Selective-toning negatives

[jalrox]

Is it possible to selectively tone b&w negatives? I would like to warm-tone dense portions of the negative to an orange-yellow tone, but avoid visible (or any) damage to the negative.

@LF_rookie_to_be : I cant send you message, Your inbox is full.!!!!

[LF_rookie_to_be]

Sorry, could you please try now?

[Louie Powell]

An approach that I think will work is the old technique of 'dye dodging'. Dye dodging is a technique to do complicated dodging one time, and then be able to make multiple prints with that dodging without having to remember and repeat all of the dodging steps.

This process involves using a sheet of plastic material that is placed on top of the actual negative during printing. The simplest approach is to use a piece of unexposed film that has teen cleared, fixed and washed. Put the original negative on a light box, emulsion side down, and then tape the second piece of film over it. Using a very fine brush and a magnifier, carefully paint a tansparent watercolor dye on the clear film in the areas that you want to modify. Dr. Martin's water colors are ideal for this application. If your objective is to use this technique to dodge dense shadows, you should place the dye over the shadow areas of the image. If you are using VC paper for printing, using a magenta dye helps (a lot!) because it not only holds back light when the negative is later printed, but magenta is also the color of higher-contrast printing filters, so the magenta color also increases contrast in dye-dodged areas which helps bring up details.

Using a yellow dye (the color of lower contrast filters) holds back light but also reduces local contrast. It sounds like that is what you want to do.

After the dye has dried, place the sandwich consisting of the original negative and the dyed sheet in the enlarger and make your print (or your masik, if that's your next step). Because the dye is separated from the image-containing emulsion layer on the negative by two thicknesses of the supporting material, the edges of the dyed areas will be out of focus when the combination is printed by enlargement.

You could apply the dye directly to the negative, but that could damage the negative. By using a second sheet of fixed and washed film, you have the possibility of simply throwing the dyed sheet away if you don't like the result, leaving the original negative unchanged. And if you are using water-soluble dyes, you also can simply wash the dyed sheet, let it dry, and then try again.