Developer for Alt Process Printing

[David de Gruyl]

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]

[QUOTE=David de Gruyl;614133]

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]

For rotary processing Rolo-Polo developer works very well which is a variation of PMK.

Don Bryant

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

[David de Gruyl]

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]

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]

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]

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

Yep, good catch.

Don

[D. Bryant]

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]

Vaughn is only partially right.
Sandy King

Yes, I can be quite PR... !

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]

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.