Re: Xrya Film and Pyrocat

[Sandy King <sanking@clemson.edu>]

Title: Re: Xrya Film and Pyrocat

Sure. You can decrease contrast with the same development time by using a weaker dilution, say 1:1:200 in place of 1:1:100. Or, you can decrease contrast with the 1:1:100 dilution by reducing time of development.

However, I find it very difficult to believe that a development time of 8 minutes with the 1:1:100 dilution is giving negatives of too much contrast for VDB and salted paper. In my own experience it would take a dilution of 2:2:100 and a time of 15-18 minutes to get enough contrast for  VDB or salted paper, even with films like FP4+ or TMY that develop contrast quickly.

Bear in mind, for best results VDB  and salted paper need a negative DR of over log 2.7. No well in hell to get that with any pictorial film with the 1:1:100 dilution and 8 minutes of development. To be real clear, it won't happen!!!

Sandy King

At 5:55 PM -0700 8/7/07, dan jones wrote:

> I have been experimenting with xray
> film in various developers, and
>  have had some success using pyro hd (1+1+100/8 minutes/rotary
> dev). The
>  results are still a little too contrasty...is there a way to
> decrease
>  contrast with longer/shorter developing times or different
> dilutions? The
>  final destination is POP and VDB prints.