You're agreeing with me, Jay.Jay DeFehr wrote:I think there is a lot of confusion surrounding the effects of stained negs on VC papers, and a lot of it has to do with misconceptions about the way VC paper works. VC paper emulsions are made up three separate blue-sensitive emulsions, with varying sensitivities to green light. All of the layers are of equal contrast, and speed to blue light, but vary in their speed to green. This allows contrast to be controlled by the amount of green light relative to the amount of blue light that makes up the total exposure. The only question pertinent to stained negatives and VC papers is; how much printing density is added by the stain? Remember, printing density is created by the light that's blocked, and not the light that's transmitted. The yellow-green pyro stain is very effective at blocking/absorbing blue light, to which the paper is most sensitive, and thereby creates printing density. The green light that is transmitted by the stain exposes the far less sensitive, green-sensitive emulsion, reducing the net printing density created by the stain, to some extent, which is why stained negatives print with greater contrast on graded papers than on VC papers. It's that simple. Thinking of the pyro stain as a contrast filter is a misguided obfuscation. The pyro stain does not reduce contrast, not even in the highlights. The pyro stain adds printing density, which increases contrast with all papers, including VC papers. I hope this clears up some of the misconceptions regarding stained negs and VC papers propogated by some of the "experts".
Jay
The stain adds very little density that VC papers can see at 'normal' contrast filtrations (which pass a lot of green light), which is why the speed is poor. You're better off with a conventional developer for most purposes.