Blue Tone Blues

So I ran across something unique to me this past couple of weeks.

I am enthralled with the solarization process as some may know and I have been printing a slew of new images, where I flash the negative and flash the positive.
So I am at the printing stage and moving along quite nicely with about three full days of printing.

I decide to tone sepia, selenium and Iron Blue, which I have had much success before.

This time I decided I wanted more browns in the highlights which meant more bleach time then sepia.. So two days of toning bleach sepia ,, then adding selenium... So far so good.
Now I do my usually blue toner for two minutes and then wash out the yellow stain to completion, this takes a complete day to do.

Well to my surprise no visible change, prints look like the prints with only sepia and selenium..


No blue .... What happened... I know the answer but would like to hear some responses .. this is a quiz and the answer is obvious . Hint .. I did add blue and even if I try again it will not work.

I don't know the answer as I've never used blue, but I would love to see some pictures!

I would say that the blue toner does not react with the silver-selenium compound, which is chemically more stable than other silver compounds.

I much prefer multiple-guess quizzes.

As per usual, anything to do with toning whatsoever in any way shape or form the correct answer is

...Get out any of the books written by Dr.Tim Rudman, the correct answer will, invariably be in there

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :

Wild and fairly ignorant guess? The longer bleach time allowed so much sepia and selenium conversion that there were too few unconverted salts to react to the blue toner? (Dimly remembered from Rudman's toning book....best thing ever written on the subject. AND, if I'm wrong it's not his fault...I just didn't remember correctly.

The prize goes to Jovo

I let the bleach sink into the midtones rather than my usual highlight only for sepia.

Yellow and Blue are complementary colours and therefore have the effect of neutralizing each other so no effect is seen.

The order is critical beacuse once selenium toned it's harder to bleach the print for blue or any other toning.

I have done this but back in the late 1970's into the late 780's. My preferred blue toner was to use a dye coupler in a colour redeveloper, this was what the late Bob Carlos Clarke did for other colours as well, it's worth seeing his book Dark Summer. For some reason Tim Rudman didn't include Dye coupled toners in his books.

Ian

Here is a sample of the work.

I know I probably asked you this in the past Ian so be kind, could you elaborate on how one does this.. I have seen some samples of Bob Carlos Clarke did and they were striking.

In my case I think that I am going to bleach the prints , to raise the highlights, then fix and wash as normal , then try the tri tone, with solarization(sabatier) I think the highlights are too close to the midtones and I need to separate them a bit.. The whole process of flashing during development basically forces all the tones to go to the mid points and this is a problem separating colours out.

Would a postassium ferri dilution work well for this??

Ian Grant said:

The order is critical beacuse once selenium toned it's harder to bleach the print for blue or any other toning.

I have done this but back in the late 1970's into the late 780's. My preferred blue toner was to use a dye coupler in a colour redeveloper, this was what the late Bob Carlos Clarke did for other colours as well, it's worth seeing his book Dark Summer. For some reason Tim Rudman didn't include Dye coupled toners in his books.

Ian

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Toning using colour couplers requires a normal rehalogenating bleach - ferricyanide and bromide, then after washing redevelopment in a colour developer with the relevant coupler added, for blue it's αlpha-napthol.

You can either leave the coupler dye plus the silver image or bleach the silver. Bob Carlos Clarke used Tetenal's dye coupler kits but they are easy to make up from scratch.

Ian

Ok who here does this , I would like to try .

From what I gather from Ians reply
I bleach after my first two toning steps that are sepia then selenium.
after bleaching I wash for 10min??
then develop in Alpha- napthol- where do I get this stuff , how do I mix it and dilution. , how long do I develop, do I stop and fix? , or do I just wash after the blue.

Ian Grant said:

Toning using colour couplers requires a normal rehalogenating bleach - ferricyanide and bromide, then after washing redevelopment in a colour developer with the relevant coupler added, for blue it's αlpha-napthol.

You can either leave the coupler dye plus the silver image or bleach the silver. Bob Carlos Clarke used Tetenal's dye coupler kits but they are easy to make up from scratch.

Ian

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It's something quite different Bob, you'd need to experiment quite a bit first to see how best to use the technique. Alpa-napthol is quite easy to get from a chemical supplier.

Ian

So where do I get some info to lead me in the right direction? I have tons of failed prints to experiment with, more than I should ever admit too.

Ian Grant said:

It's something quite different Bob, you'd need to experiment quite a bit first to see how best to use the technique. Alpa-napthol is quite easy to get from a chemical supplier.

Ian

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Two things cross my mind.
you can't bleach after selenium
And in reflective colour ie a print, blue and yellow equals green.

Bob Carnie said:

So where do I get some info to lead me in the right direction? I have tons of failed prints to experiment with, more than I should ever admit too.

Click to expand...

I'll search, I know I posted the complete technique here on APUG but it may have been lost in a Forum upgrade. I've got the original 1930's article somewhere in a BJPA and it was republished in the 60's. Give me a day or so and I'll post it for you.

Ian

You are the best thanks Ian

Ian Grant said:

I'll search, I know I posted the complete technique here on APUG but it may have been lost in a Forum upgrade. I've got the original 1930's article somewhere in a BJPA and it was republished in the 60's. Give me a day or so and I'll post it for you.

Ian

Click to expand...

Ok so I am preparing for a show in Riverside CA this September, As well I am visiting Paris and London in September and want to bring a portfolio to show a few gallerys there.

My quest for quad tone is lets say it in Baseball Terms.. **I am in a slump coach**

so here is a few observations and I will show you where I want to get with the Jpegs attached.

Solarization Sabattier is basically a process that once you do it enough times you conclude that at the two ends there are not great highlights and great blacks.

I like this btw but since everything try's to go to the middle you end up with a masive amount of middle grey.

I am hoping to see warmth of sepia in the highlights, peach in the upper midtones, and the lower end exhibit blue green.

The first rule of photographic colour theory is that blue is complementary to Yellow , so immediately I am at odds.
So I am going to bleach the print and re fix to create an highlight region that is separate from the rest of the tones.
Here I am going to apply a second round of bleach sepia and put yellow only in the highlight region.

Then I am going to put the print in gold toner which I know creates a lovely peach colour in the upper midtones.

Now to the crunch.. if I selenium I get nice colour, but selenium really is a warm tone and not cool , but I want it because of my goals of permanence, Afterwords I would like to introduce blue into the low tones which gives a lovely separation from the warm highlights..

I have attained this a few times , and when it works its spectacular IMHO, I am using a Matt Ilford Paper which accepts the tone nicely.

So to get out of the slump, any one here see how I can split easily with toners, I am taking my Tim R and Eddie Ephrams books home to read again but any suggestions would be nice.

Bob, I have no problem creating split tones with just sepia then selenium on MGIV. Gold can be used as you say to warm up the sepia toned areas to a peachy color, but can be overdone in my opinion.

Have you thought about bleaching and re-developing in a re-developing toner such as Eddie mentions in his book "Creative Elements?" I do not have the book in front of me now but I believe the bleach contained 10% hydrochloric bleach and then he re-developed in a developer containing mostly metol. I will have to pull the formula up later. Its in the back of the book under re-developing toners or redevelopers. He claims it creates a bluer color on MGIV, which he says will go even cooler after selenium. This is something I want to try for sure just to achive a truely cold print tone. But I was thinking, after fixing and a wash, bleach and re-develop in this cold tone re-developer, then selenium first to cool your lower midtones and blacks even colder, and then sepia tone just the highlights for a hint of warmth. Just a thought.

As of now, I'm getting a nice split with sepia toning ever so slightly first then selenium toning for a short time which warms the sepia tones up a bit more and cools the shadows just a bit. But there's a chance that using Eddie's bleach and re-developer formula may create a split closer to what you're looking for. I try to stay away from toners and dyes, which are not archival.

I am interested in the indirect blue toner , Tim Rudman talks about in his book.

I would like to try it and will.

I am bleaching, fixing , washing to lift the highlights.

I am then bleaching softly to only attack the upper highlights an putting in sepia.. which should only affect the this region

I am then putting the print in a strong selenium for a short time to attach to the shadows and change the colour.

this is a rather nice look which I could live with but I am wanting to put blue in the mid tone areas.
I have made this work, many times , but the washing of the yellow from the blue toner is a real , pain in the ass.

I am seeing this indirect toner , as Tim says does not stain as much and his samples of the speedibrews store bought is pretty nice.

I rather mix my own , which he lists as the Sommerville indirect blue toner.


PHEW

ok here is the question

can I use indirect blue toner after I have set the tones for the highlights with sepia , and set the tones for the shadows with Selenium????