Best starting toner?

[Markok765]

I would like to start toning my prints, for archival and tone reasons.
what is the best toner?
I would like to try kodak sepia toner, or rapid selenium toner.
what are the keeping properties of these toners?

 

[Ryuji]

Try Kodak Rapid Selenium and Kodak Brown toners. Sepia isn't bad if you like lighter sepia tone--that's not my case and I dont like sepia. Kept in closed containers both KRST and KBT keep long. But I would say keeping property shouldn't be the first criterion for this. Go from the effect you want.

 

[Robert Hall]

For starters try a one part toner, like Kodak's brown toner. Once you get the hang of that try the bleach/redevelop sepia. Selenium is good as well but is thought to be a little more dangerous than others.

All need good ventilation and a good understanding of how to handle these chemicals in a safe manor.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

For archival properties, it seems that gold toner (the one with real metal gold, not the coloring ones that make it look gold-ish) is the only real game in town, i.e. the one on which the experts don't disagree.

With selenium, it seems there's a lot of controversy regarding archival properties; personally I don't care, and I use it rather to change the tone of FB prints.

Most FB paper have an olive-green cast (that I actually never noticed until I toned my prints...) that selenium will help neutralize. I dilute 1+19 KRST to work slowly and get the print where I want it to be. For a paper that tones well, I get a fairly neutral tone around 4-5 mins. If I go for full toning (8-10 mins), then I have a pleasing eggplant/brown tone that goes lovely with certain pictures.

Of course once you know what kind of tone you like, you can augment the dilution to work faster, but you may end up waste more toner if you don't do it enough.

Regarding safety, with selenium it's important that you have some good ventilation (an open window, a door). Buying nitrile gloves from the drugstore could be a good idea as well to protect your hands. It's not nitric acid, so you won't die if a drop falls on your hand, but you don't want to ingest some by accident from not washing your hands.

I could never get any tone change from an Ilford MGIV FB paper. More traditional (old-tech) brands like Foma, Forte, and by extension most of the Arista line, Bergger, are much more responsive to toning.

 

[rjas]

I'm no expert but I just started using selenium toner a few weeks ago. It's great to start with because you can use it for subtle effects of just deeper blacks and getting rid of the green cast a lot of papers have, to turning your print an entirely different colour, usually eggplant. I keep it in it's bottle up until I'm ready to use it, then pour it in it's tray. That keeps the smell down, and I find after a few sessions it's smell is just barely perceptible.

For some reason everyone talks about how dangerous selenium toner is, but as long as you don't drink it, I think you'll be fine. That goes for all darkroom chemicals right?

 

[jeroldharter]

I started with KRST. It is easy to mix, works at room temperature, good for cold tones.

For warm tones, I haven't found my stride yet. Kodak Brown Toner is very nice but has to be heated to work in a timely way (I don't want to sit for 20 minutes) and can fog paper/film so must be used outside of the darkroom which is very inconvenient for me. Same for sepia and thiocarbamide toners. Also, some of them sugeest additional steps after toning such as a hardening bath which is a nuisance. I just purchased some Fotospeed Variable Sepia Toner which sounds good for warm tones: room temp, no fogging, no hardener. It is expensive but less so than my time.

I bought some Nelson Gold Toner from PF. I did college chemistry experiments that were easier than mixing that and the final solution contains a precipitate, requires heating, etc.

 

[Bob F.]

It really depends if you have a colour in mind or just want to experiment. Sepia gives the biggest bang for your buck as the colour change can be subtle or extreme, depending on how long you keep it in the bleach and how strong you make the redeveloper; there are other tricks too. About half of my images in the Gallery have been sepia toned to some degree.

Variable sepia toners are thiocarbamide based. They do not smell of anything much. Old school sepia toners using sodium sulphide will stink the house out (it's the main ingredient of that perennial favourite of schoolboys everywhere: the stink bomb) so only use outside the house...

If cost is an issue, there are only four chemicals needed for a variable thiocarbamide based sepia: two for the bleach and two for the toner. All are readily available <insert obligatory suggestion to get Tim Rudman's Toning book here>...

Sepia, Selenium and Gold are all considered "archival" to the extent that you end up with a print that will last longer than an untoned silver print under the same conditions. How much longer, for a given amount of toning, is where things become moot....

Have fun, Bob.

 

[pentaxuser]

Jerold.Have a look at AndyK's Fotospeed Variable Toner shot of old bottles in the Critique Gallery to see what may be possible. I was sold when I saw it.

pentaxuser

 

[drpsilver]

11 Nov 2006

My recommendation is to start with selenium toner since it does not require a bleach/redevelop step. I usually mix KRST 1:10 and tone for 2:00. Be aware that in addition to increasing Dmax of the blacks in a print one may see color generation. Different papers and developers will give different colors. Just experiment.

I have been working with Ilford MGIV FB developed in Multigrade developer and have seen only an increase in Dmax, and no color generation.

Regards,
Darwin

 

[Jean Noire]

For archival properties, it seems that gold toner (the one with real metal gold, not the coloring ones that make it look gold-ish) is the only real game in town, i.e. the one on which the experts don't disagree.

With selenium, it seems there's a lot of controversy regarding archival properties; personally I don't care, and I use it rather to change the tone of FB prints.

Most FB paper have an olive-green cast (that I actually never noticed until I toned my prints...) that selenium will help neutralize. I dilute 1+19 KRST to work slowly and get the print where I want it to be. For a paper that tones well, I get a fairly neutral tone around 4-5 mins. If I go for full toning (8-10 mins), then I have a pleasing eggplant/brown tone that goes lovely with certain pictures.

Of course once you know what kind of tone you like, you can augment the dilution to work faster, but you may end up waste more toner if you don't do it enough.

Regarding safety, with selenium it's important that you have some good ventilation (an open window, a door). Buying nitrile gloves from the drugstore could be a good idea as well to protect your hands. It's not nitric acid, so you won't die if a drop falls on your hand, but you don't want to ingest some by accident from not washing your hands.

I could never get any tone change from an Ilford MGIV FB paper. More traditional (old-tech) brands like Foma, Forte, and by extension most of the Arista line, Bergger, are much more responsive to toning.

Hi Michel,
Would appreciate you help here.
You say that if you tone FB paper in selenium for long enough then you get the eggplant colour. I use quite strong selenium toner diluted with hypo clearing agent and chlorobromide paper to get this tone. Do you get your tone with bromide paper?
Best wishes
John

 

[Ole]

It seems to me that every paper reacts differently to selenium toner. Some of the papers I use don't change tone at all, some just "deepen" a little or a lot, while others go completely aubergine. That's with KRST diluted 1:5 with water.

A fun "toner starter kit" is the Colorvir Effects Kit - it lets you create any possible tone or combination of tones (and some impossible ones), or just a simple arcival toning. I dug mine out a few years ago after having stored it in a cardboard box for a decade or two. All the toners still worked!

 

[don sigl]

Toning involves a toner/paper relationship. Not all papers react to toners the same way. The Forte papers are highly reactive to toning, and are the papers I am most familar with. The preferred toner for me is Nelsons gold toner. This is the finest warm toner I have ever used. It is capable of rich brown tones which are generally deeper than what you can accomplish with sepia toners. The addition of the AuCl most likely contributes to the effect. Color is controlled by time. The longer in solution, the warmer the print gets. As I mentioned, the Forte papers are really responsive. On the other hand, I have not been able to generate warm tones on some of the Kentmere papers with this toner. The drawbacks of usering Nelsons include:
Kind of a pain to mix up. It involves a hot mix step and then a room temperature mixing step. Then you need to let it sit over night and filter the solution after the sediment has settled to the bottom. You also need to use the toner at 100F. All of these may be more hassle than many people wish to endure, but the results are quite impressive.

 

[Jean Noire]

On a slightly different note, I have some selenium toned prints that require spotting. The paper is Adox(Forte?) polywarmtone VC FB that has been toned to the eggplant colour. Can watercolour be used for spotting or is there some proprietory spotting agent that I should use?
Any advice welcome.

John