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Kala Namak Sepia Toner for Indirect Toning

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Raghu Kuvempunagar

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Raghu Kuvempunagar submitted a new resource:

Kala Namak Sepia Toner for Indirect Toning - Safer and simpler toner composition for toning of silver gelatin prints and slides


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Raghu Kuvempunagar

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mohmad khatab said:
What to do if Freecyanide Bleach is not available
Is there any other bleach that can do the same job?
Click to expand...

As you are mostly interested in toning B&W slides, you might want to use Kala Namak toner as the second developer. Please read the section titled How to use the toner as second developer in B&W reversal processing. Try it first with a test strip before you put a whole roll into the toner.

If you really want a substitute for Ferricyanide+Bromide bleach, you can check out this. I haven't used it myself and hence can't share my experiences with it.
 
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MattKing

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Thanks for posting this. I purchased a $1.99 bag with 100 ml of Black Salt yesterday from a local store - finely ground unfortunately - and already have bleach in hand.

My postcards for the next exchange await the experiment!
 
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Raghu Kuvempunagar

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MattKing said:
I purchased a $1.99 bag with 100 ml of Black Salt yesterday from a local store - finely ground unfortunately - and already have bleach in hand.

My postcards for the next exchange await the experiment!
Click to expand...

Fantastic! Please do share your results here when you have done the experiment.
 

pentaxuser

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I found it easily enough on the U.K. Amazon site. However the price varies so enormously from reasonably cheap to quite expensive if used as one shot. I am worried the cheaper salt may not contain the correct amount of sulfides Can I be sure that if it is coarse and labelled as black salt that it will contain the correct amount of sulfides? None of the packs state the sulfides content

Finally thiourea toners have the advantage of being safe for boxes of paper, is this toner as safe with (a) unexposed paper in a paper safe or (b) unexposed paper that is still in its black bag and box or (c) not safe in the same room as unexposed paper at all even if it is protected by a bag and box?

Thanks

pentaxuser
 

nmp

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I bought same as this just a couple days ago here in the US. Works fine. Pretty good price. £9.99 for 1 lb. I think they have a larger 1kg size that is even cheaper per gm.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pride-Indi...efix=pride+of+india+kala+namak,aps,124&sr=8-5

There is no correct amount of sulfides - amount is going to vary from brand to brand. You will have to experiment. I suggest you start at low concentrations - I found for salt prints, 0.5% was optimum for the stuff I was using. With this new variety, I suspect it might be different. 1 lb of the salt will go a long way at low enough concentrations.

Kala Namak does give some sulfurous smell if you take a whiff from close (no smell that can be sensed from the closed bottle.) Good thing is you can store the bottle in the Kitchen.

Happy experimenting!

:Niranjan.
 
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Raghu Kuvempunagar

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Hello @pentaxuser, price of Kala Namak does vary with brand and so does the Sulfide content. However, I don't think there is any correlation between price and Sulfide content. No need to go for higher priced brands thinking that they will have higher Sulfide content. I suggest you first try a reasonably priced brand like the one Niranjan suggested. Regarding Sulfide content, the scientific study I shared in OP shows that all the salts they analyzed had good amount of Sulfide though the exact amount varied from brand to brand. In your specific case, if you go with the brand Niranjan suggested, you should be fine as he has tested it.

Kala Namak is safe for humans and can be stored and mixed in the kitchen. In contrast Thiourea is not safe for humans and should be kept away from the reach of children. As far as fogging paper and film is concerned, Thiourea dust can do just that and hence mixing needs to be done in a well ventilated area away from the place where film and paper are stored. And that place is certainly not the kitchen. Whether Kala Namak will fog film and paper stored in safe box or black bag when in solution is something I don't know. Quite unlikely that the toner solution will fog when stored in stoppered bottle. Not so sure when it is in open tray. If you or someone is interested in finding out, they can do some controlled tests and share the findings with the rest of us. That way you can extend the knowledge about Kala Namak toner.
 
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pentaxuser

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Thanks Raghu and nmp for the replies There were a few Kala Namak salts even cheaper than that quoted by you nmp and I just wanted to be sure that there was no correlation between sulfides content and the salt's ability to tone.

pentaxuser
 
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