Physical toning of digital prints

[Darin Boville]

I'm not seeing it via search--what's the current "state-of-the-art" on toning inkjet prints (physically toning, not Photoshop)?

If I missed the links please point me in the right direction.

Otherwise, are you doing any toning (coffee, tea, etc) and if so what and how?

Thanks!

--Darin

[Brian Ellis]

Should be an interesting thread, sorry I can't tell you how I do it because I don't. I've actually never heard of wet-toning ink jet prints. Not to say that it isn't done or can't be done, just that I haven't heard of it.

I've always assumed I'd never heard of it because you can get the same looks and more from Photoshop with much more flexibility and control than wet toning in a darkroom. At least that's been my experience, coming from years of selenium, sepia, gold, brown, and various other more exotic forms of toning explained in Eddie Ephrams' (sp?) book on toning and mixing my own toners from scratch.

[Kirk Gittings]

Like Brian, I haven't heard of it either.

[bob carnie]

You can try gelatin coating your prints, it works, make a **to size of print** digital pictorico negative and in register add gum or carbon , or any other process you would like.

I am not interested in overcoating ink prints but certainly interested in over coating palladium prints with colour carbon and know it works well. I will use the same proceedure as I would toning silver prints except my tools and materials will be different.

Palladium for the highlights soft , tonal extreme and warm with carbon for the shadows , cool and crisp.

[sanking]

So far as I know there is no state of the art in physical toning of inkjet prints. I am sure you could stain some images with coffee or tea but that kind of staining, which I have also seen with cyanotypes, is not very pleasing to my eye.

Now if you are printing with a color ink set there are all sorts of toning possibilities, duo tones, tri tones, and the use of multiple profiles in printing with QTR. You could, for example print the shadow areas with one profile and the highlights with another.

Digital prints on silver papers with Lamba type printers can also be toned, as they respond like regular silver papers to traditional toning. Bob Carnie at Elevator Digital in Toronto does this kind of toning on a regular basis printing from digital files.

Sandy

[Frank Petronio]

Soak pictures of lakes in lake water, get internet famous like whats-his-name last month on the art blogs ;-p

Seems to me it would be a good way to do something destructive to the prints, not enhancing them in any traditional sense.

[Darin Boville]

Time to start experimenting!

--Darin

[Philippe Debeerst]

You can 'tone' the paper BEFORE ink jet printing it. You can also spray, not brushing, non water holding varnish or other transparent and non opaque colours over the print.
As long as the liquid colours are not water holding and non ink soluble, in might work.
Trial and error is the way to go!

[interrobangart]

Reviving an old thread, but I print B&W with Carbon Piezography inks and sometimes tone my final prints with black tea to increase the warmth of the print. It just tones the paper, but it creates a nice look for some of my images, especially prints from scans of my wet plate collodion images.

[paulr]

Tea and coffee kinds of things might work on some papers. This is really staining, not toning ... you're not doing anything to the image structure itself. Today there are so many different paper colors available, I wouldn't think there would be many reasons to do this unless you were going for something very strange.

Actual toning, meaning changing the colors of the pigments, would be hard. You might have fun getting odd, difficult to repeat effects. But the pigments are all different, and most of them are extremely resistant to oxidative reactions. Much more so than silver, or traditional photographic dyes.

I had a student who was experimenting with washes of varnish and laquers over the tops of his ink prints. I wasn't advising him on the technical process, so I don't know exaxtly how he did it. This would seem like a smart approach. You could build up transparent / translucent layers on top of the image, using a medium that can actually add protection. He was also getting hand-brushed textures. You could also make smooth versions with an airbrush. Seems better than putting chemicals into the paper and coatings that could interact in unpredictable ways.

[bob carnie]

Lots of my clients are resin coating their prints with very thick clear resin.

So there is nothing to stop one from thinking that adding dyes, pigments to the resin solution would not work, or even putting physical barriers like tissues or semi clear materials in the resin to then partially allow the image to shine through.

[Kirk Gittings]

I know of at least one photographer who is doing encaustic with injet.

http://www.robertmedinacook.com/Workshops.htm

I know the guy but know nothing about his process. His prints technically have a very beautiful depth and color to them.

[Drew Wiley]

At what point does something like this start looking awfully artsy/craftsy?

[Kirk Gittings]

Pretty damn quick.......

[Jim collum]

I print on COT320 all the time (just the CMY) and soak it in all sorts of chemistry (Citric Acid, Sodium Sulfite, EDTA) and lengthy clear times. I haven't taken density readings before and after, but from visual appearance, the colors don't get washed out. (this was with Epson K3 inks and HPz3100 & 3200 inks)

[Tyler Boley]

I've seen lots of post treatments, encaustic, wax, varnishes, etc.. But I'm with Paul on this, though we have no scientific definition of toning, the precedent after decades of pre digital prints seems to be alteration of the image forming material. Not that it's a judgment of course. Other practices seem like finish work or staining. Some, like gum over platinum, add to the image, but don't chemically alter it. There are also multiple pass methods, part of the image formation as well, but this is part of the printmaking in the image formation stage. Spike Mafford and his father did an interesting project combining woodcuts and inkjet, I don't know which process went down first, on Arches Cover.
I've seen nothing that alters the makeup of the image in an inkjet print in an additive manner, though there may be some interesting destructive processes.. could be dangerous...
Tyler

[Jenny Pritchard]

I've got quite a few prints and neither the time nor the wits at the moment to learn a difficult process (searching this site came up with processes like duo tone etc. that look very difficult).
Is there a simple thing I can do to each print to make them all come out the same, non-patchy, brown sepia using Photoshop CS2?

[searover]

My wife is a crafter & has used Tim Holtz archival ink pads on my sunset cotton velvet ( and canvas) prints with far better luck than Tea or coffee staining which she did years before. She likes antique linen and vintage photo and she alternated stamp pads for a more mottled look. Darker edges, lighter centres & often sanding edges as well as deckling. Her results were nice & sold!

[JohnnyV]

The staining of coffee and tea will fade over time.

[ignatiusjk]

The reason for toning prints was for permanance and enhancing the tones of the print.Toning would affect silver gelitan prints,I don't think it would work on ink jet prints.