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David de Gruyl
2-Aug-2010, 06:41
So, I print digital negatives with a green cast, and wondered whether a staining developer might be a better choice for alternative processing. And which one.

Background: the only reason I shoot 8x10 negatives is to contact print the results using iron-silver or Pt/Pd processes.

I get fine results enlarging 35mm-4x5 negatives for straight silver, and have no desire to change my process. I have found that processing 8x10 is significantly different because of the different developing techniques required (in my case: dip and dunk tanks or rotary tubes, vs daylight tanks for everything else.

I thought to myself: if I am going to change HOW I develop, I might as well change what I develop with. So, which to choose?

D. Bryant
2-Aug-2010, 08:24
[QUOTE]So, I print digital negatives with a green cast, and wondered whether a staining developer might be a better choice for alternative processing. And which one. ... So, which to choose?

That's just anecdotal. That is working with a green colored negative. There are a lot of variables at play when making colorized digi negs and a color that may work well for one printer and/or process may not work at all for another. The recent news about the HP Z3100 producing green digi negs for platinum printing just made me smile. A lot of people erroneously inferred that green is always good for alt printing.

If you want to make film negatives that swing both ways (silver and alt), pyro stained negatives are the way to go. Too much stain though isn't a good thing for alternative processes. Stain becomes too anti-actinic. For that reason I don't recommend pyro developers such as PMK or ABC pyro.

Sandy Kings PyroCat-HD developer ceratainly works well in this regard. Jay de Fehr's pyro 510 may work as well but I've never tested it so I don't know to what extent it blocks actinic light nor if it produces linear UV curves.

For rotary processing Rolo-Polo developer works very well which is a variation of PMK.
But I also use Pyro-Cat with a JOBO processor and BTZS tubes. 510 can be rotarty processed as well.

Bob Herbst has an interesting article on his webpage about creating green/brown pyro colored digi negs (co-authored by Keith Schreiber who actually derived the method originally). You may wish to look on his website for details.

http://www.bobherbst.com/

Don Bryant

Sinar-Man
2-Aug-2010, 08:46
For rotary processing Rolo-Polo developer works very well which is a variation of PMK.

Don BryantIs that a typo, or a variant of Rollo-Pyro Don?

David de Gruyl
2-Aug-2010, 08:47
Thanks for the information.

I agree, the color happens to be the first one that I tried (for digital negative) and it works quite well. Working by the "if it ain't broke" I am not fixing it. I was just surprised how well it worked compared to black ink.

As for which pyro to choose, if any, my reasoning is this: I have issues with the standard developer producing muddy prints when used as is. My options are to either attempt to change the contrast of the paper (difficult at best) or fix my negative processing. Part of that can be helped by overdeveloping (which also increases contrast). This I did accidentally in the latest round. The resulting negative would work great, if it did not take a 10 hour exposure on Argyrotype to get there. Granted it was a bad day for sun, but that is still a remarkably long time. My digital negatives took about 1 hour under similar conditions.

That was yesterday.

So, it looks like a recommendation to give PyroCat-HD a try. How is the expense in a per gallon basis? I have 1 gallon tanks, and this stuff oxidizes rapidly...

Vaughn
2-Aug-2010, 08:56
I use FP4+ and Ilford Universal PQ developer as a good combo for pt/pd printing (w/o using contrast agents for the pt/pd). Time and temp (and working strength) varies with the contrast range of the scene.

Shorter exposure times than pyro developers (no stain).

Vaughn

sanking
2-Aug-2010, 09:43
I use FP4+ and Ilford Universal PQ developer as a good combo for pt/pd printing (w/o using contrast agents for the pt/pd). Time and temp (and working strength) varies with the contrast range of the scene.

Shorter exposure times than pyro developers (no stain).

Vaughn

Vaughn is only partially right.

In every alt process I know exposure time is determined by shadow density. Image stain is proportional to silver density so there is very little of it in the shadows. Highlight density, where there is a lot of image stain, is determined by contrast control with the process.

There is another kind of stain, called general stain or Base+Fog stain, that you get with some pyro staining developers. This kind of stain, which is not related to the silver density, does indeed cause longer exposure times. In practice, assuming shorter exposure times are desired, one should avoid the use of pyro developers that cause a lot of general or B+F stain.

Bottom line is that exposure times are about the same, or only slightly longer, with pyro staining developers that give only image stain. But they can be much longer with developers that give a lot of general or B+F stain.

Sandy King

D. Bryant
2-Aug-2010, 09:49
Is that a typo, or a variant of Rollo-Pyro Don?

Yep, good catch.

Don

D. Bryant
2-Aug-2010, 09:59
This I did accidentally in the latest round. The resulting negative would work great, if it did not take a 10 hour exposure on Argyrotype to get there.


Granted it was a bad day for sun,

You need to build or procure a UV light source to eliminate the variable effects encountered when printing with the sun. Unless you live in a location that has very consistent UV content the year round calibrating for digital negs has to be a nightmare.


My digital negatives took about 1 hour under similar conditions.

That's awful. You know you can put together a very effective UV BL exposure unit pretty easily and relatively inexpensively. Buy el cheapo fluorescent fixtures with bi-pin sockets - probably T12s and then replace the tubes with UVBL. I would go for the Phillips 40W 350nm 4 foot tubes. You would have to upgrade the ballast as well, but even so you could get setup pretty inexpensively. These tubes will make very fast printers. Properly exposed and developed film will print in minutes - not hours.


How is the expense in a per gallon basis?

Very cheap. Try stand development in Uni-Color drums.

And thanks to Vaughn and Sandy's lucid posts.

Don

Vaughn
2-Aug-2010, 10:37
Vaughn is only partially right.
Sandy King

Yes, I can be quite PR...:D !

My experience with pyro developers is limited to just a couple of them, the last being Rollo Pyro in an Expert Drum. Lots of staining of the base (but that might have been due to the film I was using at the time -- Bergger 200...dang stuff would stain on both sides!) But it has been a long while ago. "One of these days" I will have to experiment with the newer formulas.

But I like the simplicity of the Universal PQ, and its relatively less toxicity, as well as the results. I am use to the stuff. I like a little more contrast in my negs for carbon printing compared to platinum printing, so pyro might work better for me in lower contrast scenes.

Vaughn

Jay DeFehr
2-Aug-2010, 12:40
A lot of good advice above! Developing 1 gallon batches one-shot can be relatively expensive, depending on how many sheets are developed in a batch. There is at least one pyro developer designed to be used in a replenished system- it's a pyro/triethanolamine developer, and I think it's available from Photographers Formulary. I've never used it, but it might be a potential option for you. If you want to use a one-shot developer, I recommend Hypercat for a few reasons; it's the most economical developer I know of ( a one gallon batch of working solution costs only about 25-35 cents, depending on dilution), the stock solutions have very long shelf lives, and require only four chemicals in total, for both the A and B solutions (catechol, ascorbic acid, and propylene glycol for the A solution, and sodium or potassium carbonate for the B solution). Hypercat is very clean working, producing almost no general stain, and very active, for short development times, even for high contrast negatives suitable for alt processes. Hypercat produces full film speed with development to normal contrast, and better with extended development for high contrast alt negs. Finally, and most importantly, Hypercat makes beautiful negatives, with excellent gradation and very high definition. Hypercat is better suited to intermittent agitation than to rotary processing, as it loses film speed with continuous agitation. This might, or might not be critical, depending on your working methods, but more film speed is generally better than less, for most photographers.

David de Gruyl
2-Aug-2010, 15:31
First, and I don't know if this is a general problem, argyrotypes are taking at least twice and sometimes three times the exposure of van dykes. Either way, I am not too worried for normal density negatives. Typical times are on the order of 10-40 minutes under bright sun. Let's say 15 minutes is normal for van dykes.

Second, I see the point of a UV light source. Working on it. It does not, however, fix the issue of muddy prints from actual negatives.

Now, back to getting simultaneous density range and total density. I have "well developed negatives" for normal silver paper that print very muddy. To avoid that, I want to increase the contrast of the negative, right? My thoughts are that selective staining developers is the way to go on that. I am open to more conventional approaches.

As for the 1 gallon tanks: at 1+1+100, that is 38ml per A and B parts (each). I am not sure how much that is in real life, but it does not seem like a lot of chemicals to me. (actually, I am sure how much that is... but 1 1/3 fl oz is smaller than a normal shot glass). Processing 6 8x10 negatives in that seems reasonable. On the other hand, I suppose that I could use the rotary tubes and use 8oz (call it 250ml) of liquid per negative.

I am printing for highlight detail, and my digital negatives give me saturated darks when the highlight come in. Unlike some of my film negatives. I know that a large part of this problem is not being very familiar with the process of making a good negative using the tools at hand. As I said, my experience in 4x5 and smaller is with daylight tank processing.

I am somewhat used to processing 8-12 negatives / gallon using HC-110 (b), which is 4 oz of syrup / gallon of mixed soup. Not happy with the negatives, but the economy sort of works if they come out well. So far, I have been monumentally disappointed with HC-110. Maybe that is me. I usually do fine with Rodinal, in tubes, semi-stand developing. That uses about 10 ml / negative. The only problem is the time consideration. I only really can do two sheets at once.

How much liquid do you use in a tray? That is, of course, the remaining option.

sanking
2-Aug-2010, 15:46
Now, back to getting simultaneous density range and total density. I have "well developed negatives" for normal silver paper that print very muddy. To avoid that, I want to increase the contrast of the negative, right? My thoughts are that selective staining developers is the way to go on that. I am open to more conventional approaches.



You are correct. You need a very high contrast negative to print with vandyke/argyrotype, and there is absolutely no effective way to change the contrast requirements of these processes so you have to change the negative. A negative that prints well on regular silver paper will print "muddy" with low contrast with vandyke/argyrotype. The optimum DR for printing with these iron sensitive processes is about log 2.5, about twice the log range of a good silver negative. To get that much contrast will require that you double your normal silver development time. In other words, if 10 minutes works for silver develop 20 minutes for vandyke/argyrotype, other things equal.

You will also need a film that will develop this much contrast. Some films just increase overall density as you increase development time, but what you need is to increase the density range, not overall density.

Sandy King

Vaughn
2-Aug-2010, 16:22
If you have some well-exposed/developed camera negs that do not have the contrast range you want -- but still want to print them, one option is bleaching and toning to increase the contrast.

A slight bleaching to reduce the silver density in the shadows is possible without significantly reducing the highlights. One can let the very small shadow areas go clear, keeping detail in the larger shadow areas.

If the highlights still need a bit more density, follow the bleaching (after a good wash) with selenium toning. I have "saved" some negs for carbon printing this way.

Another thing one can do is to look for images that already have a large amount of contrast in them. This is one of the reasons I took up carbon printing orginally -- to be able to photograph in light I basically had to ignore when I was silver printing. Scenes with 7 to 10 stops of light difference are easy to expose and develop for high contrast negatives (one 13+ stop scene I came across I developed "normally").

One can also use the resiprocity failure of the film to boost contrast.

As Sandy mentioned, film type has a big part in it, too. I use to get great contrast control with Kodak Copy film, may it RIP. I tried some of Ilford's Copy film with success, also. HP5+ did not expand well for me at all (though I would like to try some in D-19 someday), but its cousin, FP4+ seems to do well.

Brian Stein
3-Aug-2010, 04:00
One can also use the resiprocity failure of the film to boost contrast.



Could you please explain this further?

Vaughn
3-Aug-2010, 08:53
Could you please explain this further?

Sure...with long exposures, the exposure rate for the shadows slows down relative to the mid-tones and highlights. There is very little energy (via light) hitting the silver in the shadow areas to cause the chemical change required to be exposed. The way I heard it (from Sexton), it takes 4 photons to activate a silver molecule, or something like that. But at the same time, the highlight areas are getting hundreds of times the amount of light and are exposing normally.

So basically, in long exposures, the exposure in the shadows lag behind the highlight. Thus, the amount of silver affected in the shadows at 2 seconds at f64 will be less than if you exposed them at 1/15 sec at f/8. But the highlights will be affected the same at both settings. This is why it is called reciprocity failure...2 sec at f64 should be the same exposure as 1/15 at f8, but the reciprocal relationship of the two exposures breaks down due to the long exposure.

Normally to adjust for this, one gives the neg extra exposure to get sufficient exposure in the shadows and then reduces the development to hold back the highlights (or one can use a film like Acros or TMax which have a lower reciprocity failure rate). So to use this to increase contrast, one gives the film enough extra exposure to bring up the shadows and then develops normally or with extra development to send the highlights off and running.

Vaughn

Sorry if I got a little basic on you -- I fell into my teacher-mode. :eek: