doughowk said:
Donald Miller posted an article on
Pyro Plus Paper Developer on the UnBlinking Eye website. I wonder if others have tried his formulae on AZO, and what were the results?
I've tried it and and am using a variation it of regularly. Here's what I have determined:
1) Agree with Tom, by itself, it does not produce the 3-D effect amidol does.
2) If you use a water bath, you need to agitate a little bit to prevent mottling, especially in sky areas. This may really be a characteristic of the current Azo. Michael Smith has reported the same problem. Just a little slosh will prevent the mottling.
3) I add 3 grams citric acid per liter to the mixture as a preservative. This seems to work well. I have kept a mixed solution for up to two weeks and it still worked.
I'm having worthy results using a split bath of Agfa Neutol WA, followed by water bath, followed by PPPD using all catechol - no pyro. Hard to discern a difference between this and amidol.
The only real reason I switched to this is because I ran out of budget money for amidol. I'd prefer amidol because its so easy to work with and produces the best results. But, this split bath combo is very very close.