Advice required for selenium toning Ilford Warmtone

[Drew Wiley]

It's easy to cool it off "a bit". But getting a true consistent neutral cold tone print on WARMTONE, without a conspicuous hue bias, has so far been elusive, and probably is impossible.

[esearing]

An experiment for you. You can do all of this in a well lit area.

A) Selenium Tone a print completely until the whole image shifts color from shadows to highlights.

B)
1) Tone until your darkest shadows shift to brown.
2) bleach your print - Your dark tones will likely change a little bit but now you can see where your archival process ends. wash for 5 mins to remove the bleach.
3) redevelop with normal paper developer or even a sepia developer until highlight density returns. It may take a few minutes depending on dilution.
4a) If you used a normal developer , Put the print back in the selenium and tone until the highlights shift color or any point where you like the look.
4b) if you used a sepia toner like thiourea use a 50/50% mix of A and B to start with and tone completely.

WASH WELL!!!
After drying compare the color of the prints.

In my experimentation, I have found that the selenium reacts with the bleach and changes color to a nicer brown than full selenium toning without bleach. It could be that the silver grains deeper in the gelatin are now affected by the additional treatment.

I also like to reverse the process a bit and do some partial highlight to mid tone bleaching first , then thiourea 40/60, wash, then selenium. If there are lots of mid tones you get an interesting reddish brown, but your blacks can stay charcoal-ish.

[DannyTreacy]

Thanks for all the replies, the video on YouTube was very helpful. Also, I imagine that I’ll need to make a judgment call based on the dry prints after being toned, can a selenium toner print be put in the microwave as with regular prints to speed things up?

Thanks.

[Bruce Barlow]

I always use two prints - I tone one and put the other up on my stand by the toning tub. From time-to-time, I compare the toning print to the reference. For me, when I see the change in color (that ol' Dektol green goes away) on the tomed print, I'm done. That typically happens, for me, with RST 1:20 at about 75 degrees, in two to three minutes. That gives me what I want.

The point is to have a reference to compare to, under a good light.

[DannyTreacy]

I always use two prints - I tone one and put the other up on my stand by the toning tub. From time-to-time, I compare the toning print to the reference. For me, when I see the change in color (that ol' Dektol green goes away) on the tomed print, I'm done. That typically happens, for me, with RST 1:20 at about 75 degrees, in two to three minutes. That gives me what I want.

The point is to have a reference to compare to, under a good light.

Thanks for the tip, correct me if I’m wrong as I’ve never done this before but wouldn’t it be necessary to check the print being toned again a wet print or dry the selenium toned print to compare against a dry print?

I’m just thinking that dry down can be so misleading when judging a wet print’s characteristics.

[Bruce Barlow]

Reference print should be wet, too. You're right about dry-down. If you keep track of time, you can tone the reference print after the first one.

[DannyTreacy]

Reference print should be wet, too. You're right about dry-down. If you keep track of time, you can tone the reference print after the first one.

Great, thanks for clarifying.

[DannyTreacy]

One more quick question! If I wanted to experiment with whitening the highlights a bit , I understand that I could split tone with a bleach. I don’t really want to give the highlights a brown/sepia tiny so what bleach (if any) gives neutral highlights?

Thanks.

[Drew Wiley]

Papers differ with respect to whether the bleached area will show a yellowish color shift afterwards or not. It also depends on any specific toners involved before or after the bleach step. I find MGWT to be quite cooperative in this respect with classic Farmers A&B reducer, leaving no color bias. You need to re-fix the print after bleaching, and wash of course. You probably won't find any Farmer's under Kodak label anymore; but Photographer's Formulary has an identical twin.

[DannyTreacy]

Papers differ with respect to whether the bleached area will show a yellowish color shift afterwards or not. It also depends on any specific toners involved before or after the bleach step. I find MGWT to be quite cooperative in this respect with classic Farmers A&B reducer, leaving no color bias. You need to re-fix the print after bleaching, and wash of course. You probably won't find any Farmer's under Kodak label anymore; but Photographer's Formulary has an identical twin.

Thanks for the reply, I have some potassium ferricyanide, could I use that to lift the highlights, fix, then selenium tone?