Different ways to selenium tone negatives

[wiggywag]

Been reading here and there about selenium toning negatives.

An informal video on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il8GpKZ2hgc&list=UUHpT1_YMTixJ8qlaykp42pg&index=31&feature=plcp
suggests:

new film:
- After fixing immerse film into selenium toner and HCA 1:2
- HCA
- Washing

Old film:
- Water soak
- Fixer
- immerse film into selenium toner and HCA 1:2
- HCA
- Washing

Now Bruce Barnbaum has a much simpler method according to his book...
New and Old film
- Immerse film into selenium toner and water 1:1
- Wash
No mention of presoaking, fixer and HCA in the toner.

What is correct? Why refixing an old negative that have been fixed already? I do understand the HCA after toning, but is it necessary to put it into the toner? Why not do it before the toner as part of the soaking process with old negatives? In that way I can reuse the Selenium toner many times not letting the HCA exhaust the toner.

Would be interesting to hear what is common practice.

[Vaughn]

What I do (never have done it with "New Film":

Old film:
- Water soak
- immerse film into selenium toner and water 1:3 to 1:4
- HCA
- Washing

No need to re-fix old film.
HCA with the KRST -- I use to do this for prints to prevent staining, but better care during processing eliminated the need.
HCA after toning -- gives shorter washing times, but not absolutely needed.
KRST dilution -- what ever one wants it to be...all a matter of how long one wants to tone. I tend to tone to completion with negatives (in a white tray until I see no more changes in the negative). It is never too long at 1:3 or 1:4 for me.

[Scott Walker]

No idea why you would fix the film again.
My procedure is as follows:
-presoak for a couple of minutes in water
-selenium & water 1:2 for 6 minutes
-wash

[Andrew O'Neill]

I presoak for 5 minutes, intensify for 5 minutes in selenium diluted 1:2 @ 20C, constant agitation. Give a quick rinse in water followed by HCA, then wash.
Depending on the film, determines how long it takes to get maximum intensification.

[Kirk Gittings]

I do a presoak and then Selenium straight (it only goes to completion about 1 stop density gain-no sense wasting time) for a couple of minutes. Then wash.

[Pawlowski6132]

So, we know the how. How 'bout the why?????

[Cletus]

Isn't selenium toner used only as an intensifier for negatives - like what Kirk just said? ~One stop gain in density? Kinda like the opposite of reducer, or "farmer's reducer" for too dense negatives. I could be off on this....

[Vaughn]

To significantly increase the contrast of some 8x10 negs I have given a slight bleaching -- allowing only the very small deepest shadow areas to be clear after re-fixing, then I use HCA, and wash. I then selenium tone to increase the density of the highlights...thus increasing the over-all contrast a bit more than selenium toning alone. It helps to start with a negative that received a little more exposure than 'normal'.

This was done to make negatives for carbon printing -- it might be a bit much for enlarging.

I have also toned just a portion of an 8x10 negative to liven up an otherwise low contrast area...along the lines of what AA did to the 'Moonrise" neg.

Cletus -- selenium toning does increase density -- but it also adds contrast -- where there is more silver, even more selenium reacts. From the way I have heard it, selenium can add up to about the equivilent of one filter grade in printing -- but you need a solid negative to begin with to get that kind of increase. A very under-exposed negative or greatly under-developed neg will not get the same amount of benefit as a properly exposed/developed negative.

[wiggywag]

Got this answer from the maker of the youtube video:

"It's a good idea to refix old negatives before toning in selenium because staining of the negative may result if you don't. The reason is the same as it is when toning prints using the traditional double fixing method. In short, to avoid staining, a print (or film) should preferably go directly from an acid fixing bath to the selenium toner step. For more information, see Ansel Adams', "The Negative" and/or "The Print". "

Can somebody verify this?

[Jim Noel]

What makes the maker of the YouTube video a nexpert?

[Vaughn]

I would think the problem of staining would only occur if the neg (or print) was not properly processed originally. So if one is toning very old negatives with dubious processing history (like my LF negatives from 30+ years ago), then re-fixing might be of some use.

[Doremus Scudder]

Got this answer from the maker of the youtube video:

"It's a good idea to refix old negatives before toning in selenium because staining of the negative may result if you don't. The reason is the same as it is when toning prints using the traditional double fixing method. In short, to avoid staining, a print (or film) should preferably go directly from an acid fixing bath to the selenium toner step. For more information, see Ansel Adams', "The Negative" and/or "The Print". "

Can somebody verify this?

A couple of points: First, your "nexpert" has got it backward: You should move from an alkaline environment to the toner. Too acid an enviromnent (e.g., acid hardening fixer) before the toning step will promote staining. Many use alkaline fixers before toning. I use Hypam 1+9 and its pH is just high enough (alkaline enough) to prevent staining. Moving from a water soak to the toner is fine too as long as your negatives have been properly fixed and washed previously. If you're not sure, refixing will do no harm.

I used to use selenium toning of negatives for contrast increase quite a bit. My technique was to simply soak and then treat in selenium 1+2 for five minutes. As Kirk mentions, the dilution is not that critical, nor are the times. Long toning times are to be avoided however, since there is a point where density will start to reduce.

It is also possible to selectively intensify areas of a negative using a small calligraphy brush or other brush without a metal ferrule (metal and selenium don't get along). The danger here is a "halo" of increased density around the intensified area. It works best when there is a rather dark shadow area around the area to be intensified. The halo-effect can be reduced somewhat by working with a dry negative and a fairly dry brush, thus minimizing the migration of toner through the emulsion. Since negatives are one-of-a-kind, I would recommend practicing selective toning techniques on scrap negatives before trying it on important ones!

I rarely selenium intensify negatives anymore since switching to pyro staining developers. The toning solution also neatly removes the pyro stain which effectively negates any intensification effect. I have thought of selenium intensifying and then treating the neg in spent pyro developer to see if I could restore the stain, but have never tried it. It would be a good experiment, I just isn't high enough on my priority list now.

I now use bleach/redevelopment in staining developer more when I need a contrast increase. This latter technique seems to boost shadow detail a bit more as well.

Best,

Doremus

[Peter Lewin]

I now use bleach/redevelopment in staining developer more when I need a contrast increase. This latter technique seems to boost shadow detail a bit more as well.
Doremus
Since I use PMK, could you please expand slightly on the bleach/redevelopment approach? Thank you. (I've never tried intensification, but its good to know that the selenium would remove the pyro stain.)

[wiggywag]

I develope my negatives in ABC pyro, so I am also interested to hear more about how Selenium goes together with Pyro. Check this link:
http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00Xk6J

[Doremus Scudder]

Since I use PMK, could you please expand slightly on the bleach/redevelopment approach? Thank you. (I've never tried intensification, but its good to know that the selenium would remove the pyro stain.)



I develope my negatives in ABC pyro, so I am also interested to hear more about how Selenium goes together with Pyro. Check this link: http://photo.net/black-and-white-pho...g-forum/00Xk6J

First, it has been my experience that negatives developed in PMK lose their stain when "intensified" with selenium. Since the stain goes, so does the density it provides, which reduces contrast some. The selenium toning makes up for this, maybe even adds a skosh more, but the effect is certainly not as pronounced as toning a negative developed in a non-staining developer. As for the link wiggywag refers to; I'm not sure how much stain W2D2 provides nor do I see a lot of contrast increase in the examples posted... Certainly, though, I'm not the last word on this.

As I mentioned, if the stain could be restored, maybe by treating the negative in spend developer after toning or maybe even just an alkaline bath, then the intensification effect would be more.

Bleach/redevelopment is really simple. The method I use is to bleach with a simple potassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide bleach.
I've had good results with:
Potassium ferricyanide 5g (50ml 10% solution)
Potassium bromide 1.75g (50ml 3.5% solution)
Water to make 250 ml
(Equal to 20g ferri, 7g bromide / liter) The bleach can be reused, but be careful not to exhaust the bromide or rehalogenating will not happen.

The entire process can be carried out in the light. Bleach the negative until the silver image completely disappears. With pyro negs, the stain image remains. The silver has been converted to silver bromide and, since the lights are on, has been exposed. Now just redevelop the neg in a staining developer. The silver image will redevelop and additional stain will be formed by the staining developer during processing. This is what adds the extra contrast.

A caveat, since the rehalogenated silver grains are different that original, graininess can increase. This is less of an issue when using large-format negs, but I would hesitate to try it on smaller formats.

Best,

Doremus