Pyro - Ilford Blue/Green Lights

[bluejeh]

Pyro - Ilford Blue/Green Lights

My enlarger is Ilford 500 with 300watt Blue and Green lights in head (not magenta/yellow).
I use Ilford FP4+ and TriX 320 in medium format and 4x5 film sizes, Ilford variable contrast paper RC (& will soon be using) Fibre.

I recently purchased pyro PMK neg developer with Gordon Hutchings Book of Pyro, his formula produces yellow/green stain.
it sounds to me on my first reading that Hutchings recommends the traditional magenta/yellow lights.....
If you have used pyro pmk or any other pyro with a blue/green light head, what is your experience?
thanks.

[ic-racer]

In terms of your stain, see "Pyro wars" threads...out there somewhere.

In terms of your paper, it does not know the difference between blue and green lights or magenta and yellow filtration. They both work the same.

[Robert Hall]

I have both types of enlargers in my darkroom and both work beautifully.

[Nicholas Lindan]

Yellow light = Red light + Green light
Magenta light = Red light + Blue light

Yellow and magenta are used because the added red light [which the paper does not see] make it easier to dodge and burn.

[DREW WILEY]

Works great with blue-green light. In fact I think it is ideal for printing PMK negs onto VC papers. This also makes it really easy to split print if necessary, using either a deep green or deep blue filter under the lens.

[DREW WILEY]

Oh, but I wasn't contradicting the other posts. I have Y vs M available on a different enlarger, and
can produce results indistinguishable from those done with my blue-green cold light.

[tony lockerbie]

I use a Multigrade head on my enlargers with FP4+ in PMK and find that without filtration the yellow-green cast will lower contrast a little on MG paper, especially in the highlights. Easy to correct though, and that lowering of the contrast especially in the highlight area makes the negs much easier to print. In fact it is the highlight separation that I really like with PMK. Interesting that Pyrocat HD gives more contrast than is apparent, even though the stain looks similar. I find that Pyrocat HD is great with Tri-X.

[ROL]

I don't think the OP is trying to start any wars here, pyro or otherwise.

The information in Hutchings' TheBook of Pyro is a bit confusing in regards to the use of cold lights (blue<–>green sources, Chapter 3: Printing Pyro Negatives). There are few significant differences using pyro negatives with either incandescent or "cold" sources with graded papers.

VC papers, on the other hand, as I have used them and Hutchings suggests, with blue/green sources (cold light) may result in more highlight contrast than desired with incandescent sources. He suggests using yellow gels to tame it. My own most recent experience (with VC papers) is only with large roll papers, VC of necessity. It indeed can be difficult to match the smaller graded sheet sizes to 20x24 with large murals of VC paper, given the identical pyro negative, without dialing the contrast way down.