Gold Toning

[Michael R]

You quoted Hahnemuhle Platinum paper. That's not a silver gelatin printing out paper.
If you want a warmtone silver gelatin print, the Ilford fiber paper is good. But the Fomatone Classic is even better. But gold toning silver gelatin prints cools them, it does not warm them. Tone a silver gelatin print with Gold chloride and you will get cold black/blue tones.

I think this is correct - ie gold toning on its own will tend to give blue-black tones, and often the blue-black shift will be more pronounced on a warm tone paper than a cold or neutral tone paper. The same applies generally to tone shifts by direct development.

Overall I would agree given the goals outlined by OP gold toning doesn’t seem like the right direction.

[Joel Kitchens]

One of my favorite combinations is Ilford's Multi-Grade Fiber Base paper in Warm Tone (that the OP put in a link to B&H), that is then dropped into a bath of Kodak Selenium toner (1:9 dilution) until it stops changing color. It renders a delicious coffee or chocolate brown tone to the image. I only mention the Kodak selenium as my personal preference. Ilford's selenium toner works just as well, but I think it has a heavier ammonia odor.

Cheers!
Joel

[Sal Santamaura]

Taking a look at B&H selection, this is what I seem to come up with.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ....html/overview

That would be really nice for portraits, especially.

Having never tried that semi-matt version before, I recently bought a box and made some prints on it. It's a really ugly surface, with none of the advantages of, say, Bergger's semi-glossy finish and none of the elegance of Ilford's matt paper. The best I can characterize the Warmtone FB Semi-matt is "glary." In my experience, Multigrade Warmtone FB Matt would be a better choice.

[Drew Wiley]

My own gold toning protocol is quite economical. Most published formulas waste gold like crazy. But I certainly wouldn't use any of it on any kind of RC paper.

I've gotten wonderful results with all three surfaces of FB MGWT, although I mainly use just the glossy version.

[BrianShaw]

One of my favorite combinations is Ilford's Multi-Grade Fiber Base paper in Warm Tone (that the OP put in a link to B&H), that is then dropped into a bath of Kodak Selenium toner (1:9 dilution) until it stops changing color. It renders a delicious coffee or chocolate brown tone to the image. I only mention the Kodak selenium as my personal preference. Ilford's selenium toner works just as well, but I think it has a heavier ammonia odor.

Cheers!
Joel

That sounds lucious!

[esearing]

I like Nelsons gold toner except that it is used at a high temperature and takes a while so you cant use a temperature drift approach. But it imparts a lovely brown color shift. Expensive and can be almost replicated by a thiourea toner that has a high mix of SH to T (like 70/30)

[xkaes]

I like Nelsons gold toner ... it imparts a lovely brown color shift.

Thanks for mentioning this. Gold toners appear to have a certain reputation, but not all are cold or bluiish -- as I pointed out in Post #3.

[Drew Wiley]

I like the cooling gold toner gives. I can offset or split tone that in relation to selenium toner or sulfide brown toner. I rarely use selenium anymore.

[xkaes]

I rarely use selenium anymore.

Not even for blackening the blacks? If it weren't for that, I'd just use Sistan.

[esearing]

Thanks for mentioning this. Gold toners appear to have a certain reputation, but not all are cold or bluiish -- as I pointed out in Post #3.

Wolfgang Moersh has been posting some interesting works with gold toning of Kalitypes and some other alt processes on FB - He gets all kinds of color out of it.