Hi!
I
have been shooting 4X5, 5X7 and 8X10 Tri-X and T-Max 400, processing them in
PMK (no post-fix dev or alkaline bath) and making PT/PD prints with no
problems. You are right, for some reason they do take a bit longer to print on
Cyano. Here are some tricks.
1)
Even though Gordon says that you lose some speed with PMK I
find that, given my working condix, it ain’t necessarily so. Be careful
not to over expose.
2)
Further, if your negs look like good, dense, snappy, normally
processed (non-pyro devs) negs, you have over developed….yes, even for PD.
I have a few negs that I made when I was first using PMK and developing too
long that barely print on PD with either no or only 1 drop of restrainer. The
negs have such a large density range (I use the blue density on my
densitometer) that they are almost too contrasty for PD. Sounds like they are
candidates for Salted Paper prints or Albumen. Will advise if I ever get
around to that.
CHEERS!
BOB
From: eric nelson
[mailto:emanphoto@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009
2:01 PM
To: alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca
Subject: Re: pyro and alternative
processes
I tried to print some 4x5 PMK negs on Centennial POP (RIP :-( )
some time ago and they were extremely long exposures (way over an hour) and I
didn't have much luck w/8x10 PMK negs on palladium either.
I had increased development for the 4x5's to accommodate the
print process AND I had done the post process staining which
has now been shown to only add B+F density and is no longer
recommended. The 4x5 negs do look very dense.
So I had 2 factors that probably made these negs unsuitable for
"alt" and I'm sure many others back then may have taken a similar
approach thus giving it a bad name and might be what you were remembering.
Take away the post process staining and they may work just fine, but
I've not experimented with this in a long time. Also pyrocat hd
might work even better than PMK, but again that's untested in this lab anyway.
I'd be willing to try if it came up.