Kodak selenium toner

Just got a bottle of it today. I haven't ever used it before and have now read about hypo clearing agent to remove the residue after but haven't got any. Is this totally necessary? I want my prints to go slightly browner perhaps but not purple, what dilution would you reccomend. I don't want a severe colour change.

Jarvman said:

Just got a bottle of it today. I haven't ever used it before and have now read about hypo clearing agent to remove the residue after but haven't got any. Is this totally necessary? I want my prints to go slightly browner perhaps but not purple, what dilution would you reccomend. I don't want a severe colour change.

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1:15 or 1:20 dilution is common for a subtle color change and increased Dmax. You can do w/o HCA.

Ah cheers, I see now reading the instructions that it's used in print preperation not after and they've been washed for long enough.

HCA is also used by many of us as a wash aid afterwards. I actually dilute the RST with HCA instead of plain water for use. I found it reduced that chance of staining (but a proper washing should do that, too.)

Final color of the print will depend on many factors...paper used, developer used, fixer used, and the dilution of RST as well as its temp and time. For example, if a hardening fix is used, the RST acts a little slower.

Some color change is possible after removing the print from the toner, as the toning continues a short while after removal from the toner. When I was using it with Portiga Rapid, the paper would go from the rich red-brown I wanted to a undesired reddish/purple if I over-toned. I followed an exact procedure (fix time/dilution/temp/time) to avoid this. With Ilford gallery, I could soak the print in the RST for an extended time with very little color change, but with an appearant contrast increase as the blacks got richer...keeping an exact time was much less important.

Vaughn

Hi

You may use sodium sulfite instead of Hypowash as an after bath. you also add some sodium metaborate or carbonate in the toner solution.
Dilution will depend on you paper ; if you use neutral tone paper you can use 1/9 dilution for a short time, but with war tone paper you' d better switch to an higher dilution 1/20 which will alllow you to control the timing.

I personally use a mix of Kodak selenium toner / viradon/ sodium metaborate which give a reallnoce tone to my warm or neutral tone paper.

Yes, there are people who mix HCA into the selenium toner. I'm not one of them. KRST is expensive to buy, but will last a long time if you don't alter it with anything other than water. Adding sodium sulfite to the toner makes it go bad quickly, and you wind up throwing what would otherwise be perfectly good toner down the drain. No thanks. I'm better served by making sure my prints have been thoroughly washed beforehand. I have a working jug of selenium toner for a long time. I filter out the sludge once in a while (usually when I can't bear to look at it any longer) and replenish when it begins to weaken.

Dilution?? Who knows what my jug is like at this point. It started out at 1+20. Color change? That depends mostly on the paper and the time. Since you do this by inspection under white light, the process is easy to control. Some papers, like Ilford's MGIV, don't change color at all; but their warmtone papers change dramatically. I have some Forte Polywarmtone that will go red if I leave it in the toner long enough.

I strongly second the above post.

It is false economy to mix HCA with selenium toner since it exhausts much, much faster than the toner.

It is also uneconomical and environmentally irresponsible to dump selenium toner at all. Do what many other of us do: Keep a jug or two of toner in working strength and never toss it. I replenish by adding a few splashes of concentrate from the bottle when toning times become to long.

Filter out the inevitable sludge that forms with coffee filters or paper towels in a funnel.

I have two jugs, one "strong" (probably about 1:9) and one "weak" (likely 1:20 or thereabouts). As Frank mentioned above, the type of paper and the way it was developed, as well as the desired tone, determine the toning times. Most of us tone by inspection, and pull the print when the proper tone change has been reached.

My work flow is as follows:

I usually give prints only the first fix when printing. I then wash and dry them and save them for a toning session later.

My toning set-up consists of a water soak tray, the second fix. the toner, a tray of wash aid (I mix my own) and a water holding tray followed by a stint in the archival washer

1. Prints are soaked for five minutes minimum (usually a stack of 12 goes in at once, i.e. one washer load).

2. Fix 2 for the proper time (depending on fixer and strength).


3. Transfer a print from the directly from the second fix to the toning tray (NO rinse between if you want to avoid mottling or spots). Tone until the desired tone is reached. Normally, I have a duplicate print sitting in the soaking tray for comparison.

4. When toning is complete, transfer the print, without rinse, to the wash-aid tray. I have lengthened the time prints stay in the wash aid to 10 minutes after reading and studying information from Kodak and Ilford (this is more than the Kodak recommended time).

5. Transfer the print to the water holding tray. When all 12 are there, I load them into the washer and start over. Usually, but the time I have toned another batch, the first batch is ready to come out of the washer.

This can be speeded up by having prints in different trays simultaneously. For example, if the toning time for a particular print is 5 minutes, and I have a number of them, I will transfer another to the fix at three minutes (2 minutes is my fixing time for the second bath). Often I have prints in the fix, toner and wash aid at the same time. One can also do prints in batches. For me, interleaving three or four big prints with gloves on is enough. (BTW, do wear gloves or use tongs with the selenium toner. The risks are minimal without, but better safe than sorry...)

Hope this helps some,

Best

Doremus Scudder

www.DoremusScudder.com

There are many ways to do it. I will usually wash an untoned print to completion and let it dry before I tone it, if I want a healthy change in color. That way I know what the true starting point is, and exactly what effect the toner is having. I definitely do not mix it with HCA, because it lasts for a VERY long time if you don't, and it is expensive at $20/L. If you know you will be toning EVERYTHING at a high dilution (directions are on the bottle) just to make it more archival, not necessarily to change the tone, then you might as well tone before you do a complete wash. When I am doing this "blanket" Selenium toning, at high dilutions like 1:30, or higher depending on the paper, I fix #1, rinse 5 min., fix #2, rinse 5 min., tone, rinse 5 min., HCA, rinse 5 min, then start timed wash. Now, the order of the toner and the HCA might be wrong (you will have to ask someone more knowledgeable on the chemistry of it), and all those 5 min. rises might not be necessary, but I have not encountered any problems.

The color will depend mostly on the paper, and also on the dilution. Warmtoned papers are usually changed more in tone, and become various tones of brick/purple.

It is one of the two main darkroom chemicals that is hazardous, and illegal to dump down the drain, according to Kodak (the other being fixer). Drop the spent toner off at a hazmat collection site. The fixer can be dumped legally after filtering with steel wool.

nze said:

Hi


...I personally use a mix of Kodak selenium toner / viradon/ sodium metaborate which give a reallnoce tone to my warm or neutral tone paper.

Click to expand...

Interesting! I've never mixed the toners but toned in more than one, separately. I would assume the dilution for viradon would be much greater than for the others.

You make me want to experiment - with neutral tone papers, especially. Thanks.

My current mix is Selenium 1+20 (1 liter) in which I add 3ml of viradon, and a spoon of metaborate.
First part of the toning just increase the contrast as will do selenium toning and then it changes in tone.

nze said:

My current mix is Selenium 1+20 (1 liter) in which I add 3ml of viradon, and a spoon of metaborate.
First part of the toning just increase the contrast as will do selenium toning and then it changes in tone.

Click to expand...

nze, thanks for some guidelines.
Paul

Second fix? :confused:

Jarvman said:

Second fix? :confused:

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Archival processing calls for two fixing baths intead of just one -- same amount of fixing time, just divided into two fixing baths. The idea is most of the work is done in the first fixing bath, and the second one gets rid of any silver still hanging out in the print. When one exhausts the first fixing bath, the second fixing bath becomes the first, and you set out a new second fixing bath.

Vaughn

PS...you'll find quite a variety of methods. Pick the one that works best for you!

Oh shit, well i've already fixed these for 5 mins and i've just mixed up a new full strength batch of fix to do em again for a further 5. Will this be any harm? maybe just give them a 1-2 minute dip in the second bath before toning? if I'm going to be allowing them to dry before toning surely my initial fix must be 5 mins to fix them properly yeah?

Too purple! I'm toning fotospeed lith prints and don't want them to loose their bleached bone colour. This was toning for 3 mins at 1:20. What would you suggest? 1:40 next time round?

when you double fix you give half time in the first fixer and half time in the second one. So if you're fixer timing is 5 minutes you should give 2.5 in one and 2.5 in 2. and at the next session you'll take 2 as first fixer and you make a frech second fixer.

For sure if 1:20 is to strong you may go for 1:40. dilute untill you can control the toning.

Cheers! But if I'm leaving the prints to dry before the toning sesh is 2.5 mins in the fix really sufficient? I'll be leaving them unproperly fixed for too long won't I?

Nah. It's really hard to over fix a print. Worst thing that happens is it might take a little longer to wash the print. I suppose if you left the print in the fixer for a few hours, that might be a problem. A few extra minutes means nothing. There is no need for you to refix the prints you've already made. Next time use the two fixing bath method if you like. I've never found it particularly useful myself. Heck, I've dug out some really old prints that I made as a teenager (40 years ago) and they look ok. They're not yellow nor are they faded. I was not particularly careful about much at the time either.

Fixer #1 and #2 at different times

As mentioned above, I routinely give only the first fix, wash and dry my prints and then give the second fix at a later date when toning.

I have kept prints for up to six months with the first fix only with no visible problems. That, however, is rare. Usually it is less than a month.

With two-bath fixing, most of the fixing is done in the first bath. This means that the prints coming out of the first fix are very close to completely fixed (if not completely). Therefore, there is very little contaminant in them to degrade the image, and it would probably take a very long time to do so.

To be on the safe side, I under-use my fixer intentionally, tossing the first fix at 10% or so under published capacity and usually give a bit more time in each bath than just 50% of the total fixing time (e.g. Ilford Hypam or Rapid Fix 1:9, for 2 minutes) as well as washing generously. This further ensures adequate fixing.

To answer the other question above: re-fixing in a second bath to ensure proper fixing, especially after washing will not overfix your prints, especially if using a standard sodium thiosulfate (non-rapid) fix or an alkaline fix. If you are using fiber-base paper and are not sure that they are adequately fixed, go ahead and fix them for 50% of the recommended total time in fresh fix. You can't hurt them, only help.

Although two-bath fixing is commonly only used for fiber-base paper, there is evidence that it helps film and RC paper as well. I now also use a two-bath fixing routing for processing sheet film (I never use RC paper). The extra tray is simply in the processing line and does not require any more time or fussing since I am shuffling the films continuously by hand anyway.

There is some interesting information by Dr. Michael J. Gudzinowicz in a document called "Post-Development Processing" regarding fixing methods somewhere on the web, linked to one of the photography forums (maybe even this one...). A google search should find it easily if you are interested.

One more thing, the rinses between the fixer, toner and wash-aid baths are not necessary, and can even lead to staining or mottling if the prints are not well washed before hand. Not using them saves a bit of time and also guards against staining "just in case."

Best,

Doremus Scudder

www.DoremusScudder.com

I am still a novice at toning and I very much appreciate the posts in this thread. The only thing I can add is that paper makes a huge difference. I am using Kodak selenium toner at 1:9 and it doesn't have much of an impact on Ilford MGIV (or at least, it is very very subtle). However, MGIV warmtone tones quite quickly and dramatically. I put prints in for 3-4 minutes and they are on the verge of becoming obviously purple.

1:40 is getting better. The colour change is a lot less noticeable than before. Where should I go from here though? 1:60? I read somewhere that the prints should be in at least 4 minutes. What are the advantages of prints toned in such weak toner over untoned prints? Supposedly the archival effects of it have been debated recently. I don't think I'm going to bother my 4 exhibition prints.

Vaughn said:

Archival processing calls for two fixing baths
intead of just one...

Vaughn

PS...you'll find quite a variety of methods.
Pick the one that works best for you!

Click to expand...

Apparently "Archival" fixing hinges on the silver load
of the fixer. Ilford no longer uses the word "Archival".
For greatest LE, their Optimum Permanence, they set
a maximum silver load of 0.5 grams per liter, film or
paper strength. Grant Haist of Kodak sets an
even lower limit.

Economy of usage is the reason for two baths. You've
pointed out that the second bath is very little loaded
with silver and can be used as first bath. The first fix
may be very loaded to commercial levels. IMO, the
the second fix must follow immediately if shorter
wash times and cleaner prints the goal.

Of the "variety of methods" I've chosen the very
dilute one-shot single fix. No second tray, fresh
fix each or a few prints at one time. No stop or
rinse twixt developer and fixer. Dan

Split 2-bath Fixing

Dan,

Just brainstorming a little here...

Since silver load, as you put it so succinctly, is what determines fixer exhaustion, it seems to me that washing between fixing would actually reduce the amount of silver taken up by the second fix.

My reasoning is this: a print coming out of bath 1 is partially fixed, but fixed to a very large degree, i.e. much more than 50%. With a fresh first fix, the print will be almost completely fixed, as the fix ages, this will change, but I imagine it still stays well above the 50% mark. This means that there is a lot of silver bound in water soluble compounds in the print emulsion. If the print is transferred directly to the second fix, some of this will diffuse into the solution. If, on the other hand, it is washed out first, the second fix will get none of the water-soluble silver compounds, and will, therefore, build up silver more slowly, and only from the conversion of non-soluble compounds left in the print (a very small amount if the first fix is fairly fresh). This should mean that the second fix would have an even greater life expectancy than if prints were transferred directly from bath one.

Yes, it does entail more washing. However, my work-flow is set up in two stages, printing and toning. During printing sessions, I concentrate on making rather large numbers of "keeper" prints. However, I often make several variants of one print and toss the ones that fail to please after living with them for a time. For example, I might make 7 or 8 of one print, and toss 2 or 3 of them before toning.

The "keepers" are then gathered until I have 40-80+ and then given the second fix and toning. Using a second fix in the first printing would be less economical than using the first fix to only about 80% of its capacity (what I do) since between the printing and toning steps, I often discard a significant number of prints. I do, however, end up washing all the prints twice, which doesn't hurt, but does cost me more water.

I have used the one-shot fix for film when I am developing small batches, especially when I'm developing in my apartment in Vienna and not in my Oregon darkroom. When I print, however, I run at least 50 11x14s through the fix in a session, and it would be too time-consuming to do one-shot.

Interested in your comments on the above,

Best,

Doremus Scudder

www.DoremusScudder.com

Dan,

It has been awhile since I have made silver gelatin prints...basically it has been about 16 years as I have been using alt processes since then. I made 16x20 prints from 4x5 negs in a community (university) darkroom (usually by myself since I would start printing late at night and print until daylight.) In a 10 to 12 hour printing session I would go thru about 10 sheets of paper (one negative). At first I used a single fix bath at normal dilution (Kodak Rapid Fix with half the recommended hardener), then eventually switched to a two bath fix, again at the same dilution w/ half the hardener. Generally out of the 10 sheet pack of Portriga Rapid 111 I would end up with 3 to 4 "final" prints. These would be completely fixed, washed and dried. I have not seen any change in the prints over these 16 to 30 years.

After several weeks I would take a couple of the final prints from several different negs and tone them...may be 12 to 15 prints. My toning method was as follows...

Soak the prints well while I am preparing the toning baths and set-up.
Prepare a 1:16 (one part KRST to 16 parts working strength HCA) toning bath at 120F -- the tray of toner would be kept in a water bath to maintain the 120F.
One print at a time would be put in the toning bath for 30 seconds, removed and allowed to drip for 15 seconds, then rinsed in running water and put in a tray of working strength HCA for 2 minutes. Then held in a tray of water. Once all prints were toned, all were washed for 40 minutes.

As long as I developed the same way (Dektol 1:3 for 3 minutes, fixed for 6 minutes with half the hardener) and toned as above, I could get exactly the color change I wanted in the Portriga Rapid paper -- going from the rather ugly green-brown of the untoned paper to a rich reddish brown...but without going into the purplish tones I also do not like for my images. Toning for an additional 15 seconds would get me into the purple.

I realize that this is not the way most people work (it was taught to me by Thomas Joshua Cooper back in 1980 or so). I also realize that I was adding selenium into the environment...and I am glad I do not use the stuff anymore. But I do wonder how much I was adding. I used 3 oz of KRST to tone 15 16x20 prints. I do not know how much selenium is in those 3 oz nor do I know how much of that amount gets tied up into the prints. The excess toner went down the drain.

Now, all our toners are saved and sent to a hazardous waste treatment company -- how they deal with it, I do not know...but California is fairly strict on such things now.

Vaughn

[QUOTES=Doremus Scudder;635050]
"Dan, Just brainstorming a little here...
Since silver load, as you put it so succinctly, is what determines
fixer exhaustion, it seems to me that washing between fixing would
actually reduce the amount of silver taken up by the second fix."

More issues than I can handle at one sitting. It is possible for
the fixer to exhaust prior to some silver load limit. A fixer has
two limits. One is the chemistry's capacity for complete
complexing of the silver. A second is the tolerable limit
of the medium being fixed.

Film has a very high tolerance for complexed silver. Ilford
mentions 8 to 10 grams per liter. For fixers used and reused
again and again I can imagine the fixer's chemical capacity
being exhausted prior to the silver load limit.

FB papers are another matter where for everyday work
Ilford has set a 2 gram limit; for greatest LE 0.5 grams. Of
course here as well the chemistry itself can exhaust prior
to any silver load limit.

A. Adams sent prints from an acid first fix to a hold then
to an alkaline sodium thiosulfate fix then without rinse into
a KRST-HCA solution.

With or without a hold or rinse twixt fixers the transferred
load is very little. On a technicality it could be argued that
a rinse twixt first and second does lead to a cleaner second
fix. If it a practice to make second fix first, a rinse twixt, I'd
think, the only reason for such a clean second fix. Dan