First attempt at sepia toning

[Blueberrydesk]

Well, I tried my first attempt at sepia toning a couple of prints done a few days ago, in Berg two stage (bleach and toner) sepia. I'm a little disappointed, and a little intrigued;

There were 4 prints total, of two different subjects; all of them came out more yellow than brown. The first print done, a portrait shot, I'm actually happy with. The shot, while lacking in artistic merit (it was really just a quick test shot done to see how my petzval handles), came out ok.

The one I'm a little disappointed in was a shot of the side of a hill and trees; it was fairly low contrast, and I thought the sepia would kick it up a notch (BAM!) but instead it seems to have retained, or even lost some of the contrast in the original scene.

I had two prints of this same neg, one about one stop lighter. The darker print seems to have done okay, but I seemed to have misunderstood something about split-toning. I only bleached to get rid of the highlights, thinking that sepia-ing them, while leaving the darker tones alone would be what increases contrast.

However, while in the bleach bath, it seemed like the denser areas of the print disappeared before the highlights did. I pulled the first print as soon as I saw this happening (the denser areas were around the periimeter of the print) and what ended up happening was that the denser areas toned, but the middle of the image with the lighter tones didn't. I may be doing them in trays that are too small, as these were 8x10 contact prints, and I was doing them in 8x10 trays.

All in all, I'm satisfied at the first baby steps. I'm gonna plan a trip to Yosemite in a few days to try and get some more negs to develop. :-)

I do have to say...I completely understand the love and devotion to the tactile sensation of developing your own film and prints. Especially prints. Watching them come up in developer, under safelight, has to be one of the most magical feelings a person can still have nowadays.

I'll post some scans of the final prints tomorrow morning, in case anyone wants a good chuckle... They're drying right now.

G'nite
Paul

[Robert Ley]

Paul,
It is probably a good idea to include as much information on the materials that you used if you would like meaningful input. Include the type of paper and manufacturer, the developer and dilution and any other processing information. Toning is influenced greatly by these and other factors. I have found that if you give the print slightly more exposure and get a darker print your sepia toning will work better as you seemed to find. I use Kodak toners, brown, sepia and selenium. Different colors can be obtained by toning in more than one toner such as brown and selenium. You will just have to experiment for yourself with your conditions and materials. By all means let us know how you make out.
Regards,
Robert

[Blueberrydesk]

Robert, you're right. Here is more info if anyone wishes to spend some time on this, along with images for illustration.

The neg was fp4+ developed in Pyrocat-HD. Contact printed on Bergger Variable CB style, a double weight, FB, variable Warm, semi-gloss paper, with a tinted base.

The prints were developed in Ilford Multigrade paper developer, water stop and TF-4 fix, washed for 25 minutes after the fix, then allowed to air dry. That was a few days ago.

Yesterday, when I decided to try the toning, the prints were re-wet in distilled water for five minutes each prior to immersion in the bleach bath, of Berg's Rapid RC Sepia Toning Solution. Dilutions were 120ml (1 bottle) of the bleach with the recommended 840ml of distilled water, to make 1 liter of working solution bleach.

The toning solution was the same dilution for the first print I toned (not any of these two prints referenced), but as was recommended in the instructions, when that first print came out toned very strongly, I further diluted the toning bath (bath 2) with another 250ml of distilled water. Both prints had a 10 wash time after bath 1 and a 20 minute wash time after bath 2.

Both bath temperatures were 68-70 degrees for the duration of the toning session.

This first pic, I knew that I was going to split tone, and watched carefully for the light tones to disappear. However, before they did, the darker tones around the perimeter began to disappear, so I pulled early and washed for 9 minutes, then placed in bath 2 for 3 minutes, and washed again for 20 minutes.






Learning from that first print (I hope), I decided to leave the second print in the bleach until the center section of the image was disappearing. I bleached for approx. 2 minutes and pulled to the wash, then toned for 3 1/2 minutes and back in the wash.

Here is the 2nd print, which came out much better in my mind, though still not great. Definitely too yellow for my taste.





I think part of my dislike, or unhappiness may just be the possibility that this shot just doesn't look good sepia toned; thinking about it, due to all of the lighter tones that came through on the print, with detail in all of them thanks to the p-cat, a selenium toning would have been just fine.

My main concern was that the color was not at all what I was expecting. I don't think that the Berg Toning kit was that old, I think I purchased it last year, but the chems were never mixed, and it had never even been opened.

Thanks to anyone who waded through this whole post and throws some ideas at me. I'm loving doing my own developing and am sure that experience and more mistakes (along with all of your help )will teach me the corrections I need to make.

[Blueberrydesk]

forgot to add that there was continuous gentle agitation for both bath 1 and bath 2.

[Glenn Thoreson]

I have some of the same toner that's several years old. It still works but the toner step is slowing down. That toner can make a very pleasant brown. I think maybe you should try warming step two to about 85° or so. Give it more time and try letting it stay in there until it looks like what you want.
You can also bleach and redevelop with Kodak Brown Toner. Give the print a very quick bleach. Pull it as soon as you see any action at all and wash it immediately. Stick it in the brown toner and agitate. Pull it when you get what you want. You have to be quick with the bleach, or it be be toward the yellow side, too. The brown toner works much faster by doing this and I've gotten some nice, deep browns. All of this toning business takes experimentation. Good luck to you.

[Blueberrydesk]

Glenn, you may have hit on something there. I seem to recall for the second print (the one that toned more) that when I put it in the wash, which was running water through the sink faucet into one of those cheap print washer trays, that the wash water was substantially warmer (by at least 10 degrees) than the toner bath.

While in the final wash, I distinctly saw the toning increase. I wonder if my toner bath was just too cold. The distilled water that I used had been outside, so when I brought it in it was around 55 degrees. I warmed it up in the sink and thought that I had gotten it to around 70 degrees, but perhaps there was still pockets of colder water in the jug.

I'll have to watch the temperature more carefully next time.

Best

Paul

[Blueberrydesk]

would a cold bleach bath affect the bleaching process as well? The water for the dilution for the bleach bath came from the same jug as the toner solution, so if the bleach bath was too cold, how would that have affected the bleaching process?

[domenico Foschi]

I have never used the Berg toner, but I wonder why you wash the print between the bleach and toning bath.
The bleach, especially in warm toned paper, continues its action mercilessly.
I would try to bleach the image, yank it BEFORE you get to your desired degree, immerse it in the toner IMMEDIATLY and then put it in a FRESH fix bath, if you don't the toning effect will keep going and you will end up with a fully toned print.
Warmtone papers act like that.
Does it says to do so in the package?
Also, in my opinion, 25 minutes wash is not enough to get rid of the fixer and it seems like the image is suffering from poor washing as well.
Are the scans a faithful reproduction of the image?

[Greg Lockrey]

I never used Berg Toner's either so I am speaking from ignorance in that reguard. Back in the day when I used to do wet lab processes I seem to remember that I would give myself an extra 1/2 f/stop equivalent exposure if I was going to Sepia tone and another thing I seem to remember was not to use fixer with hardener in it or use Rapid Fixer. Don't know if this has an effect or not though. With Kodak Sepia toner I used to bleach for 1/2 minute and wash for 2 minutes and then place in Step B solution for several minutes and wash for an hour.

[Blueberrydesk]

Domenico, the instructions which came with the Berg toner chemicals stated to do a 5 to 10 minute wash between bleach and toner baths. The scans are about as close as I can make them to real life. I wondered how long I should wash the prints after toning, I guess I should use a hypo as well as a longer wash after printing. I'm assuming that the instructions say to wash between baths to avoid contamination of the toner with bleach. This kit has just two bottles, both 120 ml, of bleach and a toner, and is supposed to be reusable.

Greg, TF-4 is non-hardening, but it is a rapid fixer. I am leaning to Domenico's statement that the prints were not washed long enough to remove all traces of fix.

I guess the easy trial is to use Domenico's suggestion of straight from bleach into toner. Worst comes to worst, I'm out $10 and have to buy another toner kit.

Does the print need to be refixed after toning? The Berg instructions just say to wash and dry.

Thanks both of you for your help and input. I'll figure it out eventually...

Paul