sepia toning troubles !!!

[spoolman]

I just finished bleaching and toning 17 sheets of Ilford Multigrade IV 8x10 and I have found that even images on the same sheet of paper(I exposed the same image,same exposure,same development time and the rest of the processing cycle,including using Heico Perma wash wash aid and all temps were consistent and within product manufacturer recommendations, and I used Kodak sepia toner II.The degree of sepia tone is consistent for the majority of the sheets(approx. 12 of the 17 sheets processed) but the remaining sheets have at least one of the three images either darker or lighter overall.As well,little black specks appeared during the bleaching step but most disappeared in the wash between the bleach and the toner.

Any help on this problem wouild be greatly appreciated.

Doug

 

[Ian Grant]

Maybe your bleach was exhausting. While the Ferricyanide (bright yellow) might be fine the bromide might have become exhausted, ferricyanide will bleach on it's own but the toning is less effective.

Ian

 

[Solarize]

I am not familiar with the Kodak toner, but usually dilute the bleach far more than the manufacturers suggest. Over a longer bleach time I find the consistancy between prints to be much better. I would make fresh solution quite regularly, and replace it as the bleach appears to weaken. It is rare you will get the prints looking identical, but then that's the beauty of working in a darkroom.

 

[Anon Ymous]

I am not familiar with the Kodak toner, but usually dilute the bleach far more than the manufacturers suggest...

I've used the Kodak Sepia Toner, but not the second version. What I found interesting was that MGIV, both RC and FB, bleached slowly in the stock solution. Further dilution would probably make it even slower. Fomaspeed Variant and Fomabrom Variant were quite quicker.

Anyway, Doug, did you soak the prints before bleaching them?

 

[spoolman]

Just spoke to someone at kodak Rochester and found out that the sepia toner was at leats two to three YEARS past expiry date.The code on the bottom of the package was 0537A3.Which translates to 2005 37th week when it was manufactured.I told this to the local photo store near where I live and they said Kodak never topld them anything about an expiry date and they offered to refund my money.Also they had Ilford sepia toner and offered it to me free of charge!.Has anyone had any experience with Ilford Sepia toner.I coudl use some feedback on it.

Thanks,

Doug

 

[pnance]

Mixing it yourself is so easy, why mess with that stuff.

 

[pentaxuser]

This won't help unfortunately but I wasn't aware that Ilford did a sepia toner kit at all. It might be that your shop has the name mixed up with some other toning kit it stocks but if it has then it may indicate that it is unfamiliar with its stock and expiry dates etc as this would be two mistakes. Maybe I am just suspicious by nature but if it were a store in my town I'd begin to ask a lot of questions of it before buying.

If you haven't got it, you might want to consider getting Tim Rudman's " The Master Photographer's Toning Book" I have recently acquired it with a view to toning and it is the definitve guide.

Best of luck

pentaxuser

 

[spoolman]

Thanks all for your advice and insight.I finally found the Berg Rapid RC Sepia toning kit here in T.O. and I'll be giving it a whirl in the next couple of days.

Doug

 

[brian steinberger]

Mixing it yourself is so easy, why mess with that stuff.

Totally agree. Doug, if you're going to be doing a decent amount of sepia toning, I highly recommend mixing a thorea type (odorless) toner yourself. You only need 4 chemicals; potassium ferricyanide, potassium bromide, thiocarbamide, and sodium hydroxide. These chemicals are very affordable. Look at the Photographers Formulary.

 

[Colin Corneau]

Doug, it sounds like you have a store that really cares about customer service and the traditional film market. Hang on to that!
Could you let me know which store, as I'm looking for the Berg sepia toner also and would like to shop Canadian.

 

[Stefan Findel]

Have fun, spoolman. Sepia toning is not for the timid. I have been doing it for almost 20 yrs. and encountered MANY frustrating problems. They can be all overcome though, if you really want sepia prints. I mix my own bleach and toner, using filtered (Britta) water, always use fresh solutions, and get consisent results. Black spots seem to stem from impurities in water, could be in your wash water. Are you still getting those with the Berg toning kit?

 

[Bob-D659]

Colin, try Photocentral, Berg toners are on the darkroom central web site.

 

[yellowcat]

If Ilford ever made a sepia toner they don't make one now.
They do have recommendations on their website though:

http://www.ilfordphoto.com/aboutus/page.asp?n=130

 

[Ian Grant]

Iford always published their Toner formulae until more recent years, and at one time they sold the raw chemicals in packaging from 25g to 5/10kg, larger still for chemicals like Hypo, Sodium Carbonate, Silphite etc.

In practice a Sepia toners should have a very long shelf-life.

Ian

 

[Marco B]

Just spoke to someone at kodak Rochester and found out that the sepia toner was at leats two to three YEARS past expiry date.

I doubt if your issues have anything to do with the "expiration date" of the sepia toner. Like some others said, sepia toner can be kept long, even at working dilution. I have kept both stock and working solutions for very long times.

I've used the Kodak Sepia Toner, but not the second version. What I found interesting was that MGIV, both RC and FB, bleached slowly in the stock solution. Further dilution would probably make it even slower.

I thinks this is the culprit, as this is my experience too. Ilford MGIV (NOT the Warmtone variant), is somehow extremely resistant to bleaching in ferricyanide bleaches as used for two-bath sepia toners.

Of all the papers I have tried (Ilford MGIV RC FB / Ilford MGIV Warmtone RC FB, Agfa MCC, Kentmere Fineprint), Ilford MGIV was by far the slowest paper to bleach. Even with fresh, manufacturer recommended dilution, it might take 10 minutes for full bleaching. Compare that to maybe just 30 seconds for many of the other papers with fresh bleach

I am still intrigued as to why this is. How can a paper be so resistant compared to others? I have not yet read any good explanation of this. If anyone can shed light on the specific properties of MGIV that cause the resistance, I would be interested to hear...

In addition, the sepia tones of MGIV are very subdued. Even with full bleaching, the brown tones still look quite neutral. For more pronounced sepia tones, and better toning capabilities overall, you should use the Warmtone variant.

Lastly, I think the black specks may simply be residual image silver. Since the process of bleaching takes the image to several stages, it may "appear" that black specks are created, while they are actually small parts of the original unbleached image slightly more resistant to the bleach.