Water to prepare developer Pyrocat-HD

Philippe Berger

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Hello,
For the developper Pyrocat-HD 1: 1: 100
To add, must -there of distilled water or demineralized water ?
What should the PH of the water
Likewise for the Pre-soak, it takes alkaline water, can you tell me the pH of this alkaline water.
Can we prepare it with baking soda. It takes how much baking soda to a quart of water ? or other prepare

Thank
 

wildbill

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Many of us use distilled water. You can you tap water but it's quality may not be as consistent. I don't know of anyone using anything other than water for a pre-soak.
 

Rick A

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I used to use P'cat-HD and never had any issues presoaking with water straight from the tap. Same with mixing the developer, I tried both distilled and tap water, I couldn't detect any difference. I do have an inline filter to trap sediment on my water line into my house though. I currently use PMK Pyro and mix exclusively with tap water. If you suspect your tap water may contain sediment, I would recommend using bottled water, but only to keep artifacts from becoming imbedded in the emulsion.
 

wildbill

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All of my processing up to 8x10 film is done on a jobo. I use tap water for a 3 minute presoak. My PMK is mixed with distilled water only. Never had any issues because of it.
 

Mainecoonmaniac

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I would think it would depend where you live. In Sacramento, California where used I live, most of the water is Sierra snow melt water so I can use water from the tap for diluting pyro PMK. I now live in Davis, the water is from a well and very mineraly and I use filtered water.
 

Andrew O'Neill

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Pyrocat-HD is my main developer. I use BTZS tubes up to 8x10 and I never presoak film except for TMY-2, to remove that pesky blue backing. Use distilled water to mix up your stock solutions. I use tap water for working solutions.
 

TheFlyingCamera

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Same here- I use filtered water from my tap (I have an in-line filter setup along with the temperature control valve in my darkroom). I switched to getting my Pyrocat HD from Photographers Formulary in glycol instead of water, to make sure it lasts longer and doesn't collapse from oxidation when nearing the bottom of the bottle.
 
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