Brown toner BLOOMS in HCA

[RalphLambrecht]

congratulations!

 

[tkamiya]

By the way, I finally got my chems, so I tested 10% Sodium Sulfite solution as a stop bath. It really works. In fact, I can overshoot by just a little and this solution seems to bring it back a little.

The action was immediate. BAM! I left it in there for 30 seconds just in case.

Interesting....

 

[Roger Cole]

If you are using it as the bottle says your toner is way, WAY too strong.

Following a suggestion from Drew Wiley here I started out using it at 1/4 strength. That's nice, but still too fast (he said he rarely tones more than 20 seconds with that strength.) I started mixing it 1/8th strength, 1/8 ounce to a quart of water. This was perfect for me. My typical toning times are about 45 seconds - 1 minute but I am NOT going for a "fully toned sepia like look." If I am, I'll go back to 1/4 strength and tone for about the same time.

Mix 1/8th strength. Tone for less time than you think you'll need, because you can't stop it suddenly. If you tone until it looks right, it will go farther but the time you wash. You can always tone more. With 1/8th strength tone for about 20-30 seconds, remove the print and IMMEDIATELY plop it into a large tray of water. DO NOT DRAIN. The toning goes fast enough that if you drain the print, you will get streaks.

Toning will still continue a while in the water bath, and a bit after that in a running water wash. Wash 2-5 minutes before HCA. If you like, you can let it dry to inspect the final tone including dry down, then either tone again or stop there and HCA+final wash.

Here's a print on Ilford MGWT developed in Ilford WT developer and toned 50 seconds in 1/8th strength brown toner:

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Dead Link Removed by Roger Cole, on Flickr

And here's a print on the same paper and developer, toned for 40 seconds in 1/4 strength toner:

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Dead Link Removed by Roger Cole, on Flickr

 

[Roger Cole]

Oops, scrolling back I see you already solved your problem two months ago. Sorry I missed that. Oh well, the above is my experience and shows my results so in time to come if someone searches on brown toner maybe they will benefit. Congrats.

 

[tkamiya]

Roger,

My understanding is that polysurfide toner SPEEDS UP at higher dilutions. Wouldn't diluting more like you do, actually speed up the process rather than slow down?

 

[Roger Cole]

Roger,

My understanding is that polysurfide toner SPEEDS UP at higher dilutions. Wouldn't diluting more like you do, actually speed up the process rather than slow down?

I never heard that before. It's certainly slower at 1/8th than it is at 1/4 strength. I haven't tried it stronger than 1/4 strength. I usually only have one to three prints to tone and the working strength doesn't keep well, so I don't want to mix it stronger than I need to. Maybe it works faster but doesn't tone as fully? The 1/4 strength toned image of my wife above is about as far as I ever want to go so I don't need anything stronger to get more color change.

 

[tkamiya]

You can read some people replying to this thread with this information. I've also seen when I tone with standard dilution and put the paper in water bath, it all the sudden picks up speed and go BOOM! _The_ toning book by Dr. Tim Rudman says the same thing in polysulfide section.

I prepare my solution exactly the way bottle says and my working solution keeps very well. At least 4 months.

I'm liking how this 10% Sodium Sulfite solution stops the action immediately. It gives me very good control.

 

[Roger Cole]

Whoa, chill friend. Yeah, I should have read the rest of the thread. Excuse me, I was coming back from a four day vacation with hundreds of new messages here, saw something I had experimented with and found a solution that works for me, read about a page, and skipped ahead.

Still, I don't need an $80 book to work out something useful with a single solution packaged toner. And while it may work faster when more dilute to a point, logic dictates there would have to be a limit to that, otherwise you could just put a drop in ten gallons of water and tone to completion in three seconds or something equally absurd. IOW, it may be faster when more dilute to a point. As I said, it's certainly slower at 1/8th than at 1/4 strength.

Bottom line for me is that I've worked out methods I'm happy with. This stuff isn't that cheap - not gold toner but $20 a bottle now too, making it more than $2 per quart of working solution. It's good that it keeps for months, but my dilutions are cheap enough I don't care. Mine "keeps" too in the sense it will still tone the next day or even a few days out, but it slows down drastically even a day later so it's hard to reproduce results unless fresh toner is used. I don't want to use four to eight times as much toner when the smaller amounts are working exactly the way I want. With my dilutions it certainly doesn't "boom" or, as far as I can tell, speed up in a water bath. It seems to slow way down, in fact, but does indeed continue to tone for a few minutes, and a bit more in a running water rinse. I have a good idea about how far to go, and have been washing for 5 minutes then checking the tone and deciding whether to tone again. I may try the sulfite (have a big jar of it handy already) and thank you for the tip, but I'll stick with my dilute toner. Of course I also strongly agree with you sticking to what you've worked out that works for you.

 

[tkamiya]

Did I offend you? It wasn't intentional. I apologize as apparently, it was taken in a manner I didn't intend.... I was merely pointing out that it was mentioned before and I read it also in a book many considers an authoritative source.

 

[Roger Cole]

Did I offend you? It wasn't intentional. I apologize as apparently, it was taken in a manner I didn't intend.... I was merely pointing out that it was mentioned before and I read it also in a book many considers an authoritative source.

Nah, didn't offend, I just thought you were annoyed. All good.