Rollei vintage rc paper - selenium without visible effect?

hello there!

anybody has experienced this?
20 min - nothing (maybe slightly darker blacks)
30 min - no change of hue
60 min - same same...

rollei selenium toner, brandnew bottle.
1:20 in warm water (at least 23°C in the beginning, later about 20°C)

shouldnt there be a change of hue even if the paper is not reacting well?
its not fiber, but i still expected a little something..

nice day!
chris

I get very little change of tone with Ilford RC paper and more concentrated KRST.

Using the same KRST, I get more change of tone with Oriental Seagull RC paper.

It may be just the nature of the paper, or it may be the concentration of the toner.

MattKing said:

I get very little change of tone with Ilford RC paper and more concentrated KRST.

Using the same KRST, I get more change of tone with Oriental Seagull RC paper.

It may be just the nature of the paper, or it may be the concentration of the toner.

Click to expand...

yeah. i figure its the paper..
the deep blacks have increased a bit though, and the prints got a bit cooled down by the toning.

Hello Chris

As far as I know, Rollei papers are rebranded Foma, so your paper probably is Fomaspeed Variant paper. Back in 2009, I tried some Fomaspeed Variant 312 and I recall toning it in both selenium and sepia. This paper responded quite nicely in both toners, far better than the meh effect Ilford RC papers produced. I think I toned in selenium (KRST) 1+19 and got a nice chocolate brown tone. What might make a difference and you haven't told us is the developer you used. Back then I had some Agfa Neutol WA, a warm tone print developer.

Different papers tone differently in selenium and some not at all. I had a batch of Cachet paper (rebranded something) some years ago that would just not change tone, even with a very strong selenium toning solution and long times (overnight!). Great paper except for that it was way to blue for my tastes; I ended up giving it away after a couple of prints.

Anyway, you might try a stronger dilution (1+9 or even 1+4). Mix up a very small amount and dab it on a test strip or scrap print and see if there's a change. If so, you may just need to mix stronger.

FWIW, I keep a couple of gallons of working selenium toner on hand in different dilutions. I've come to learn which papers need the "strong" and which the "weak" solution.

Best,

Doremus

thanks for your replies.

i used rollei neutral developer rpn.
gonna try some strips with stronger solutions and report back..