Stain and Scanning

[peterbcarter]

<p>I have been trying staining developers for a while now and am not really getting the results I have been looking for.</p>

<p>Firstly, I live in Canada, thus my choices are really limited. I have yet to find a chem source that can completely fill an order to avoid spending $50 in shipping costs for a 100ml of soup. HAS-MAT generally has limited my efforts to WD2D+, as it is shipped with a powder. Secondly, I do not use a wet darkroom and prints for me are digital. Negative scanning is how I work with my film.</p>

<p>I have had reasonable success with FP4+,PX, Foma 100 and various other low grain films. Nothing outstanding as these are low grain films to start with. I found TX and Efke KB400 much worse than with a traditional developer (HC110), to the point I thought I was really doing something wrong.</p>

<p>So what gives? I have read so much good things about stains. I have 2 scanners (Epson 4490 and Plustek 7200i) which deliver consistent disappointing results. I have Silverfast Ai for both and Vuescan.</p>

<p>One day, playing around with some settings in Vuescan, I discovered using bw conversion with infrared. The strip of KB400, notorious for grain that can stop a bus, scanned silky smooth. I was stunned. I checked some other film and the same good results.</p>

<p>This is obviously a light issue here, as the stain seems to like a particular light to do it's magic. I prefer Silverfast, but it does not allow me to use infrared to do the conversion. My question is do the other staining developers react to more visible light? Is there a developer that is more Silverfast and scanner friendly?</p>

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[larrydressler]

<p>I have never see the advantage of using a staining developer with scanning. I tryed it and loved it with wet printing but with Scanning found it just did not fit in with what I wanted.</p>

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[randall ellis]

Staining developers were developed with the analog printing process in mind - the stain works as it does in the darkroom because of the spectral sensitivity of the paper (blue/green). I cannot imagine what, if any, benefit it would give when scanning the negatives, but who knows...

<BR><BR>

- Randy

[User_503771]

<p>Black and white isn't necessarily all that easy to scan. It sounds like you've made a really nice discovery, with the infrared scanning. I'd be interested to hear more about how exactly that's done.</p>

<p>One other thing that might be interesting to test, would be to scan your negs as RGB negs. Then, you could convert to grayscale in post-processing; you'd also have the option to use only one channel of the scan.</p>

<p>Randall Ellis mentions above that the staining developers work well with black and white papers, in the blue part of the spectrum. Perhaps pullling out the blue channel from an RGB scan -- or any other channel that looks good -- could help you get better results.</p>

<p>Other than all that, I would think you might be better off just printing in the darkroom, then scanning the prints, if you really must bring them over to digital format. Or just go back to using conventional developers.</p>

[ian_mazursky]

<p>I shoot 4x5, 5x7 and 12x20 HP5. All developed in PMK Pyro or another Pyro varient.<br>

I do some traditional printing but i scan most on my Howtek 7500 drum scanner. The scans come out perfect.<br>

I find that the stain really helps in the highlights.<br>

Scanning Pyro hs gotten a bad rap because of sub par scanners and software. Most consumer software and pro sumer (silverfast) does not know how to interpret the stain.<br>

I know a few guys who use flatbeds with Pyro negs and they have good results. Some of them scan the neg as a positive and then invert it in photoshop. This removes a variable in the software.<br>

-ian</p>

[the world in black white]

<p>All of my negatives are processed in 510-Pyro and scanned for inclusion on my photo.net website and as substitute contact prints. I have absolutely no difficulty with scanning with an Epson 4490 flat bed scanner. I must say, however, that when I was using PMK and WD2D+ that I had to scan the negatives as positives and convert in Photoshop. I am now a firm advocate of 510-Pyro - thank you once again Jay De Fehr - see his blog http://pyrostains.blogspot.com/</p>

[peterbcarter]

<p>Almost a month has gone by and progress has been made.<br>

1) One of my problems is KB400. It just does not scan well. So I stopped using it.<br>

2) It turns out I need to slightly under develop for scanning with pyro. I guess that is a bit like the condenser enlargers.<br>

3) Wash way longer. The stain has a chance to settle after the fixer if washed longer.<br>

Here are some fake flowers; Foma 100, EI 50, WD2D+ @ 6 mins</p>

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