If you have never tried pyro I think it would be worth your while to give it
a whirl just to see the difference for yourself. It is different enough from
conventional developers that seeing the result for yourself and printing a
pyro negative using any alt-process should be a valuable learning experience
whether or not it turns out to suit your needs. Same goes for amidol as
recommended by Terry K. (I haven't tried it yet but will one of these days).
Judy, the prints I sent you a few months back were from a pyro developed
negative. To look at the negative on a light table it would appear to be a
fairly normal looking negative for conventional silver printing except for
the stain. However printing time for palladium is a little more than twice my
"normal" time with negs developed in D-23 for an ES of 1.6. I don't consider
longer exposure times to be much of a problem and I use D-23 in it's A/B form
usually so the extra step of staining with pyro is really no extra trouble.
But really if we were concerned so much with avoiding the extra trouble we
wouldn't be working in alternative photographic processes, would we? {;-}
I've been out of the email loop for a little while so it's good to be back.
There look to be some very interesting and provocative discussions going on.
Cheers to all,
Keith