Can Platinum prints be toned?

[Bill_1856]

Can Platinum prints be toned? I am thinking particularly about a warmer/sepia apperance.

[D. Bryant]

Can Platinum prints be toned? I am thinking particularly about a warmer/sepia apperance.

Gum bichromate over palladium will giveyou many choices for altering the color of a palladium print.

Don Bryant

[Jim Graves]

Per Christopher James, you can use a 5% Gold Chloride solution to get a cooler print, can use standard Cyanotype to add density to weaker shadow areas, use Van Dyke Brown to get warm and deep shadows and luminous highlights, can coat with art wax to enrich blacks and soften highlights, and create a number of effects with gum bichromate (as D. Bryant says above.) [James, The Book of Alterrnative Photographic Processes, Second Edition, 2009, pp.297-300.]

If you're looking for a warmer print similar to sepia ... maybe your best bet is the VDB. Per James description ... you start by doing the print in VDB and over-exposing it, and then, after clearing well, over-print in Pt/Pd. So, you sensitize for VDB, dry, register your negative, expose, develop your over-exposed VDB print, re-sensitize with the Pt/Pd mix, dry, register the negative, re-expose, and then develop and clear.

James says this will "open up the shadows and and give life to the highlights." He also says that it works best when "Parts B and C of the Pt/Pd sensitizer formula make up the primary drop." [Id, at p. 300.]

[bsimison]

Why not just use Palladium developed in warm-to-hot Potassium Oxalate? The higher the temperature, the warmer the tones.

[Lenny Eiger]

Can Platinum prints be toned? I am thinking particularly about a warmer/sepia apperance.

Add more palladium....

Lenny

[D. Bryant]

Add more palladium....

Lenny

Well generally speaking no that won't improve things. An increase in palladium salts requires an increase in Ferric Oxalate in order for the metal to be affected by exposure and reduced in development. Mind you I'm talking in generalities here.

Another alternative is to make "Ziatypes" which are capable of producing very warm toned prints.

Using very warm developer will increase the warmth of the print, but as I posted before gum bichromate over gives great flexibility with color options. For some charming examples of gum overs visit kerik kouklis' web site.

http://www.kerik.com/index.htm

[Jeremy Moore]

Add more palladium....

Lenny

I was thinking the other way around, he needs less platinum

[Doug Howk]

I've heated Potassium Oxalate up to 110F and gives a nice warm-tone. Also use Ratio method rather than NA2 for those negatives with DR of 1.35 or above - seems the slightest amount of Platinum cools the print.

[Dave Aharonian]

You can also try tea-toning platinum prints. I've done some in Rooibos. Earl gray works well too.

[clay harmon]

Some of the very warm toned early 1900s vintage prints you see in museums were mercury toned. Needless to say, this technique is discouraged today because of the obvious dangers of mercury use.

However, by far the warmest and most pleasing tones I have achieved with palladium have been when using the Michael Ware's ammonium based chemistry. This is a printing-out-process and does not require a developing solution. Using Ferric Ammonium Oxalate and Ammonium Tetrachloropalladate at relative humidity levels of 40-45% will give a very nice nutty brown print tone that I have not been able to get with the traditional develop-out method even with very hot potassium oxalate developer.