Polysulfide Toner & Ilford Multigrade FB

I am wondering what kind of results to expect with polysulfide toner & non-warmtone papers. I ran out of warmtone paper (& money) and would like to use up what I have left of my Ilford MG. I already purchased photoformulary's polysulfide toner & some sodium sulfite for stopping the action. I haven't tried it yet. I'm hoping for a dark chocolate brown.

Is it hoping for too much, or should I just get some more warmtone paper?

Polysulfide toner is pretty effective on most papers I've used it on, but the quality of the brown varies a lot. On Forte Polycontrast, the color shift was radical, almost all the way to orange if you let it go. In contrast, Arista something Graded paper (old Ilford stock) turned brown, but was somewhat muddier. I can't say anything better to you than the old maxim: Try it!

Tone is very much going to depend on a few variables. First, selection of paper developer and dilution of polysulfied, temp of polysulfied, etc. A combination of Kodak Sepia II toner and Selenium works well on MGIV for brown tones. The problem is that by the time you figure out what combinations of the above will yield the tones you want...you will probably be out of paper.

Varycon Paper (The most affordable Fiber Paper on the market) and Ilfords Warmtone Developer yields Forte PWT Browns with the same white base.

Regards,
John

I've been using the Ethol LPD, just to throw in another variable

In my hands Ilford MG IV is quite resistant to poysulphide toning. I used Ryuji's combined selenium and sulphide toning or first selenium and than Kodak brown toner. There are hue changes, but these are subtile. And Ryuji's combination toner gave stained border on MG paper.

Kodak brown toner (T-8) did gave a nice hue change on Ilford MG IV FB, much less so on older (no idea how old) Multigrade FB. Colour change towards brown/egg plant.

Best,

Cort

djkloss said:

I am wondering what kind of results to expect with polysulfide toner & non-warmtone papers. I ran out of warmtone paper (& money) and would like to use up what I have left of my Ilford MG. I already purchased photoformulary's polysulfide toner & some sodium sulfite for stopping the action. I haven't tried it yet. I'm hoping for a dark chocolate brown.

Is it hoping for too much, or should I just get some more warmtone paper?

Click to expand...

I have just run tests by contact printing a step tablet on different papers, developed in different developers and toned in different toners for various times. The findings are not yet fully analysed. I developed Ilford MGIV in DS-14 and Ansco 130 and toned the stripes in polysulfide toner prepared according to the IPI Silver Lock formula. My toning times at room temperature were 30s, 1,5 min, 4,5 min and 13,5 min. After that the toning was stopped in Na-sulfite bath.

The effect in the three first stipes was a slight increase in density (especially low midtones), maybe a minor increase in contrast and cooling in tone (if there was any greenish tone, it was gone). The longest toning time, 14,5 min resulted in hue shift towards cold brown in the lighter tones with no visible change in the dark tones. The result was the same with both developers.

Hope this helps,
Olli