How do I get these tones??

Hi:

Please see attached image. It is from the Bergger web-site. I have always printed straight cold tones and I don't know how to get these tones. I have some negatives that need to be printed this way. Is it straight warmtone paper results or do I need to tone it?

Thanks for your help!

-R

The image shown is likely printed on warm tone paper developed in a slow working warm tone developer and subsequently toned in a direct sulfide toner like the recently discontinued Kodak Brown Toner.

One of the best and easiest to use warm tone paper developers is Ilford Warmtone paper developer. It requires about 2X the developing time of a cold tone developer and has high productivity.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/11402...per-1-liter-concentrate-to-make-10?cat_id=301

Direct sulfide toners, such as Agfa Viradon, Legacy Pro Brown Toner, or one of the three varieties of Moersch Polytoners can achieve similar results. Since these tone evenly, you can stop the toning at any point when the color is the way you want and start washing.

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/9744-Agfa-Viradon-Toner-4-oz.-125ml?cat_id=306

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/10197-LegacyPro-Brown-Toner-8-oz.?cat_id=306

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/36080-Moersch-MT4-Siena-Polysulfide-Toner-100-ml?cat_id=306

The Moersch site provides examples to show the range of possibilities with its toners.

http://www.moersch-photochemie.de/content/galerie/mt4

well they probably started with Bergger warm tone

I would almost expect there to have been selenium toning to achieve the color of the darker tones. This is usually done after sulfide toning. Some papers react more readily to the split toning than others. Most warmtone papers react very vividly.

Make a print that is about 1/4 stop overexposed, wash.
Bleach back until some of the highlights are paper white again, wash.
Re-develop in sulfide toner until you find the highlights to have color of your liking. Wash.
Use selenium toner to give the shadows more weight and oomph. This will likely warm your shadows up also, and possibly turn them a bit brown rather than pitch black. Wash.

The results can be staggering. Each washing step is important - chemicals from previous step must be washed out before you put them in the next bath.

I should also add that it looks as though they have added diffusion to this print. The picture is very small, but it looks very soft from what I can tell. Some diffusing material in front of the enlarging lens will do it. I use something as simple as parchment paper, and it works really well. Use it for a portion of the total exposure time for varying effect. Since the material is a tad bit opaque, your total exposure time will be slightly longer.

- Thomas

It's difficult to be categoric about how this was acheived because different papers, developers, toners and techniques can produce countlessly variable effects, to the extent that it is very difficult to even produce two prints which look identical following the same process. However, as others have said, this looks like a warm based paper sepia toned possibly split with selenium for the dark chocolaty shadows. Trying this with a different paper would take more experimentation, though Ilford Warmtone would be similar.

I would say Ilford Warmtone, light sepia tone, then selenium. This combo has given me these tones.

Not sure what about the tones you are asking, but in addition to the color issues answered in the above posts, and Thomas' comment about the softening (I agree). The image looks slightly over exposed on the print (or under exposed neg) which gives it the darker look, especially at the outer edges of the kids, merging with the background, combined with the diffusion, gives it a kind of gloomy feel.