Pyro permanence and UV

[Jay DeFehr]

I have a question for UV printers using stained negs. Have you noticed any degradation of the stain with repeated UV exposure, or long term exposure to air? The context for my question is that last night I used 510-Pyro as a paper developer, and posted my observations and impressions at pnet, where another poster brought up the issue of image permanence with a staining developer. I immediately thought of the alt process community here, and promised to pose the question to you. I look forward to your thoughts on the subject.

Jay

[sanking]

I have a question for UV printers using stained negs. Have you noticed any degradation of the stain with repeated UV exposure, or long term exposure to air? The context for my question is that last night I used 510-Pyro as a paper developer, and posted my observations and impressions at pnet, where another poster brought up the issue of image permanence with a staining developer. I immediately thought of the alt process community here, and promised to pose the question to you. I look forward to your thoughts on the subject.

Jay

This has been discussed before in the alternative photography community. In brief, yes, repeated or long exposures with UV light sources will reduce the stain slightly. Given the long exposures and high intensity of the light sources used in UV printing I don't consider this to represent a major problem with permanence, and the actual impact on the negative DR is very, very small.

I am not aware of any information suggesting stain degradation with long term exposure to air.

Sandy King

[Jay DeFehr]

Thanks, Sandy.

That's what I remembered, but promised to double check. I think it would take a lot of exposure to normal conditions for a print to be exposed to similar UV levels.

Jay