Nice Look With Ilford Warmtone For Portraits

To all my printer friends , here is a little nugget I just discovered.

Ilford Warmtone is by and far my favorite paper. But I have never liked the paper toned with sepia.

I am working on a body of work for a show in Louisville and for the wicked skin tones, glowing silver I use IWT in Dectol 1 - 1:5
Split prints , choosing the first filter that gives glowing skin and then blast the 5.

So here is what I discovered for myself.

scratch sepia toner.

Part A - potassium ferri and potassium bromide 32 grams each plus 14 litres of water.

Part B - sodium sulfide and 8 litres of water.

now the trick.

5 seconds in part A and then get the stuff off by washing**just enough time to get the bleach on the silver then off**

10 seconds in Part b and then into the washer.


give it a try wonderful skin , beautiful blacks and slight warmth in the highlights.

Oh I am in Heaven.

Hey Bob, how much of the sodium sulfide are you using in part B?

Sorry I missed that 32grams

akaa said:

Hey Bob, how much of the sodium sulfide are you using in part B?

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I should add that I got this formula from Ian Grant, I never discovered this.

Just the 5 second in week bleach bit.

Thanks for the tip. Do you know if this is an archival, ie stable, process? Was wondering if the tones will change over time.

Jon

Absolutely, Tim Rudmans book on toning recommends a sepia and selenium tone for archival prints.
I am just backing off the length of time for bleach.... I use cold tone papers for this very purpose but IMO the Ilford Warmtone will
give me a better tonal range every day of the week.

Bob, Are you also selenium toning afterwards, and if so what dilution as a starting point would you suggest?

Looking forward to seeing your prints in Oct!

Bob Carnie said:

Absolutely, Tim Rudmans book on toning recommends a sepia and selenium tone for archival prints.
I am just backing off the length of time for bleach.... I use cold tone papers for this very purpose but IMO the Ilford Warmtone will
give me a better tonal range every day of the week.

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Hey Bob,

Again you're getting my interest with the color of B&W prints.

I spent plenty of time prepping my 2011 shows in various toning regimes, not sure I ever was able to repeat from one print to the next but I am interested in most anything you suggest with regard to printing.

I had been using Pot. Ferricyanide and KBR as the bleach but am using a Thiocarbide toner rather than the sulfide which can fog light sensitive materials.

Are you doing that step in an area where the fogging is not an issue?

Hope to see the prints in Louisville, Steve

Bob Carnie said:

Absolutely, Tim Rudmans book on toning recommends a sepia and selenium tone for archival prints.

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I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall the archival benefits only occur if the toning is to completion. I do short bleaching/toning, but I always refix afterward. Is that not necessary?

eddie said:

I don't have the book in front of me, but I seem to recall the archival benefits only occur if the toning is to completion. I do short bleaching/toning, but I always refix afterward. Is that not necessary?

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Only if it's just Selenium. You are taking a risk to ruin the print with your refix. And you waste a lot of water to do so.

On Bob's case this is the most archival. Sepia then selenium is hard to beat.

Bob Carnie said:

5 seconds in part A and then get the stuff off by washing**just enough time to get the bleach on the silver then off**

10 seconds in Part b and then into the washer.


give it a try wonderful skin , beautiful blacks and slight warmth in the highlights.

Oh I am in Heaven.

Click to expand...

Sweet! I've been doing just that with my own prints, but instead of a pure sulfide toner I've been using Moersch MT3, which is thiourea, with the pH adjusted to give a similar golden hue that something like Kodak sepia II does with very diluted bleach. I've scrapped the subsequent selenium bath, because I feel it's too much for my portraits. Same bleach.

Thanks for the excellent advice, Bob!

I know a scan may not quite match, but any way to see a sample?

What Thomas said...love the thiourea!

Just curious, but 10 seconds doesn't seem enough time to fully re-develop the print in solution B. Am I wrong?

SuzanneR said:

I know a scan may not quite match, but any way to see a sample?

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+1

Hi Suzanne, I was away for a few days so now I am back and I am attaching a jpeg.
I have tried to make it look like the fibre print, the dodge and burn is a bit flackey but you get the idea.
Just a slight hint of warmth on the body with the dark areas remaining somewhat nuetral.
I have been hoping to get this look for a long time, now if I could only get a cold tone for the shadows on this paper (IWT) then I would be a really happy camper.

Photographer is Russell Monk - he just won the PDF's faces competition for his series of local portraits of people he knows in his small town. San Miguel Mexico I believe. I am printing this show right now and 30 of these images will be on display at the Kentucky Bi Annual art festival at Pigment Gallery in the Mellwood Art Center Louisville Kentucky.. October 21-23 is when all the artists from Canada will invade Louisville, I have my mucklucks and snowballs on Ice already waiting for this event.

www.elevatorexhibitions.com for more basic details of the Canadian Invasion

www.russellmonk.com is his site, I have been printing for 15 years for Russell and I consider him one of Canada's top photographers, commercial and fine art. His work at the boat breaking yards in Bangladesh back in the 90's inspired Ed Burtynsky to shoot in the exact location three months later. In fact some of the same ships were featured.

Salgado did it before Monk and I am sure many many photographers have worked in the same location.
The print I made back then for this series was with Grade 5 filter only , paper masks to burn in the upper highlights , a very difficult assignment.
Prints were on cold tone paper and just selenium for archival attributes.
this print also should be at Louisville, probably not framed but just in a box to show some of his earlier work.

SuzanneR said:

I know a scan may not quite match, but any way to see a sample?

Click to expand...

Hi Bob - yes, this is turning into one of my favorite portrait papers too, although my own toning tweaks
tend to be a little different. Maybe we'll run into each other some day and can compare prints. I'm even
using this paper for contact printing 8x10's with marvelous results.

Where are you located Drew??
may be coming west before next spring.
If you are near Louisville , make sure you drop in .

DREW WILEY said:

Hi Bob - yes, this is turning into one of my favorite portrait papers too, although my own toning tweaks
tend to be a little different. Maybe we'll run into each other some day and can compare prints. I'm even
using this paper for contact printing 8x10's with marvelous results.

Click to expand...

Bob.... Great info, but have some questions. How does your sepia formula compare to the Kodak Sepia II kits ?? If I remember right, you used to use those when they were available? I still have some of the sepia II kits and actually dilute the Part A way more than the stock solution kodak recommends. Something like a 1:6 dilution versus stock solution because it virtually irradiates the paper of you keep it stock for their recommended time. Just wondering if your formula for Part A is the roughly the same strength as a STOCK Kodak part A? 5 seconds dunk and rinse sounds VERY short so I assume it must be stock solution strength?

Andy

Wow, thanks Bob, that print looks stunning.

Hi Andrew

When Kodak changed the bleach strength I was very pissed, really strong so I decided to switch to the above.
Proper mix is 32 grams to 8 litres, but I find this way to strong for Ilford warmtone so I added and extra 6 liters and did the 5 second thing. put the print in, count 5 steamboats once the whole print is covered with bleach, walk print over to large wash tray and hose down immediately.
I think that this mixture at 1:8 is much like the kodak stuff,
I haven't used the Kodak stuff for awhile now thanks to Ian Grant, I am getting my PHD in chemistry from him and I like the control.

The trick as I see it is to just hardly notice the tone when you dump it in the toner B solution.

Have any of you notice that the print seems to get more browner as it washes???
this has always really pissed me off and I have wasted lots of good prints trying to get a tone I like in the final print.


Bob

Andrew Moxom said:

Bob.... Great info, but have some questions. How does your sepia formula compare to the Kodak Sepia II kits ?? If I remember right, you used to use those when they were available? I still have some of the sepia II kits and actually dilute the Part A way more than the stock solution kodak recommends. Something like a 1:6 dilution versus stock solution because it virtually irradiates the paper of you keep it stock for their recommended time. Just wondering if your formula for Part A is the roughly the same strength as a STOCK Kodak part A? 5 seconds dunk and rinse sounds VERY short so I assume it must be stock solution strength?

Andy

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Bob - I'm across the Bay from SF. My house and studio will probably still be in disarray next spring due to
remodeling, but if you are in the area it might be beneficial to meet since we have so many things in common photographically. Me and one of my primary photo students have been trying to get together a
major exhibition gig in this area, or at least I'd like to have something like that up and running before I
retire from my day job. He has some significant real estate which might have options. Might be nice to meet him too if he's around. We both travel some.

Bob, I use WT exclusively and get a nice, slightly warm tone by developing in Ansco 130, replacing the bromide with 15cc 1% benzotriazole solution/liter, 1+3 @73 deg.F and selenium toning..no muss no fuss..Evan Clarke

How about using single solution brown toner? Could a short treatment get something similar?

I have the Arista sepia that matches the old Kodak but haven't mixed it up yet. Same with the replacement for brown toner. I like this result - for some images a yellower sepia works but not for nearly as many as this subtle touch.

I haven't experimented with this paper yet much less toned it but I have some and will be doing so this weekend.

Roger
I have never been big on those single brown toner, some of them really were problematic to work with, leaving a scum on the print surface that had to be washed a second time.
Also I am trying for a hint of tone.

Bob

Roger Cole said:

How about using single solution brown toner? Could a short treatment get something similar?

I have the Arista sepia that matches the old Kodak but haven't mixed it up yet. Same with the replacement for brown toner. I like this result - for some images a yellower sepia works but not for nearly as many as this subtle touch.

I haven't experimented with this paper yet much less toned it but I have some and will be doing so this weekend.

Click to expand...