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Sepia Toner Questions

John Irvine

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Sep 23, 2007
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110
Location
Central Virg
Format
4x5 Format
1. What is the shelf life and capacity of the bleach and the toner? Since diluting my first batch (Kodak), I have toned pictures a month or more apart. Nothing seemed to be amiss. I saw no decrease in tone level over time. Then last night, bleaching looked normal but almost no tone developed, even after extended time in the toner. After a few months does the toner completely degrade? This was done in the dark with the safelights (see ? below)

2. The Kodak directions indicate you should use it in the dark using safelights. Since I cannot judge the bleaching very well with the safelights, I tried it once under room light. I could not tell that there was anything wrong.
 
You have to remember that before a print even hits the bleach the remaining unexposed halide has been removed in the fixer stage (provided your fixer is in good order). Pretty much regardless of what you do to the print/negative after that (provided you don't bleach and fix) your image is still there.
 
My experience is that the bleach has a longer working lifespan than the toner.
 

Yes, the toner does degrade, and does so faster if you do not wash the bleach from the print before redevelopment. I've had the redeveloper last for months. I don't know where you read that the process must be done under safelight conditions. From Kodak's document G-23:

"Note: The bleach bath (Solution A) converts metallic silver
in the print to light-sensitive silver bromide. You may want
to bleach the print under safelight illumination to minimize
the effect of light on the image. However, the effect is
extremely small, and may not be noticeable."​

In fact the effect must be very small because I've never noticed any problems at all. I would not recommend proceeding under extremely bright conditions, but normal room light is fine.
 
Although one thing I've always wondered about and have never found a complete answer on I'd fixer's ability to fix out partially or fully expose rehalogentated silver. Anyone have and words? Ron?
 
Toner is so cheap it doesn't pay to try to make it last, especially since paper is expensive and so is your time. Mix it up yourself. It takes only a minute to do.
 
Fixer's Reason for Being

clayne said:
...
...fix out partially or fully expose rehalogentated silver.
Anyone have and words? Ron?
Click to expand...

Fixer will "fix out" any of the halides of silver, exposed
or other wise. That goes for the chloride, bromide, or
iodide. The bleach referred to contains bromide but
if one Home Brews the other halides may be used.

For that matter any chemical which will produce
a non soluble image is a candidate for
conversion. Dan
 
Kodak likes to play it safe with the safe light suggestion, same thing that made them to discontinue Xtol in i liter packs.
 
clayne said:
Although one thing I've always wondered about and have never found a complete answer on I'd fixer's ability to fix out partially or fully expose rehalogentated silver. Anyone have and words? Ron?
Click to expand...


Problem is, some of the formed substance in a ferricyanide bleach ISN'T a silverhalogenide, but a complex of silver with ferri/ferrocyanide, which by itself is rather stable and almost colorless or light yellow. That substance has connections with the Prussian Blue pigment that forms cyanotypes, which is "ferric ferrocyanide".

Just do the test: fully bleach an image in ferrycyanide bleach and fix it. You probably will still see a faint yellow image, which is the non-fixed "silver ferri/ferrocyanide" complex.

Wilco Oelen wrote about this in this document, see the "Chemistry of the toner" section.

In addition, Wilco writes about the possibility of having a pure ferricyanide bleach, so without any additional halogenide (Br,I,Cl) added. According to the article, that will still bleach an image... Clearly, no silverhalogenide will be present in such a bleached image.

Marco
 

If this were the case one should be able to turn on the lights once the print's in the stop-bath, wouldn't you think? Universally I think we all agree this to be a bad idea - even turning on the lights right when it hits the fixer.
 
Case One - Case Two

clayne said:
If this were the case one should be able to turn on the
lights once the print's in the stop-bath, wouldn't you think?
Universally I think we all agree this to be a bad idea -
even turning on the lights right when it hits the fixer.
Click to expand...

With straight prints AFTER the stop may be OK if light levels
are low. The only danger remaining after development and
early on of lights is print out.

As is pointed out by Kodak a bleach + bromide treatment
leaves a silver image VERY much less sensitive to light.
Likely a bleach with no halogen present also leaves the
image VERY insensitive. So, bleach then lights on for
the halide or ??, then redevelop.

A recent post mentioned bleaching without
additive then redeveloping. Dan
 
Thanks for all the discussion. I understood some parts of it and not others. I've decided to bleach and tone using only the ceiling light on the other side of the darkroom and use the solutions until I am no longer getting acceptible results.
 
John Irvine said:
Thanks for all the discussion. I understood some parts of it and not others. I've decided to bleach and tone using only the ceiling light on the other side of the darkroom and use the solutions until I am no longer getting acceptable results.
Click to expand...

Of course, as with all solutions, your redeveloper will at some point become exhausted. However, in my experience with a non-Kodak bleach / redeveloper sepia toner combo, the redevelopers activity can be significantly extended by adding soda (sodium carbonate).

Redevelopment requires alkaline conditions, as it uses up the alkaline OH- anions. Adding soda will supply new OH- anions, allowing the redevelopment to go on.

I had an apparently "exhausted" sepia redeveloper go on for another 40-50 8x10 prints or so after adding some soda without any issues.
 
Hey, old fixer bottles often get coated with black silver on the inside walls. Is it possible to bleach the silver with potassium ferricyanide and then remove it with fixer?
 
That black coating I believe is silver sulfide. Perhaps
hydrogen peroxide will cut it. Not knowing the byproducts
of the combination I'd test outside. Dan
 
JPD said:
Hey, old fixer bottles often get coated with black silver on the inside walls. Is it possible to bleach the silver with potassium ferricyanide and then remove it with fixer?
Click to expand...

Yes it works but not always perfectly though.

A better bleach is Iodine/Potassium iodide, this was used in the graphics industry for cleanly bleaching to a white cakground with prints, the ferricyanide.bromide bleach tends to leave a trace of image,

Ian
 

Speaking of which - before dumping a tray of pot-ferri tonight I instead used it to clean up a developer tray. Useful before going down the drain.
 
clayne said:
Speaking of which - before dumping a tray of pot-ferri tonight I instead used it to clean up a developer tray. Useful before going down the drain.
Click to expand...

I've done that. As soon as the next batch of developer hits the tray, the stains are back. Follow up the bleach with some fixer and it's a little better, but why bother? Developer trays get stained. You can't stop it, and the stains do no harm.
 
- "Redevelopment requires alkaline conditions, as it uses up the alkaline OH- anions. Adding soda will supply new OH- anions, allowing the redevelopment to go on."

I haven't mixed up the new package yet and still have the old solution on hand. I'll give the carbonate a try.
 

Definitely worth a try. Soda is an accelerator for developers too.

In my experience with the premixed solution packages I bought, the sometimes supplied sodiumhydroxide accelerator/additive, which does the same thing, is quicker exhausted than the thiourea toner itself. Of course, that is only because the specific brand I bought is probably not completely balanced in the supplied ingredients, but adding soda helped me out at a point and day I wasn't capable of buying new toner.
 
20 grams of carbonate didn't accomplish anything. I tossed everything and made up fresh for tomorrow.
 
fschifano said:
I've done that. As soon as the next batch of developer hits the tray, the stains are back. Follow up the bleach with some fixer and it's a little better, but why bother? Developer trays get stained. You can't stop it, and the stains do no harm.
Click to expand...

I don't bother honestly. I could care less about the stains and have left dev trays uncleaned for weeks at a time. I just figured "why not?" rather than dumping the bleach down the drain after I was finished.
 
John Irvine said:
20 grams of carbonate didn't accomplish anything. I tossed everything and made up fresh for tomorrow.
Click to expand...

OK, well, in your case, the thiourea redeveloper was really exhausted than. Different from my situation, where the soda kept it going.

Of course, at some point, you will exhaust the thiourea, so adding soda is not a magical cure to used up thiourea...
 
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