PMK Pyro as a paper developer

[darinwc]

This is not really a question just a record of what I did.

Over the weekend I was determined to get back into my darkroom and make some prints. Saturday night I put my enlarger back together and cleaned my tables. I pulled out my developing equipment, but was unable to find any of the Ilford print developer I usually use. That would have put me out of commission for another week. But as I said, I was determined.

I decided to try my usual film developer as a print developer. PMK Pyro mixed at 1:2:100. After some (failed) experimentation, I decided to increase the concentrations to 4:8:100. I finally found that an exposure of 10-15 seconds at f5.6 and a development time of 4 minutes made for acceptable prints.

I'm pretty lousy in the darkroom, but I was very impressed with the level of detail in the prints. Later today I will try to post some scans of the prints themselves.

 

[mjs]

Sounds fair: a number of years ago I was given some chemistry and included among it was a box or two of Photographer's Formulary Amidol film developer. I've never used it and don't know much about it, but if they can use a paper developer for film I see no reason why you can't use a film developer for paper!

Mike

 

[Ian Grant]

PMK would probably work well as a redeveloper, bleach in a Ferricyanide/Bromide bleach then redevelop. I have used Pyrocat HD this way but after a Bichromate/Hydrochloric acid bleach and the tones are wonderful.

Ian