split / toning emulsion?

[kr236rk]

hi,

at what point would you add toner to a film development please?

think traditionally selenium had at one time been added to the development to back up emulsion (archiving) but is there any way to 'push' the toning to approach to 'split toning' emulsion please - perhaps by incorporating a bleaching stage?

many thanks

Ric (newb)

 

[dancqu]

... is there any way to 'push' the toning to approach to
'split toning' emulsion please - perhaps by incorporating
a bleaching stage? many thanks Ric (newb)

Off hand I'd say the toning of film would entail the
same procedures used in toning paper. Film or
paper the image is of silver. Dan

 

[Solarize]

hi,

at what point would you add toner to a film development please?

think traditionally selenium had at one time been added to the development to back up emulsion (archiving) but is there any way to 'push' the toning to approach to 'split toning' emulsion please - perhaps by incorporating a bleaching stage?

many thanks

Ric (newb)

Some people intensify thin negatives with Selenium toner, once the normal development, fixing and washing stages have been completed. If you are referring to the colour shift on prints achieved by split toning, this is carried out on the print itself, not the negative. Selenium toner is usually used on prints, to make them more archival. Using it in combination with bleach will intensify the colour effects it can produce.

Ciaran

 

[snallan]

HI Ric,

There are two main reasons for using toners on negatives. They are as a negative intensifier, or for archival protection (although B&W film positives could be toned for particular colour changes if they are being displayed by projection).

For archival protection, if you are going to use selenium toner, use a strong solution. The older archival sequences using dilute toner have been shown to be ineffective. As for when to tone, it can be done following the washing stage of development, or at any time later, as long as the negatives are given a good soak prior to toning.

As Dan says, film reacts in much the same way as paper, and toners which have a bleaching stage can be used successfully on film. Indeed, bleaching a negative with a ferri based bleach, and redevelopment using a 'brown' thiocarbamide toner can give a considerable contrast boost to a properly exposed, but underdeveloped negative.

When you talk about split-toning a negative, do you have a particular result in mind?

 

[kr236rk]

As Dan says, film reacts in much the same way as paper, and toners which have a bleaching stage can be used successfully on film. Indeed, bleaching a negative with a ferri based bleach, and redevelopment using a 'brown' thiocarbamide toner can give a considerable contrast boost to a properly exposed, but underdeveloped negative.

When you talk about split-toning a negative, do you have a particular result in mind?

thanks Dan, Solarize and Snallan,

wow, this sounds mind-bogglingly of interest - then presumably you can bleach-tone film positives as well as negatives? i'd like to shoot some Kodak Tri or Plus-X Super 8 film and part-tone it after development, just to see what would happen?

i have some (positive) Plus-X off-cuts from a project i can experiment on; i probably have some negative b/w ciné film as well (not inverted)

what would be the best kit/s to go for please - i understand ready-mixed chemistry is much safer than d.i.y with powders: really would like, if possible, to morph/split tones for black and white film: would this mean using at least two toners + the bleach?

many thanks

Ric

 

[snallan]

wow, this sounds mind-bogglingly of interest - then presumably you can bleach-tone film positives as well as negatives? i'd like to shoot some Kodak Tri or Plus-X Super 8 film and part-tone it after development, just to see what would happen?

Hi Ric,

As long as they are silver based positives, yes you can. Indeed if you are doing it for projection, you could also consider using the metal based toners like, iron-blue, copper (which can give a range of colours in the red, brown, purple range; depending upon emulsion and chemistry), various green and yellow toners.

This would definitely require some experimentation, as some of the toners can give weak colouration, which may not show when projected (yellow is a likely culprit for this). These toners are also not archival, and will be prone to bleaching if projected a lot. The archival toners - selenium, sepia, (poly-)sulphide, and gold will be more stable to projection.

BTW Gold toning can give nice blues on warmtone papers, it would be an interesting experiment to see what you could get from bleach/redevelopment and gold toning on film positives.

If you were going to split tone using a mixture of archival, and non-archival toners, use the archival ones first, but for a short time so thay just affect a controlled range of the image tone. Then use the non-archival toners.

I would recommend picking up a copy of Tim Rudmans book "The Master Photographer's Toning Book", as the possibilities are tremendous.

 

[kr236rk]

wow - thanks Steve! - you have given me more than enough food for thought for a summer project, if and when i manage to find a suitable location (landscape); plus, as i say, i do have a small stock of b/w splicings from other projects which i can use as control / for experimentation. will check out that book!

here is something i did in monochrome

the 'blue' comes from reversing the negative on my pc - i intend to start chemically reversing b/w film now that i have discovered a commercial multi-bath kit: the film is a 'fragment' because the Lomo developing tank broke in the middle of developing. the previous owner had snapped the central screw and glued it back together, i later realised - it was the repair which gave out, turning my neatly spiralled 40 feet of Single 8mm film into spaghetti chemical soup :-o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQrS8QNHD70

many thanks - this is a great forum!

R

 

[kr236rk]

postscript: FSA?

hi,

what about FSA please?

http://209.85.129.132/search?q=cach...A+Universal&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&ie=UTF-8

thanks

R

 

[snallan]

Hi Ric,

FSA is not really a toner as such, in that it does not change the silver to another compound, but is a bleach/redevelopment system. It causes a change in the colour of the print (or negative) by changing the physical state of the silver.

Redevelopment in FSA (formamidine sulfinic acid, or thiourea dioxide) results in physically smaller grains of silver, so the colour becomes warmer, and can range from pale mushroom tones, through browns to reds. Also, as the silver is chemically unchanged, it is still receptive to toning in any of the other toners, leading to further variation in colour. It is easy to make and use, but the developer/toner has a limited life; around 1 - 2 hours.

 

[kr236rk]

Hi Ric,

FSA is not really a toner as such, in that it does not change the silver to another compound, but is a bleach/redevelopment system. It causes a change in the colour of the print (or negative) by changing the physical state of the silver.

Redevelopment in FSA (formamidine sulfinic acid, or thiourea dioxide) results in physically smaller grains of silver, so the colour becomes warmer, and can range from pale mushroom tones, through browns to reds. Also, as the silver is chemically unchanged, it is still receptive to toning in any of the other toners, leading to further variation in colour. It is easy to make and use, but the developer/toner has a limited life; around 1 - 2 hours.

thanks Steve - think i might be trying to run before i can crawl (as usual) so will lay the FSA to one side for now: my local store (Silverprint) has no Speedibrew prus blue at the moment so this pretty much restricts me to their copper/chestnut for a metal-based toner, which i guess is cool

'Toning techniques for photographic prints' by Richard Newman also looks quite good?

will update

with thanks

R

 

[snallan]

Ah, you are in the UK. If you want a blue toner, you could see if they have the "Porcelain Blue" in stock. It isn't supposed to be quite as brash as the usual blue toners, and is also supposed to be more stable than prussian blue toners.

 

[formPhotography]

Ah, you are in the UK. If you want a blue toner, you could see if they have the "Porcelain Blue" in stock. It isn't supposed to be quite as brash as the usual blue toners, and is also supposed to be more stable than prussian blue toners.

I was able to buy some porcelain blue just a couple of weeks ago from Silverprint.

 

[kr236rk]

Originally Posted by snallan
Ah, you are in the UK. If you want a blue toner, you could see if they have the "Porcelain Blue" in stock. It isn't supposed to be quite as brash as the usual blue toners, and is also supposed to be more stable than prussian blue toners.

I was able to buy some porcelain blue just a couple of weeks ago from Silverprint.

thanks, it's just that Prus Blue was recommended under Chestnut as a good split toner?

http://www.silverprint.co.uk/ProductByGroup.asp?PrGrp=544