Pyrocat HD - developing dual use negatives

[maxmaestro]

I apologize if this question has been asked and answered, but a quick search didn't turn up anything (the pyrocat results extend for pages). In Sandy King's article at unblinkingeye, he mentions that one of pyrocat's advantages is that its stain color can result in negatives useful both for silver VC paper, AZO and some alternative processes. The recommended development times, however, vary wildly depending on the intended end process.

Assuming I wanted to maximize my chances of getting a negative that could be used with Oriental VC paper, as well as Azo (most likely) and Kallitypes (somewhat likely), what CI should I develop for - the Silver CI, the Alt CI, or some figure in the middle?

Thanks

 

[gainer]

Offhand I woud say that the best strategy would be to favor the AZO as it is easier to reduce the contrast on VC paper than to print a low contrast negative on AZO. I hope you don't have to take my word for it. I use mostly VC paper and have not used AZO. The stained negative developed to suit AZO should give you no great problem on VC.

 

[Donald Miller]

Depending on what characteristics the new Azo replacement paper will exhibit, I would tend to develop to a density range that will fit grade three Azo . In the most recent incarnation of Azo that was a DR of about 1.35. That same density range will allow you to print on a Grade one and one half or two VC paper (depending on the enlarger light source).

I don't have knowledge of the other process and will let someone else address that.

 

[sanking]

I apologize if this question has been asked and answered, but a quick search didn't turn up anything (the pyrocat results extend for pages). In Sandy King's article at unblinkingeye, he mentions that one of pyrocat's advantages is that its stain color can result in negatives useful both for silver VC paper, AZO and some alternative processes. The recommended development times, however, vary wildly depending on the intended end process.

Assuming I wanted to maximize my chances of getting a negative that could be used with Oriental VC paper, as well as Azo (most likely) and Kallitypes (somewhat likely), what CI should I develop for - the Silver CI, the Alt CI, or some figure in the middle?

Thanks

I hope when you say AZO you mean AZO 3. If you tailor your negatives to print on Oriental VC paper with a 2 filter you should also be able to print on AZO 3 and, because of the added density with UV, in kallitype or palladium.

If, however, you mean AZO 2 there is no way to make a dual purpose negative that will print well with this paper, and in kallitype or Pt./Pd. The problem is that AZO 2 requires a very high contrast negative, and if you develop the negative to the needed contrast (blue mode) it will have too much contrast in UV for kallitype and Pt./Pd.

BTW, the information in the contrst tables in the article at unbliningeye.com is based on graded silver papers. To print with the same effective contrast on VC papers you need to increase develoment times by about 25% over the times in the charts.

Sandy