Shelf life of Kodak Selenium Toner?

[Robert Ruderman]

Hi,

I've been working with a quart of Kodak Selenium Toner for more than a year. When I last toned a batch of prints at 1:10, the prints reflected a degree of toning (i.e. seemed to be OK). This was about two months ago.

Last night, I attempted to tone a TMAX100 negative at 1:3 for 5 minutes and found that, at least to the eye, there was no change in the negative (when compared with an untoned negative). When I attempted to tone a TMAX100 negative a few months ago, there was a change in the negative...

Does a bottle of opened Selenium Toner have a shelf life? If so, is the change in the toner so rapid that there would be such a sudden drop off in the performance of the toner?

Thanks,
Robert

[Louie Powell]

Selenium toner has a very long shelf life.

Are you reusing the same working solution in your tests? I've never had toner go bad from storage, but it will be depleted from repeated use, and when you are reusing toner working solution its very normal to see the required toning time become gradually longer.

[Robert Ruderman]

Starting fresh from the Kodak bottle each time. I do not store and reuse the "working strength" toner solution.

[Richard M. Coda]

What kind of negative was it? Dense? Thin?

Selenium is a proportional intensifier... more silver, more pronounced effect. Less silver (thin neg), less pronounced effect.