The Toner Thread

Marco B · Sep 2, 2010

Ian Grant said:
The dichromate does add a stain to the gelatin which is proportional to the silver bleached, this is used in Chromium Intensifiers, the process can be repeated to build up that stain. Then the Pyrocatechin stain is added as well.

So the actual "color" of the gelatine is changed as well... sounds not entirely illogical, since if I remember it well, dichromate is also used to stain or change color of other organic materials as well. For example, make new fresh wood look like old wood in the antique restoration business...

Vlad Soare · Sep 2, 2010

What I'd like to find is a formula for a selenium toner without that nasty ammonia smell. Tim Rudman gives a few formulae in his book, but all of them are combinations of selenium and sulfides. While combined selenium+sulfur toners may be interesting in their own right, I'd also like to be able to make a pure selenium toner, without sulfides. And, if possible, without ammonium compounds, so it wouldn't stink.
He mentions odorless selenium toners, but gives no formula.

By the way, why do most commercial selenium toners contain thiosulfates? I thought selenium acts directly on the metallic silver and turns it into silver selenide. It shouldn't produce any silver halides. Why would you need a fixer?

Marco B · Sep 2, 2010

VladSoare said:
What I'd like to find is a formula for a selenium toner without that nasty ammonia smell. Tim Rudman gives a few formulae in his book, but all of them are combinations of selenium and sulfides. While combined selenium+sulfur toners may be interesting in their own right, I'd also like to be able to make a pure selenium toner, without sulfides. And, if possible, without ammonium compounds, so it wouldn't stink.
He mentions odorless selenium toners, but gives no formula.

I have no idea why selenium toners contain so much ammonia in the concentrates being sold in the first place, as in my experience, old selenium toner that gives of hardly any smell, keeps working perfectly... I keep my working solutions for very long periods and simply re-use it when needed, and add a bit of concentrate now and than while disposing of a similar amount in a separate bottle.

Also, in my experience, the ammonia smell is only pungent or problematic the first 3 or so times it is used. After that, it quickly abates to an almost indiscernible smell. Hence, I have no issues at all using my selenium toner in a small darkroom (I do have a bathroom ventilator installed for active ventilation, but that is all).

Mark Layne · Sep 2, 2010

fschifano said:
Ian, it looks like that toner formula give a considerable contrast boost. Very nice looking color shift. Now, where to get concentrated hydrochloric acid without raising too many eyebrows...

Many hardware stores sell 'Muriatic' acid for (I believe) cleaning stubborn drains.

Ray Rogers · Sep 2, 2010

VladSoare said:
By the way, why do most commercial selenium toners contain thiosulfates? I thought selenium acts directly on the metallic silver and turns it into silver selenide. It shouldn't produce any silver halides. Why would you need a fixer?

The main reason is to enable use of the toner as stock solution by simple dilution... without unwanted metal falling out of solution... it also promotes the toning process and protects the non image areas of the paper....

It is a commercial advantage thats all.

eclarke · Sep 2, 2010

Ian Grant said:
My favourite is Ilford IT-8

IT-8 Ilford Pyrocatechin Toner
For Olive Black tones.
Stock A
Potassium Bichromate 50 g
Water to 1 litre

Stock B
Hydrochloric Acid (conc) 100ml
Water to 1 litre

Expose and process your print as normal and wash well.
Make up bleach from: 2 parts A and 10 parts B with 40 parts water, bleach the print then wash until all the yellow from the bichromate has been removed from the highlights then redevelop in the following Developer.

Developer
Pyrocatechin 1.75 g
Sodium Carbonate (anhyd) 5 g
Water to 1 litre

Temperature is not critical, it should take 1½ to 2 mins at 20°C, this developer will oxide very quickly and should be discarded when it turns a bluish green.
Wash the print and dry.

While originally fomulated for Ilford Plastika paper I first used this about 30 years ago with Iford Multigrade paper and it does produce lovely warm olive tones.

Print - Forte Polywarmtone FB, Developed in ID-78, right half toned in IT-8

This was posted in the Chems section but seems to have been lost.

Ian

Ian,
Do you have any experience with this toner and the newer Oriental neutral paper? The stuff is pretty cold..Thanks..Evan Clarke

Vlad Soare · Sep 2, 2010

Tim Rudman gives a few formulae in his book, but all of them are combinations of selenium and sulfides.

I was wrong here. I've looked more carefully, and there's a formula called T-55, which has only selenium. It contains sodium sulfite, and I think I had mistakenly read "sulfide".
Does anyone know what the ammonium chloride does in this toner? What would happen if it were left out? Would the toner still work with just selenium powder and sodium sulfite?

eclarke · Sep 2, 2010

fschifano said:
Ian, it looks like that toner formula give a considerable contrast boost. Very nice looking color shift. Now, where to get concentrated hydrochloric acid without raising too many eyebrows...

I patronize a pharmacy here in Milwaukee who sells chemicals to medical and scientific labs and they stock all acids. They have never protested any of my acid purchases. Check the business pages where you live, plating suppliers may also be a source..Evan Clarke

Ian Grant · Sep 2, 2010

eclarke said:
Ian,
Do you have any experience with this toner and the newer Oriental neutral paper? The stuff is pretty cold..Thanks..Evan Clarke

It should work well with Ilford neutral paper

I used it first back in the late 70's with Multigrade RC first & then later Multigrade FB and it was excellent with neutral papers.

Not sure who's making the current Oriental paper, I only use Polywarmtone at the moment

Ian

eclarke · Sep 2, 2010

Ian Grant said:
It should work well with Ilford neutral paper

I used it first back in the late 70's with Multigrade RC first & then later Multigrade FB and it was excellent with neutral papers.

Not sure who's making the current Oriental paper, I only use Polywarmtone at the moment

Ian

The new Polywarmtone??!! I sort of lost track of that, or are you hitting the freezer??:confused:..Evan

Ian Grant · Sep 3, 2010

eclarke said:
The new Polywarmtone??!! I sort of lost track of that, or are you hitting the freezer??:confused:..Evan

Darkroom stocks. One advantage of living a few thousand miles from mydarkroom is it's harder to waste paper

Ian

nworth · Sep 8, 2010

I was looking through a bunch of old toner formulas when I came across this:

Gevaert G.420 hypo-sulfide toner
A direct toner for brown tones on papers. It has a slight bleaching effect on the print, so the original should be somewhat darker than desired.

Water (52C) 750 ml
Sodium sulfide 75 g
Sodium thiosulfate 500 g
WTM 1 l

Dilute 1:20 for use. Wash prints 5 minutes before treatment. Tone for 10 to 35 minutes depending on the paper and tone desired. Keep prints in motion during toning. After toning, wash and dry prints.

The stock solution keeps indefinitely. Discard the working bath after use.

It looks interesting, and quite simple. I don't have any sulfide at the moment, so I wasn't able to try it. If anyone wishes to try, I'd be interested in how it works.

michaelbsc · Sep 9, 2010

nworth said:
fschifano said:

Ian, it looks like that toner formula give a considerable contrast boost. Very nice looking color shift. Now, where to get concentrated hydrochloric acid without raising too many eyebrows...

Click to expand...

Muriatic acid is available in many hardware stores. It is used for cleaning concrete. It is approximately half strength hydrocholric acid, so use 200 ml. I haven't tried it, so this may or may not work.

The Muratic acid my local hardware store stocks is 31%. So clearly it is readily available, but there is no strict industry standard concentration.

I guess this means you just need to pay attention and do the math.

RalphLambrecht · Dec 5, 2014

Ian Grant said:
Other missing variables are development time and exposure, and also development temperature.

Ian

There is always a way to make things more complicatedthan neccessary

Sirius Glass · Dec 5, 2014

Moderators please make this thread a Sticky Thread.

pentaxuser · Dec 5, 2014

Sirius Glass said:
Moderators please make this thread a Sticky Thread.

+1.

pentaxuser

David A. Goldfarb · Dec 5, 2014

Stuck.

Sirius Glass · Dec 5, 2014

Thank you Dave Goldfarb. You have done everything important for this week. Take next week off and I will approve your time card.

Tom Taylor · May 9, 2015

Ian Grant said:
My favourite is Ilford IT-8

IT-8 Ilford Pyrocatechin Toner
For Olive Black tones.
Stock A
Potassium Bichromate 50 g
Water to 1 litre

Stock B
Hydrochloric Acid (conc) 100ml
Water to 1 litre

Expose and process your print as normal and wash well.
Make up bleach from: 2 parts A and 10 parts B with 40 parts water, bleach the print then wash until all the yellow from the bichromate has been removed from the highlights then redevelop in the following Developer.

Developer
Pyrocatechin 1.75 g
Sodium Carbonate (anhyd) 5 g
Water to 1 litre

Temperature is not critical, it should take 1½ to 2 mins at 20°C, this developer will oxide very quickly and should be discarded when it turns a bluish green.
Wash the print and dry.

While originally fomulated for Ilford Plastika paper I first used this about 30 years ago with Iford Multigrade paper and it does produce lovely warm olive tones.

Print - Forte Polywarmtone FB, Developed in ID-78, right half toned in IT-8

This was posted in the Chems section but seems to have been lost.

Ian

Hi Ian,

I'm interested in trying this formula. My question is:

It call for 100mL of concentrated Hydrochloric Acid. I goggled and concentrated is considered 38% and PF sells a 31% concentration. Do you think using 100mL of 31% will work or should I use some other volume?

Thanks,

Thomas

Tom Taylor · May 9, 2015

It's been years since I last took a chemistry course and my old textbooks are in the storage shed. However I think I discovered my answer:

38 divided by 31 times 100 = 122.58. If this is correct then I will need 123 mL of HCl.

Thomas

Ian Grant · May 11, 2015

Yes just increase the HCl.

I tend these days to use Pyrocat HD as the re-veloper @ 1+1 to 10, simply because it lasts a bit longer and I have it on my shelf anyway. You can also vary the bleach to getb more subtle changes in image colour, I've used a Permanganate bleach and also a standard Ferricyanide/Bromide bleac and a Ferricyanide/Chloride bleach would be a touch warmer.

With IT-8 the changes in image colour are from the intensifying effect & stain from the Dichromate bleach as well as the staining effect of the Pyrocatechin. It does have quite a noticeable intensifying action.

Ian

sfaber17 · May 24, 2015

nworth said:
I was looking through a bunch of old toner formulas when I came across this:

Gevaert G.420 hypo-sulfide toner
A direct toner for brown tones on papers. It has a slight bleaching effect on the print, so the original should be somewhat darker than desired.

Water (52C) 750 ml
Sodium sulfide 75 g
Sodium thiosulfate 500 g
WTM 1 l

Dilute 1:20 for use. Wash prints 5 minutes before treatment. Tone for 10 to 35 minutes depending on the paper and tone desired. Keep prints in motion during toning. After toning, wash and dry prints.

The stock solution keeps indefinitely. Discard the working bath after use.

It looks interesting, and quite simple. I don't have any sulfide at the moment, so I wasn't able to try it. If anyone wishes to try, I'd be interested in how it works.

This reminds me of the quick and dirty brown toner I tried a long time ago. It worked pretty well. I haven't found a reference to it yet. I think it was just adding hydrochloric acid to fixer. Maybe it forms the sulfide.

ColColt · Sep 2, 2015

All I've ever tried was Kodak's Selenium toner 1:9 followed by GP-1 Gold toner for ten minutes. It just barely changed the tone to a cool look but permanance was the main reason for it rather than a rash tone change.

the two basic ingredients were Gold Chloride and Sodium Thiocyanate.

*Gold Chloride(1% solution): 10ml
Sodium Thiocyanate: 15.2 ml
Water to make 1 liter

*1 gm of Gold Chloride in 100ml water

Bob Carnie · Sep 3, 2015

I would be interested in any thoughts, formula's on cold toners for the mid tone - shadow regions, post sepia and gold for the highlight regions.

fyi - I have been using Iron Blue with minimal success - when it works its beautiful, when it doesn't a lot of prints go to the bin. Hard to take after all the steps taken and the last one is the killer.

mcrouser · Nov 30, 2015

Brown Toner Problems!

Does anyone out there have trouble with Brown Toning since Ilford changed their FB paper? I have been toning for 20 years and have never had so many issues with blotchy areas, white borders picking up tone and also stains from the jets on my archival washer. It seems that if I siphon/tray wash, my white borders pick up tone, and if I use the archival washer I get the jet marks. There's plenty of salt in the water softener and my sediment filters are clean. This issue has repeated itself over and over. One printer has suggested that perhaps it's chlorine in the water, and recommends a charcoal filter. I have tried this yet, but I am about to. This problem has occurred with both Kodak and Legacy toner. Ilford has no suggestion, and swears no one else has had this problem. Any thoughts from anyone with direct experience in this would be most appreciated.

Thank you,
M. Crouser

The Toner Thread

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