Kallitype and toning

[Bill L.]

A little bit, but it is mainly lighting for a quick cell phone photo. I have the toned one scanned, if you want I can scan the ntoned one for a little more fair comparison. Probably would be the weekend, but will try to get it posted soon.
Cheers!
Bill

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

I would agree with koraks and say that selenium toning with Kallitypes is "not really worth it." You lose lots of dmax, and the resultant color can be pretty hard to control. Use gold, it is easy and not all that expensive.

[sanking]

I would agree with koraks and say that selenium toning with Kallitypes is "not really worth it." You lose lots of dmax, and the resultant color can be pretty hard to control. Use gold, it is easy and not all that expensive.

In my opinion selenium toning is not worth the trouble, and in fact likely to give very poor results if done with the Rapid Selenium type toners made by Kodak and others. These toners contain hyposulfite, which even in dilute solutions may bleach a kallitype print if toning is done prior to fixing.

Much better in my opinion to tone with gold, palladium or platinum.

If you must tone with selenium, buy selenium powder and mix the following stock solution.
Formula is from Dick Stephens, Making Kallitypes, a Definitive Guide.

1. Dissolve 100 g of sodium sulfite in 100 ml of hot water.
2. Dissolve 10 g of selenium powder in the sulfite solution.
3. Bottle and label the mixture as Selenium Stock Solution
4. To make a working toner, mix 100 ml of stock solution with 1000 ml of water. Weaker dilutions give more gray tone prints, stronger dilutions more brown prints.

As you use it the toner will give darker and dirty, and time of toning will increase. After toning, fix and wash the prints.

Sandy

[Gabriele Campagnano]

Thanks everyone for the useful input!

Gabriele

[carbo73]

Hi, I'm going to entry into the kallitype process, and I've just received my materials from Bostick & Sullivan. But I have usually time constraits, and even I'm not doing my dark room & negative processing at home, but nearby. So my question is: how long can be left a kallitype emulsion coated paper without affecting it's quality (keeping it in the dark, obviously)? and how long can a sun-exposed paper can stand before developing? Because if possible, maybe I could coat a number of papers on one night, when I have time, expose them to the sun next noon (after lunch), and maybe then develope that same night, after supper. Is that possible, without compromising the quality of the prints? Obviously all these hours the papers would wait for me in a closed box.

[pau3]

I’ve been told by someone that tried it that unexposed kallitype emulsioned paper loses sensitivity and contrast from one day to the next. I’ve always exposed and developed immediately after the emulsion has dried (and sometimes before it has completely dried, which is also a bad idea).

Best,
Pau


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[carbo73]

Thanks, Pau (i moltes gràcies)

Best,
Salvador

[tgtaylor]

Adding citric acid to the silver nitrate solution acts as a preservative but dark spots begin appearing on the paper within 24 hours IIRC. An exposed but undeveloped sheet will keep much longer. Once I made some kind of mistake during exposure but didn't throw the sheet away just left it laying face down on the Jobo for several months. Then out of curiosity I developed it and the image came out, not as good as the one I developed right after shooting - which is the reason why I didn't develop it in the first place - but I was surprised to see an image develop out. So I assume that you can keep an unexposed print in the dark for several days without too much negative effect.

Thomas

[carbo73]

Adding citric acid to the silver nitrate solution acts as a preservative but dark spots begin appearing on the paper within 24 hours IIRC. An exposed but undeveloped sheet will keep much longer. Once I made some kind of mistake during exposure but didn't throw the sheet away just left it laying face down on the Jobo for several months. Then out of curiosity I developed it and the image came out, not as good as the one I developed right after shooting - which is the reason why I didn't develop it in the first place - but I was surprised to see an image develop out. So I assume that you can keep an unexposed print in the dark for several days without too much negative effect.

Thomas

many thanks. So I will try that: coat the papers and expose it as soon as is dry, one at a time (I only have 1 contact frame), and later, maybe at night or next one, do the development of all the prints.

[tgtaylor]

Adding citric acid to the silver nitrate solution acts as a preservative but dark spots begin appearing on the paper within 24 hours IIRC.

With afterthought this may have happened with a salt print and not a kallitype. In any event once those dark stains appear they will not clear upon subsequent exposure and development. The exposed print developed months later was definitely a kallitype. According to Dick Stevens in his book https://www.amazon.com/Kallitype-Pro...s%2C215&sr=1-1 a commercially produced kallitype paper was sold for a brief time in the 1890's but was discontinued due to competition from the new silver gelatin paper. No details of the manufacturing process or its chemical make-up is given but it undoubtedly had reasonable shelf life for it to have hit the market. Research determining the manufacturing procedures used would prove to be beneficial to the modern practitioner.

Thomas