Just inherited some PMK pyro

hi,

i bought a darkroom kit a while ago for printing and with it i got a laod of chemicals. i have been using rodinal exclusively for the last few years but now i have microphen, perceptol,ID-11 and some PMK Pyro. to be honest im not up to speed with any of these developers but the pyro really interests me. the shots i have seen posted online look great (not sure how much of that is the pyro compared to the print). can anyone tell me how ebst to use it and how long the shelf life is? i have 2 batches that come in powder a and powder b.

thanks

First thing about powder is be real careful while mixing it, pyro is a toxic chemical, second if you do mix it use distilled water, pyro usually lasts a very long time even in liquid form. The times for pmk are available at digital trugh website. Usually it is recomended using non alkaline fixer, and water instead of the stop bath in order to maximize the stain, you also might want to put film back in the used developer after you fix it, again to improve the stain.

My experience with staining developers, and I've used a lot of them, is that for the most part they contain way too much stain. Even if there's no fog stain a developer like PMK can have unmanageable contrast from all that stain. I wouldn't worry about trying to increase proportional stain at all.

I use ABC pyro with a strong acid stop and Ilford Hypam fixer. I still get what I consider to be too much stain (sometimes). Image stain seems to be a very inconsistent thing.

I find PMK negatives easy to print. If the stain is adding too much contrast, that's an indication of overdevelopment.

Pyrogallol is slightly toxic so you may want to wear gloves while processing with it.

I've been using PMK for 11 years now and it's one of my favourite developers. It works well, and the stock solutions last for years.

thanks for all the info guys. been printing a lot lately so its probably time to get shooting and mix up some pyro!