Toning assistance please - brown and selenium

I'm trying to get a certain effect and I have been struggling with it. I wonder if I can get some guidance.

The image is a beach scene. What I want is a nice deep black in shadow and warm brown/yellow on highlight. I'd assume one way to approach this is to deeply selenium tone to cover the shadow and establish black, then use brown or sepia to get the highlight.

My experience in selenium toning is limited to using highly dilute 1:40 toner for up to 5 minutes to increase DMAX and remove green tint. The paper I'm using is Ilford FB Warmtone.

What dilution and time does it take this first toning to a point where shadows are completely toned and leave off just the highlight unaffected? I do not want the color to shift to red or purple. I need black or if any change, very slight.

I'd also imagine, once black is established, I can tone the highlight in brown or sepia to taste - until it gets to light brown/yellow.

One way is just to sepia tone. Go very light in the Part A (bleach), rinse the print well and then go into the Part B. Blacks will not change color and the highlights will.

YMMD. And of course, this limits how much one can play around and vary the toning. How much the image is bleached would be the only variable you would have.

Vaughn

PS. Dilution and timing of the selenium toner would be a variable you would have to play with. It depends so much on paper, developer (and developing time) and fixer type (w/ or w/o hardener).

I can suggest using Ilford WT paper developed in Cooltone Developer for 2-3 minutes (if you have or can find any) followed by warm (25C) KRST at 1+4 for 15-30 seconds with constant agitation. Pull and rinse under cold running water just before you have the highlight color you want. Another cold developer w/restrainer may work for this, but I haven't had time to experiment.

Direct sulfide toning, like Agfa Viradon. No bleach at all, stop when the print looks right.

Shadows deepen considerably, and highlights lighten, so print darker and softer than you normally would.

Ole,

That's what I use right now. The only problem is, the shadow tones to dark brown. I do not want that. I want the shadow to be in gray/black while highlight to go to light brown - almost yellow like.

Hi tkamiya,

I'm not certain how strongly the MG FB Warmtone takes colour in selenium. One way to achieve split-toning is to use two-bath sepia toner first. Dilute the bleach to 1/10th of the recommended strength, immerse the print and pull it out when the highlights start bleaching. Wash off the bleach then tone the print in your chosen toner - a variable one might be the best way to get your warm brown-yellow tone. After sepia toning, wash the print and tone in selenium.

If you work it the other way around, selenium then sepia, you have to watch the print carefully in selenium as it changes rapidly, and with some papers the change isn't obvious. If the print tones completely without you noticing, the sepia toner won't work. Sepia toned prints will change colour in the selenium, so you might want to practice using test prints. I don't know about thiocabamide toners, but sulphide tones tend towards pink when put through selenium toners.

Ilford MGIV FB takes a very slight blueish tone in selenium, so if the Warmtone does go the unwanted plum-colour, MGIV might be worth trying. The downside is that with MGIV it's very difficult to spot the colour change, so sepia toning first is a bit easier.

Good luck,
cheers,
kevs

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