Lightening dark tones after selenium toning

[norm123]

Hi
I have some prints who I want to selenium tone and bleach after. I did in the past with a beautiful result (brownish red)...I didn't take notes...I know, shame on me. This print was mostly darks tones. But, now I have a lot of light tones in my print and I want to preserve them like they are. Maybe I can use cotton balls, Q-tips and make a local bleach for darks tones...but is there a way, a process to bleach, after selenium tone, mid and dark tones whitout affecting the light ones? I use Ilford MGIV Classic FB paper.

Regards
Normand

 

[esearing]

Paper and developers choice may impact actual color.

Bleaching will affect the lighter tones first. Selenium will tend to darken dark tones until the color shift to brown occurs then is visually lighter due to color tone. It can go Magenta but a quick dip in dilute bleach shifts the tone to brown (sometimes).
Note if you lose some highlights after quick bleaching you can usually bring them back with standard paper developer in room light. The selenium areas will not be affected. Then fix and wash.
Presoak > Selenium > wash > quick bleach bath > wash > redeveloper > rinse > rapid fixer > rinse/wash > washaid > wash

Selenium + Thiourea toner is a lovely combination for overall Brown/sepia tone. Or bleach completely and tone in Thiourea with a higher concentration of Sodium Hydroxide (Part B) to Thiourea (Part A) .
Nelsons gold toner affects all tones fairly equally and can be from barely noticeable warmth to reddish brown based on time . must be used at 100+ degrees and is a bit costly.

To lighten just the dark tones if using Split Grade printing on Variable Contrast papers use a Filter #4 where you previously used #5.
Or you can create a contrast mask negative to reduce print density in the dark tones.

 

[Ian Grant]

I posted a thread about this a couple of weeks ago, I'd not allowed enough for dry down with MG Warmtone FB.

I bleached in a Ferricyanide/Bromide rehalogenating bleach washed well the redeveloped in half strength developer, I pulled the print before development was complete placed in stop bath,, then refixed. The two prints are now perfect, the highlights fully developed before shadows so I'd effectively regained shadow details.

Ian

 

[esearing]

Ian, are you saying with bleach and redevelopment you get full highlights before shadows fully develop? That has not been my experience as shadows usually come up first, but is something worth trying.
Or is it possible the diluted developer is giving a warmer tone and opening up your shadows slightly more?
Or possibly loss of some silver for the paper to use.

 

[M Carter]

Ian, are you saying with bleach and redevelopment you get full highlights before shadows fully develop? That has not been my experience as shadows usually come up first, but is something worth trying.
Or is it possible the diluted developer is giving a warmer tone and opening up your shadows slightly more?
Or possibly loss of some silver for the paper to use.

In my experience, weak paper developer can be pretty interesting, though it varies by paper. If you bleach for a more yellow variable sepia color and your highlights don't come back, you can save them with weak print developer - of course, the color will shift, but the print won't be a total loss.

 

[norm123]

Paper and developers choice may impact actual color.

Bleaching will affect the lighter tones first. Selenium will tend to darken dark tones until the color shift to brown occurs then is visually lighter due to color tone. It can go Magenta but a quick dip in dilute bleach shifts the tone to brown (sometimes).
Note if you lose some highlights after quick bleaching you can usually bring them back with standard paper developer in room light. The selenium areas will not be affected. Then fix and wash.
Presoak > Selenium > wash > quick bleach bath > wash > redeveloper > rinse > rapid fixer > rinse/wash > washaid > wash

Selenium + Thiourea toner is a lovely combination for overall Brown/sepia tone. Or bleach completely and tone in Thiourea with a higher concentration of Sodium Hydroxide (Part B) to Thiourea (Part A) .
Nelsons gold toner affects all tones fairly equally and can be from barely noticeable warmth to reddish brown based on time . must be used at 100+ degrees and is a bit costly.

To lighten just the dark tones if using Split Grade printing on Variable Contrast papers use a Filter #4 where you previously used #5.
Or you can create a contrast mask negative to reduce print density in the dark tones.

Thank you for the advices.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ian, are you saying with bleach and redevelopment you get full highlights before shadows fully develop? That has not been my experience as shadows usually come up first, but is something worth trying.
Or is it possible the diluted developer is giving a warmer tone and opening up your shadows slightly more?
Or possibly loss of some silver for the paper to use.

The more dilute than normal developer exhausts faster in the shadow areas so they develop more slowly, the same principle's used with water bath development where a partially developed print is taken from the developer and placed in a water bath.

Ian