Anyone have any experience with pyro developers?

[Xia_Ke]

HI Paul, still haven't quite made up my mind if I'll go the pyro route or not. I've been very happy with HC110. The K110, while giving the same results, has a few draw backs compared to HC110 so I don't think I would buy it again. I still have another bottle of it but, will probably just keep it as a backup. I dunno, just thought it time to try something different and pyro developers have me intrigued.

[photophorous]

What characteristics of pyro are you interested in? I don't know much about it, but I think I remember it is supposed to be high accutance and it has a kind of compensating effect in the highlights. Is that right?

In the past I considered trying DiXactol for the compensating effects. I decided on Diafine instead, because it has ridiculously long shelf life and is less toxic. But unfortunately the grain produced by Diafine doesn't play well with my Coolscan, so I've only used it a few times. The Coolscan is known to exaggerate B&W grain, and I find this especially true when using high accutance developers. It probably matters a lot less with wet printing, especially medium format.

Paul

[Xia_Ke]

...it has a kind of compensating effect in the highlights. Is that right?

That's my understanding of it and the reason why I want to give it a shot. Unfortunately the main component, Pyrogallol, is rather toxic but, I want to start breaking into some alt processes too, like cyanotypes. So I figure it will be good practice for dealing with harsher chemicals...LOL

[photophorous]

That's my understanding of it and the reason why I want to give it a shot. Unfortunately the main component, Pyrogallol, is rather toxic but, I want to start breaking into some alt processes too, like cyanotypes. So I figure it will be good practice for dealing with harsher chemicals...LOL

I just looked up "cyanotype" because I couldn't remember what it was. Turns out I've done that, but we called it a blueprint. High school drafting class. By the time I got to college it was all computers. Yeah...that's a little different than what you're talking about.

Have you read about DiXactol? That one is supposed to have particularly good compensating effects because it is a staining pyro and a two part developer. But, I don't know what the downsides are.

I'm sure the toxicity issue can be kept under control as long as you're careful.