Sepia toner continues to "develop" during washing?

[cirwin2010]

This isn't a problem, more just a curiosity. Does anyone know why my sepia toned prints continue to change in colour during washing?

I use a home made sodium sulfide sepia toner for my prints. If I, for example, lightly bleach a print for 20 seconds, wash it, then tone it, I get a subtle colour change in the sulfide bath. The color change is immediate and I usually leave it in the bath for about 1-2 minutes.

Now when I wash it the print will continue to get warmer in colour over the course of 20-30 minutes while washing. This effect is more pronounced with warm tone papers and I have to account for this change by bleaching for less time.

Anyone know why this is happening? I feel confident that I am washing the bleach out for the paper before toning. Is the sulfide that remains in the paper directly toning the developed silver?

 

[koraks]

Anyone know why this is happening?

Probably because your wash water is so contaminated with sodium sulfide that it's effectively become a direct toner (sodium sulfide after all is a direct toner - albeit a slow one). This suggests that the first half hour of your wash isn't very effective. How do you wash these prints? Do you do a couple of rinses with a complete change of water in the first 5-10 minutes? That would be my approach to it. Then afterwards you can move to a trickle wash with a slow replacement as offered by e.g. a print washer.

 

[cirwin2010]

Probably because your wash water is so contaminated with sodium sulfide that it's effectively become a direct toner (sodium sulfide after all is a direct toner - albeit a slow one). This suggests that the first half hour of your wash isn't very effective. How do you wash these prints? Do you do a couple of rinses with a complete change of water in the first 5-10 minutes? That would be my approach to it. Then afterwards you can move to a trickle wash with a slow replacement as offered by e.g. a print washer.

My wash process after Speia toning is as follows:

Immediately place the print in a tray of water and wash with my hose on near full blast. During this I dump the water out of the tray every time it fills up. I will slosh the print in the tray to make sure that both the top and bottom of the print get even washing. I will do this for several minutes before moving the print to my wash bin where I make sure my water is flowing at a nice steady rate. More than a trickle but not full blast.

 

[koraks]

In that case I can't really explain how your prints continue to tone, especially not visibly so, as there will be not nearly enough sulfide for direct toning. Especially in the first few minutes of washing the vast majority of sulfide will have disappeared. Moreover, all bleached silver halides will have been virtually instantly converted to silver sulfide in the actual toning step.

Have you tried to objectively establish the degree of toning that happens during the wash? You could try with a test print that you cut in strips after toning, dry one strip after a brief wash, another after 5 min washing and so on. By the end, once everything is dry, put them side by side and see what differences there are. Would this be feasible?

 

[cirwin2010]

In that case I can't really explain how your prints continue to tone, especially not visibly so, as there will be not nearly enough sulfide for direct toning. Especially in the first few minutes of washing the vast majority of sulfide will have disappeared. Moreover, all bleached silver halides will have been virtually instantly converted to silver sulfide in the actual toning step.

Have you tried to objectively establish the degree of toning that happens during the wash? You could try with a test print that you cut in strips after toning, dry one strip after a brief wash, another after 5 min washing and so on. By the end, once everything is dry, put them side by side and see what differences there are. Would this be feasible?

I don't think that would be feasible. It's not the wash that is contributing to additional toning. If I remove a test strip after a brief wash and hang it up to dry, it will still change colour over time. Wash or no wash, the prints will change colour.

 

[koraks]

If I remove a test strip after a brief wash and hang it up to dry, it will still change colour over time.

Yeah, but that's just dry-down. It's normal. if that's what you're seeing, then sure, there's always a difference.

A print will not sulfur tone very rapidly when it's dry. It takes weeks/years to do it. If you see prolonged toning, it must be occurring during a wet stage of the process.

I think it's crucial you systematically determine when and how much toning actually is happening.

 

[cirwin2010]

Yeah, but that's just dry-down. It's normal. if that's what you're seeing, then sure, there's always a difference.

A print will not sulfur tone very rapidly when it's dry. It takes weeks/years to do it. If you see prolonged toning, it must be occurring during a wet stage of the process.

I think it's crucial you systematically determine when and how much toning actually is happening.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It changes colour while it is drying. So still changing colour while wet/damp before it dries.

 

[koraks]

Does the same happen if you dry it quickly with a hairdryer?

 

[cirwin2010]

Does the same happen if you dry it quickly with a hairdryer?

Haven't tried that yet.

 

[Vaughn]

My guess is that since the paper and emulsion do not release introduced chemicals instantaneously, any chemicals still there when the toned print is put in the wash are still reacting with the silver in the emulsion.

Then you will have dry-down after that. Most toning I have done has always has undergone further toning one out of the toning bath. One always has to pull the print before one sees what one wants.

 

[koraks]

Haven't tried that yet.

OK, see how that goes, please. It's a puzzling issue; very interesting. I haven't come across this before!

 

[Anon Ymous]

AFAIK, a sulfite bath can be used as a stop bath for sepia toning.

 

[pentaxuser]

Just out of curiosity have you tried this with RC paper to see what happens in terms of changing colour while it is drying? This may prove nothing but certainly with a quick wipe with a print wiper and then placing on a upright drying frame or on a rack with ambient air being fanned across the prints my RC prints can be washed very quickly and then dried dry much more quickly than what I assume is FB if its a 30 minute wash

pentaxuser

 

[MattKing]

Your bleach is a re-halogenating bleach.
The bleaching step converts part of the developed image back into a silver halide.
Your toning bath partially develops that silver halide, but leaves some silver halide un-developed.
If you want to stop the image from changing after that, you need to use fixer to remove the remaining un-developed silver halide.
What you are seeing is similar to what you would see if you didn't properly fix the original print, and left some developer in the print while the developer slowly washed away. It is just more visible due to the colour imparted by the toner.

 

[koraks]

Your toning bath partially develops that silver halide, but leaves some silver halide un-developed.

That's possible, but in my experience, the redevelopment in any sepia toner is swift and complete. I'd be surprised if any developable silver halide is left after a few minutes of sodium sulfide toning - unless maybe the sulfide toner is very, very dilute. Also, print-out of silver halide is kind of slow and subtle especially in the first few hours; I'd be surprised it would be so prominent as to be easily noticeable.

Not saying you're wrong and it was also my first thought initially, but I rejected it because of the things mentioned above.

@cirwin2010 what's the formula of your sepia toning bath?

 

[john_s]

AFAIK, a sulfite bath can be used as a stop bath for sepia toning.

That was in the instructions for Agfa Viradon which was a direct brown toner, sulphide based (and incidentally formerly selenium based as well, until the accountants got to it).

I know the OP's process is not direct toning, but a similar effect seems to be happening.

With the two-bath process, should the print in the second bath be toned to "completion"? The degree of toning would then be determined by the degree of bleaching in the first bath, not by removing it from the second bath when the degree of toning was preferred.

 

[brian steinberger]

Shouldn’t the OP be using a hypo clearing agent after the sepia toner, after a brief rinse? That’s what I do.

I know with direct brown toners like Viradon the recommendation is to “stop” the toning with a strong hypo clearing bath. That’s what I’ve always done and never had any further toning in the wash which can happen with direct toners.

 

[koraks]

With the two-bath process, should the print in the second bath be toned to "completion"?

Yes; any undeveloped silver halide will print out eventually anyway, or couple with sulfur if any happens to be around. I.e. the print will darken. See also #14 and #15.

Shouldn’t the OP be using a hypo clearing agent after the sepia toner

That's a sulfite bath; see #12.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

AFAIK, a sulfite bath can be used as a stop bath for sepia toning.

According to AGFA, the VIRADON people, a 10% Sodium Sulphite mixture is useful for stopping the toning, see page 11.
PS: Viradon toning can be done indirectly too.