toning multigrade fb

[Blighty]

I'm going to selenium tone some prints made on Ilford multigrade FB (NOT the warmtone stuff). I don't expect I'll see a radical colour shift, but I want to know if I can expect (or not) a 'crisping' up of the image and an increase in Dmax as one would expect with their warmtone variant. Many thanks, BLIGHTY

 

[Bob Carnie]

Blighty

I don't think you will find a *crisping up* , an experienced user will be able to see the difference. I assume you are talking about a 1:20 dilution.
Its been my experience that toning with selenium depending upon dilution affects the darker areas of the print and I tend to do a bleach/sepia, selenium mix a lot when I want to affect the image colour and permance issues on the whole print.
You will see the affect faster with Ilford Warmtone

 

[Alex Hawley]

Ilford MG is known for being somewhat "hard" to tone. It doesn't shift very much at all, not like the majority of papers. You should see a subtle difference though.

 

[SamG]

I agree. I have not seen much color change with selenium toning of MG IV except when I tried a few years ago using a concentrated solution (1:3 or 4) and left it in the toner 15-20 min. There was some definite purple/blue shift but only slightly.
Sam

 

[SamG]

I wonder, what's your system for bleach/sepia and selenium?

Sam

 

[MurrayMinchin]

Hi Blighty,

For me, Multigrade IV FB starts to "eggplant" in the darker print values at 1:9 with Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner (KRST) for 3 minutes. KRST at 1:10 for 2 to 3 minutes works for me. There is a definite darkening of the darker tones. I would expect colour change would have alot to do with your choice of developer.

To be sure, make 2 max black patches & tone 1. Make 2 max white patches & tone 1. Compare. Try this at several dilutions. Take your test negative (the one that prints the easiest with the least work at normal contrast & development that has a full range of textured print values, and a black) and print off a bunch. Leave one untoned and try the rest at different dilutions and times.

Nobody but you will know what is right for your images.

Murray

 

[geraldatwork]

I use Kodak selenium toner at 1+15 for about 3-4 minutes. It definitely makes the blacks darker and very slightly almost un noticeable makes the overall print slightly cooler or less greenish. I can only see the change when I compare a toned print to an untoned one.