[pure-silver] Re: PMK

  • From: Georges Giralt <georges.giralt@xxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:42:05 +0200

Justin F. Knotzke a écrit : 

   I've noticed that compared to APUG and largeformatphotography's
forums, there is little to no discussion on Pyro and PMK here.

   Why is that? Is it totally discredited as a fad?

   I've never seen a PMK print, but I've seen scans and honestly, I
don't get the fuss.

   Just curious..

   J

Hi !
I seldom use PMK now I've used it a lot at some time.
It proves usefull with VERY contrasty scenes, but choose your film accordingly ! I've had a quite total failure with very contrasty sunny scene and APX25 in PMK. It is better with HP5+ (one of my 120 standard film)
One thing which PMK can help in is treatment of under exposed negs.
as the stain is put with devt. and is proportional to it, if you find yourself with very faint images on your neg you can try salvaging them with this way I tried once :
1) bleach in the bleach of a 2 parts sepia toner (mine was a Kodak one)
2) re- develop in PMK which gives you the stain and the siler back.
3) As I had a roll film with quite identical images, I tried to re bleach some and re dev. once more in PMK. I had some more stain and I was able to print the negs. The prints won't won me an award, but they are here. The original negs were totally un printable.
Bear in mind that some films give funny results in PMK when you try to print them on VC paper : The Foma 120 stuff hhas a blue base, so with the yellowish/green stain it is quite fun to print. Try it to see what I mean.
LAst but not least, I use whatever fixer I can find cheap. So i've processed film in PMK using either Ilfod's Hypam or Agfa's Acidofix or some home made alkaline fixer (as per G. Hutchings recomendation) I can't tell which film was processed which way, except if I read my notes. And my UV X rite densitometer can't tell either. THe only thing affecting stain (in my opinion and with my wash water) is post immersion in the used dev. This will increase B+F stain so is quite useleff for me.
Oh, one big advantage of PMK is that if it doesn't change color when you mix A and B stock, it's gone dead. So you can tell before ruining your film.
Today, I do not use PMK anymore except on very special occasions. I have some stock remaining and a full new powder kit just in case. I standardize in Xtol and HC110 with some Rodinal for some LF film.
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