use Pyrocat HD with VC papers.

Also, your photographs are AMAZING!

Thanks for the help.

-Andrew

[Mark J]

Just to put this in persepctive, I've used PMK for years with MG paper and this is supposed to be worse than Pyrocat in regard to highlight contrast.
I did my first test of PMK in 1999, on two rolls of FP4+ in 6x9 Horseman backs on the same subjects. The 'control' was Dev. in Perceptol 1+3.
The subjects that day were very nice, flooded fields with impressive shower clouds in the background.
As soon as I looked at the highlight rendition on 20 x 16 RC comparison prints, it was obvious that the Pyro was better, more realistic, and the grain in the upper midtones and highlights was smoother.
I never went back to Perceptol.

[Drew Wiley]

Doremus, no yellow filter is even remotely dense enough to constitute a color separation filter. What would comprise that would be a 58 or 61 deep green. Yellow or yellow-orange is comparatively weak, though would have a lesser effect on reducing MG contrast. What the various kinds of pyro stain do in that respect is rather subtle, and in my experience doesn't match the usual mantras I read. In one way or another, it helps highlight rendition in all modes, whether higher contrast filtration or lower,
and much like even with former graded papers. But everything gets accentuated at higher contrast, of course.

But true split printing using hard blue versus green filters, or actual additive RGB colorheads offer a little more wiggle room for contrast experimentation than ordinary amber versus magenta MG printing filter sets. But a modern YMC colorhead with clean filters is nearly as good. And my Aristo VC 54 cold light has blue-green output which can be selectively filtered. So actual blue is a component in numerous situations, as well as actual green.

As far as Pyrocat vs Pyrogallol formulas like PMK, I prefer the yellowish-green stain of PMK over the brownish stain Pyrocat, but don't find a whole lotta difference when it comes to highlight repro on VC papers.

[Michael Wellman]

Andy take a look at these videos. This should help

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRlq8CwVvws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8r_DDkd--g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9x39bKOkhI&list=PLDbbjycnqXGeVeiSOC00J5t87KqXF-A0i&index=2

[tundra]

Nope. Here is a 9x12cm Fomapan 100 negative printed on Fomabrom Variant 111 VC. Scan of print:

https://www.tundraware.com/Photography/MyPhotographs/Silver/media/large/20230525-1-14-Firmly_Planted.jpg

[Doremus Scudder]

Hi Doremus,

Your response seems so concise my guess it must be absolutely correct. Sadly I might not be smart enough to understand it. Help a friend out here. As a bottom line what effect will the stain from Pyrocat HD have on VC papers. Raise the contrast, lower the contrast or nothing and why? Also, do you think it makes sense to use Pyrocat HD with VC papers.

Also, your photographs are AMAZING!

Thanks for the help.

-Andrew

Andy,

I'll just repeat the last sentence from my first post: If the stain, indeed, has a blue-light-blocking effect, it would simply skew the contrast settings a bit from those for non-stained negatives, but actually have more effect one way or the other as the extremes of filtration were approached.

You see, a yellow stain would add together with other yellow filtration on the low-contrast end, but subtract blue from the magenta/blue light on the high contrast end. There could be a slight proportional shift in tonal values as filtration nears the extremes, but as Drew mentions, it is very slight and may simply be a change in linearity of the papers response to increasing/decreasing filtration rather than a real change.

Hope that answers your question :)

Doremus

[Doremus Scudder]

Doremus, no yellow filter is even remotely dense enough to constitute a color separation filter. What would comprise that would be a 58 or 61 deep green. Yellow or yellow-orange is comparatively weak, though would have a lesser effect on reducing MG contrast. What the various kinds of pyro stain do in that respect is rather subtle, and in my experience doesn't match the usual mantras I read. In one way or another, it helps highlight rendition in all modes, whether higher contrast filtration or lower,
and much like even with former graded papers. But everything gets accentuated at higher contrast, of course.

But true split printing using hard blue versus green filters, or actual additive RGB colorheads offer a little more wiggle room for contrast experimentation than ordinary amber versus magenta MG printing filter sets. But a modern YMC colorhead with clean filters is nearly as good. And my Aristo VC 54 cold light has blue-green output which can be selectively filtered. So actual blue is a component in numerous situations, as well as actual green.

As far as Pyrocat vs Pyrogallol formulas like PMK, I prefer the yellowish-green stain of PMK over the brownish stain Pyrocat, but don't find a whole lotta difference when it comes to highlight repro on VC papers.

Drew,

I possibly used the wrong terminology with "color separation filter" with the Wratten #12 yellow filter. However it is designated by Kodak as the "minus blue" filter and forms a trio together with #32, "minus green" and #44A "minus red." These are complementary to the color-separation trio, #47B blue, #58 green and #25 red and used as such for technical purposes, at least according to the Kodak Photographic Filters Handbook I have. The combination of #12 and #47B transmits no visible light.

Indeed, the #12 transmits no wavelengths shorter than about 500nm. Couple that with an Ilford #5 contrast filter that basically transmits no wavelengths longer than about 500nm and you have effective neutral density.

The whole point being: If PMK or Pyrocat stain acts as a yellow filter and attenuates blue light, then coupling that with a filtration that has a large, or even entire, blue component would result in some neutral density, the blue being attenuated to whatever proportional extent by the blue-blocking stain. If there were little or no green light present in the mix, this would result in more contrast in direct proportion to the density of the stain. The opposite would occur with mid and lower-contrast filtration with a larger green component, since whatever blue component was still there would be attenuated somewhat resulting in a final mix that was more green-heavy.

That's all predicated on the stain blocking a significant enough amount of blue light to make a difference. That is the open question at this point.

Still, the above would predict that contrast settings for stained negatives would have to be marginally to moderately higher than corresponding fixed paper grades up until the point when the green component of the exposure light becomes small enough to not be playing a large role in the paper exposure. Above that point, the ND effect would kick in rather quickly, with small changes in filtration making a rather large jump in contrast. This agrees with my personal experience with pyro stained negatives on both graded and VC papers.

Best,

Doremus

[Drew Wiley]

I'll often just lay the neg atop my lightbox (a highly corrected 5000K one), and look at it thru a med blue filter. A dark blue 47 or 47B would be better technically, but would also be too dim for such a purpose. But this at least gives an idea. More so, sheer experience tells me what I need to do. And often a med blue filter is just as effective as a deep blue one when it comes to variations of split printing on VC papers.

Tricolor filters have more limited technical definitions. Wider bandpass sets, such as 25 red/58 green / 47 blue might have a potential or ideal application different than a narrower set like 29 red / 61 green / 47B blue. Any yellow filter would factor in graphics only in terms of an optional K (black) printer. And yes, those old Wratten filter handbooks are a great resource, but many of the applications have either changed or no more even exist. I've done careful comparison tests between all my different enlarging light source - blue-green cold light, true RGB additive, standard YMC subtractive, plus various sets of matched color sep filters below the lens, and figured out that I can achieve nearly identical results on VC papers with any of those methods. Of course, some ways are more convenient than others.

I've also made prints from pyro stain only (no visible silver image on the neg) using hard 47B selective filtration. But I wouldn't call the look odd - certainly nice, but not visibly different than any normally developed pyro neg print. And when it comes to the distinction between Pyrocat HD and PMK pyrogallol, its more visible in the grain structure itself, magnified, than any difference in highlight repro or midtone microtonality.

The effect of "changes in filtration" is a little more difficult for me to explain, since additive and subtractive colorheads behave differently in terms of incrementalism. And I have no way of comparing that to old-fashioned sheet "Grade-this/ grade that" VC filters, which I never have used, nor ever plan to.

[PRJ]

After using PMK for years, then switching to Pyrocat for 15 years I switched back to PMK a few years ago. After doing a deep dive I found the highlights were nicer with PMK. I only print on VC papers. I still remember the first roll of film I developed with Pyrocat. When I saw the clouds I thought they looked a bit odd. I probably should have trusted my instincts back then. Pyrocat isn't bad. I think PMK is better though for clouds and higher tones on VC paper.

[Mark J]

I'm hoping to try either WD2D+ or WD2H in the nest few months. i have been corresponding with John Wimberley a little about this subject. The WD2D+ was intended to improve the highlight separation with VC papers, compared to WD2D.

[tundra]

I would love to go back to PMK but I do a lot of long, low dilution development and PMK oxidation rate cannot handle that.