Dye based toners

DrPablo · Dec 26, 2006

Do dye-based toners have a reasonable long-term stability? This is as compared with chemical toners like ferric ammonium citrate or selenium. I've been thinking of a project requiring a red toner, but it seems like dye is my only option.

nworth · Dec 26, 2006

They should be fairly stable, but remember the warning that used to come on color film: "all dyes may change in time." You can expect fading and changes like older color prints. There are two kinds of dye based toners. One dyes the gelatin. It is similar to fabric dyes. The other is a color coupler-developer system that works like Kodachrome. It replaces (or augments) the silver image with a dye image. Most of these use older coupler technology that is not quite as stable as modern color materials.

Ian Grant · Dec 26, 2006

Depends what you mean by dye based toners.

Tetenal made a superb kit, I used it a few years ago. Essentially you bleach your B&W image then redevelop in C41 dev with a colour coupler attached, depending on which coulper or combination of couplers you use.

Back in the late 70's and early 80's I used this technique a lot, making up my own coupler solutions and C41 dev.

To see the superb results which can be obtained look at "Dark Summer" by the late Bob Carlos Clarke. The colour couplers are as stable as those used today in E6 & C41 prints.

Ian

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

DrPablo said:
Do dye-based toners have a reasonable long-term stability? This is as compared with chemical toners like ferric ammonium citrate or selenium. I've been thinking of a project requiring a red toner, but it seems like dye is my only option.

I have some based on old formulas the blue is the first to go than the red. However the green is still stable. Those prints are only nine years old and displayed under UV protective on my own wall at home!

Forgot to say that all the formulas are dated back to 1920 and around.
and the prints were black and white.

A friend of mine come by a package of Tetenal multitoner and made some prints so it’s too early to say anything about it. It was less than 3 years ago. One thing is sure that the prints got to be a little bit darker as usual because with redeveloping the prints thay appires to be slightly lighter afterwards.
Agfa's brown toner is good and it’s got high archival status as it had been use for a very long time! Like ages. But it smells like hell!

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

Archival status

I think if you guys are after archival status of toned prints (if you love toned prints in all colour or even multiple colour, I know that I do) than I believe you all gonna wind up with carbon or gum print sooner or lather. Its a two different style and print quality, all of those with exceptional archival print quality. This of course would be very good!
And there is something called for photogravure! Platinium could be some alternatives to toned archival images specially overprinted with gum and gold toned.

Robert Hall · Dec 26, 2006

How red is red?

Have you considered developers, lith processes, and copper toners?

The other thing to consider is how archival do they need to be?

Water color artists don't always concern themselves with such issues. Perhaps it might be best to simply create the work and let it stand for as long as it will.

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2006

Common water soluable couplers are not very stable.

It took many years of research to get the stability in Kodachrome film. Therefore, the dye toning using this process will not equal either Kodachrome or E6 or C41.

There are neutral dyes used in B&W films used for the C41 process that are rather stable and use technology similar to Kodachrome, E6 or C41. This is due, in part, to other chemistry incorporated with them.

All dyes will fade with time. This is due to their very nature. They absorb the energy of the light that strikes them, and reflect the light that they don't absorb. In an average subtractive process then, a given dye absorbs 1/3 of the energy supplied it by the light source, not counting UV or IR. An additive dye therefore absorbs 2/3 of that same energy.

PE

DrPablo · Dec 26, 2006

I'm comfortable (at least in theory if not in practice) with how to get warm tones, and things in the realm of brownish sepia and purplish selenium. But I want a strong, dark red, like somewhere between arterial blood and cabernet sauvignon.

I could print on matte paper and use oil paints to paint over it (like the Marshall oils, which seem great on matte and terrible on any kind of gloss).

I've just begun using the Berg Brilliant Blue toner, which as I understand it invovles the same chemical product as cyanotyping -- and should therefore be expected to last quite a long time. It would be great if I could find a red alternative.

Nick Zentena · Dec 26, 2006

I spent some time last year trying to source the dyes but gave up. Seemed they were all special order items that ended up with high costs attached. I've considered the Tetenal kits but last time I looked nobody carried it locally.

Could somebody explain the couplers needed?

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2006

Nick, here are 3.

Cyan - 2,4 dichloro napthol
Magenta - p-nitrophenyl acetonitrile
Yellow - acetyl 2,5 dichloroanilide

Dissolve any one at 1 g / 100 ml of solution and add to 1 liter of C41 developer. This should give a color image. In fact, if used on separation positives, and sandwiched together, you can make an ersatz Kodachrome.

The magenta and yellow in combination will make red, but the hue will vary depending on the ratio of the two couplers, as they don't react at the same rate.

These are not the best, they are most readily available and least expensive. The Kodachrome couplers are sold by Kodak, but cost an arm and a leg plus a few other body parts that come to mind.

PE

Paul Howell · Dec 26, 2006

Are any of these dyes related to the kodak dyes used in dye transfer?

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

Robert Hall said:
How red is red?

Have you considered developers, lith processes, and copper toners?

The other thing to consider is how archival do they need to be?

Water color artists don't always concern themselves with such issues. Perhaps it might be best to simply create the work and let it stand for as long as it will.

Yes you could think so too but it's more difficult when you selling print on exhibition to collectors or art lovers! I really don't like anyone coming back to me and tell me their print had been faded. In my home it doesn't matter but on somebody elses it does! Its feels like stealing something from them. Isn't it?

By the way watercolor artists don't have to bother as all their material are of highest quality. Its color pigments and acid free paper. Those pigments are approved by time it had been with us for quite long even do some pigments not that stable at all than others. Just go into one shop selling artist material and looked those tubes and on those you will find little stars! Five stars is the most stable and less is not that stable! Combination of those could increase the stability. Just think of oil paintings. It's the same pigment. It can be blended with oil water or gum carbon or you can use it as tempera blended with the egg white.

Now to answer how archival you should be is the question how long you want your art exist. 5, 10, 70 or maybe you will that photography you made in your lifetime should outlive you. It all deepens on how you thinking.

I know that if I made some 50 photographs under my lifetime which I really like than of course I would like see that those outlive me after Im gone. I mean images you take but how many of those are really good? Or lets just put in it this way how many of those you can say after five years that they are still good? Not many I tell you! Some of it you throw away already after the first print or you never even bother to do one.

And the red was a kind of what we call a Bartolozzi red. Its a kind of rich red tone.

Nowadays I'm not toning anything any longer! I develope to warm or cold tones and use some Kodak selenium for that deep blacks but not for toning! I do Gum printig and it comes in all types of tone color and so on.

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

DrPablo said:
I'm comfortable (at least in theory if not in practice) with how to get warm tones, and things in the realm of brownish sepia and purplish selenium. But I want a strong, dark red, like somewhere between arterial blood and cabernet sauvignon.

I could print on matte paper and use oil paints to paint over it (like the Marshall oils, which seem great on matte and terrible on any kind of gloss).

I've just begun using the Berg Brilliant Blue toner, which as I understand it invovles the same chemical product as cyanotyping -- and should therefore be expected to last quite a long time. It would be great if I could find a red alternative.

The cyanotype is also a very unstable process. It's fade and for time to time you got to put it into the closet. Now I believe that this is not a nature of creating art to have it in the closet is it?

Nick Zentena · Dec 26, 2006

Thanks. Now to ask the chemical suppliers how much -)

DrPablo · Dec 26, 2006

uraniumnitrate said:
The cyanotype is also a very unstable process. It's fade and for time to time you got to put it into the closet. Now I believe that this is not a nature of creating art to have it in the closet is it?

I thought there were some cyanotypes that are a century old that are still in good condition. I don't care if an archeologist 10,000 years from now digs up my photos, but it would be nice (if cared for) for them to last for a couple generations. They'll be kept out of direct sunlight anyway.

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2006

The dyes used in dye transfer are similar to those used in Ilfochrome. These are all azo dyes.

The dyes used in Kodachrome and the E6 and C41 processes are for the most part, azomethine dyes. The couplers that I posted will form azomethine dyes during development in a manner similar to that used in Kodachrome.

PE

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

DrPablo said:
I thought there were some cyanotypes that are a century old that are still in good condition. .

Sure, some but not many. There is a lot more gum, carbon or photogravure or platinium for that matter! I think there is even more Daguerreotype than cyanotypes.

uraniumnitrate · Dec 26, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
The dyes used in dye transfer are similar to those used in Ilfochrome. These are all azo dyes.

The dyes used in Kodachrome and the E6 and C41 processes are for the most part, azomethine dyes. The couplers that I posted will form azomethine dyes during development in a manner similar to that used in Kodachrome.

PE

Why Kodak stop the Kodachrome for?

Photo Engineer · Dec 26, 2006

uraniumnitrate said:
Why Kodak stop the Kodachrome for?

Sorry, but I don't understand this question at all.

PE

PHOTOTONE · Dec 26, 2006

uraniumnitrate said:
Why Kodak stop the Kodachrome for?

Kodachrome is still a current, available product, with processing available from one Kodak authorized lab in the USA. Kodak has not discontinued Kodachrome. They have closed all their own labs, though.

uraniumnitrate · Dec 27, 2006

PHOTOTONE said:
Kodachrome is still a current, available product, with processing available from one Kodak authorized lab in the USA. Kodak has not discontinued Kodachrome. They have closed all their own labs, though.

Aha! Because I can't even by the film any longer here. It's not available at all here!

uraniumnitrate · Dec 27, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
Sorry, but I don't understand this question at all.

PE

No wonder why?

The question come up because the film is not available here at all any longer! haven't seen it for years in any catalogs at all from firms selling films . Maybe because no lab take care of the film and it's complicated to get the film develope so they not import it any longer.

I'm going to check with Kodak here and see what they are going to say.

Paul Howell · Dec 27, 2006

I understood that dye transfer was very stable, how stable would a Azo dyed print be?

Photo Engineer · Dec 27, 2006

Both Dye Transfer and Cibachrome/Ilfochrome are among the most stable of all dye images. But these dyes like all dyes fade with time. It is inevitable.

Both Dye Transfer and Ilfochrome use azo dyes.

PE

Paul Howell · Dec 27, 2006

So a coupled dye is most stable and fade resistant, then perhaps an azo dyed print, followed by something like water color. Where do the commericaly avialable tints fall in the stablity range?

Dye based toners

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency