After discovering that my 1L amber glass bottles will not make pyrocat last more than a year (if they are half full) (what is up with that smell?- it used to smell like catechol - now it almost smells like ammonia) I figured it is time to migrate to the long lasting versions. But Pyrocat PC Glycol is not just a ruggedized version of pyrocat-P. I shot a couple of test rolls in 120 TRI-X of gray cards at 12 stop ranges and discovered that the pc-glycol version is at least one stop denser than my current pcat-p. At the times I had settled on - 9.5 minutes at 70F for 1:1:100 - My contrast was a bit down - the CI was below .4 for pc glycol and below .3 for pcat-p. I think the loss in development on the pcat-p is that it is aging (I believe when it was fresh I got a .41 CI) Anyway - I still need to test further before I know my "rifle" is sighted in - I think that the pc-glycol version yields much closer to box film speed because of the ascorbic acid. I was wondering if anyone else had seen the same. None the less, pyrocat-p is capable of taming the worst mid day contrasts and still put tone in the sky and under rocks - For lower contrast I find that it makes 5 stops of contrast really shine for stand processing (CI > .7) but I think for alt process printing, it has lost its punch.
