Toning with tea

[Jonathan Brewer]

I will try this......Domenico did you get my j-peg safe and sound, if so, e-mail me.

[John Elder]

Tom Baril, photographer and master printer, formerly Mapplethorp's printer, tones his prints with tea. They are beautiful!

[Larry Cuffe]

This is not the only photographic use for tea. I have developed both paper and film with green tea used with a suitable base. For the film it was a very slow speed developer, say 30 mins and a 2-3 stop loss in speed, however this demonstrated that it was a true developer and not just activating a built in developer in the film. All the best

[oolongtea]

You must have heard the phrase "what's old becomes new again",While looking for a toner I stumbled upon tea and created my own home brew to my amazement it worked and to this day,they are still looking as good as day I printed and tea stained them.It really works.For more info about tea,tea uses,tea products please visit my site http://mytealogic.com/

[Greg Lockrey]

This is not the only photographic use for tea. I have developed both paper and film with green tea used with a suitable base. For the film it was a very slow speed developer, say 30 mins and a 2-3 stop loss in speed, however this demonstrated that it was a true developer and not just activating a built in developer in the film. All the best

This very interesting. I was wondering if this tea toning was just merely staining the light part of the image and not really toning in that it replaces the silver in the dark areas. Sounds like you answered my question about this.

[CG]

...I have developed both paper and film with green tea used with a suitable base. For the film it was a very slow speed developer, say 30 mins and a 2-3 stop loss in speed, however this demonstrated that it was a true developer and not just activating a built in developer in the film....

Could you post your formula?

Thanks!

C

[Murray]

Yes, Oolong, I assumed I would go to your link and find a tea developer recipe, but it wasn't specific enough. I founds lots of product info, however.

Can you please direct to specific link, and I'll browse the other site content as I get a chance.

Thanks

[Murray]

Alot of 'ordinary' US tea boxes say something about Pekoe black and Pekoe orange, or Pekoe-cut blah-blah.

Years ago I was told Pekoe tea is expensive and the cheaper tea would call it "Pekoe-cut" apparently to look like Pekoe. Either it's not expensive anymore or it there isn't a truth in labeling problem anymore (or oversight).

[Jim MacKenzie]

Orange pekoe is a size of tea particle, not a type of tea, like many think. In fact, most so-called orange pekoe tea isn't orange pekoe.

Orange pekoe has decent-sized chunks of leaf. Flowery orange pekoe includes the immature leaf bud along with the tea leaves, which adds to the flavour.

Broken orange pekoe (BOP) has smaller particles and steeps faster, but loses its flavour in storage more rapidly.

Below this is fannings (usually used in bags) and dust (used in the cheapest bags).

CTC (crush-tear-curl) is a machine-processed tea that has particles about broken orange pekoe sized. Some teas are prepared this way instead of being sorted mechanically.

[Murray]

Thanks Jim. I gathered there was some economics of manufacturing at play.

I see the other poster with a green tea developer recipe has no contact info & is an infrequent poster, so I'll just have to be patient...or try something myself...