Variables for warmtone papers

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Dec 12, 2006

I've been reading up on FB warmtone papers and I'd like some help in figuring out a useful way of working with warmtone papers. The results I got from toning J&C Nuance in selenium are nice, but I'd like something less purple, and of course I want to use VC paper instead of graded.

I want to compare Forte Polywarmtone and Kentmere Fineprint VC Warmtone. I'm using a Zone VI VC head to print 35mm negs at 8x10, but I can also put back the condensers back in the enlarger.

I'm probably going to use this photo (there was a url link here which no longer exists) for my tests. It's a negative that is easy to print and I don't get tired of looking at it.

My goal is to get a good brown tone, not too purplish or red (so I guess it would have some green, in terms of color theory?). In terms of developers, I have Dektol on hand, and can get access to all Ilford or Kodak products (liquid and powder) at my local store. Anything else is mail order. I'd like to stick with stuff I have easy access to for now and mail order only if it's really worth it. I also have KRST, and I use Indicator Stop Bath, Ilford Hypam Rapid Fix and Edwal Hypo Eliminator.

So what variable should care about first? Light source? Developer? Toner? Temperatures? Time of exposure/dev? Wash time? Even stop bath? (I read about someone who could not get WT with Indicator...).

MMfoto · Dec 12, 2006

If brown tone is your first priority than developer would be my first priority after paper. I've used Polywarmtone with Dektol and with Zonal Pro HQ Warmtone. A lot of people talk about a greenish cast that can be neutralized to brown with selenium toning, but if you use Zonal Pro HQ you can achieve very "brown" results that are neither purple nor green nor red in cast, but BROWN. This paper can go quite red in selenium after a certain point, btw.

Paper, developer choice, choice of developer dilution/exposure (and possibly salting with exhausted developer), and then toning, is the order in which I would approach achieving your image color goals.

Will S · Dec 12, 2006

I get a very brownish print using Ilford Warmtone Developer with Ilford Warmtone FB. I'll post something as soon as it is dry and I can scan it. It's in the wash right now.

The biggest issue I have in terms of variables is the temperature of the developer in the tray. Need to get out the heating pad again. It likes it warm.

Good luck,

Will

JBrunner · Dec 13, 2006

I use Polywarmtone in 130, then tone to taste in KRST. It starts out very neutral to cool and warms through, after an extended time it starts to go red, but I usually pull it way before that.

Spun Aluminium Lamp is a good example of riding the cusp between brown and red.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ryuji · Dec 13, 2006

The first thing you should decide is whether you are going to tone the print or not. Prints made with warmtone paper and warmtone developers are beautiful but many toners make them very weak image. So, use warmtone developers ONLY IF you don't want to tone the image at all and live with the shortcomings on the inferior permanence.

Sulfur toning, such as polysulfide toning, can make beautiful brown images on warmtone paper. HOWEVER, if you want best results, you should use dilute Dektol (1+2) or other print developers that are good for this type of applications. I have a developer called DS-14 (published formula) which is optimized for best toning performance in polysulfide toners such as Kodak Brown Toner and Agfa Viradon. The product version, called Silvergrain Tektol Standard, inherits this property and also provides convenience of ready-to-use liquid concentrate.

Either way, I would not get into exotic developers. They are comparable to either of these developers at best, and they may only provide quirks. The variables worth playing with are the paper stock and the toner. In case of polysulfide toner, dilution and temperature changes the results a lot as well.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Dec 13, 2006

Hi guys, thanks for the answers! MMFoto: I don't have access to Zonal pro but I've heard lots of good things about it, so it might be on a future shopping list;

Will, I'd really like to see that picture when you can scan it. I think I still have some leftovers of Harman WT dev that I bought in August, but I was afraid it was exhausted.

JB, Ansco 130 seems like a very interesting developer in many situations, but I was wondering if you need a large format negative with these gorgeous tonalities to make a print that really takes advantage of it?

Ryuji, my toner choices for now are selenium, Brown, and Sepia. I guess my first question should have been: Should I even bother using Dektol or will it give too neutral an image, with or without toning?

Will S · Dec 13, 2006

Just posted it. Some wierd color artifacts at the top of her head and on her shoulder, but it is close. The actual print is more brownish than it shows on my monitor here. It lost a lot of color cast in conversion to "web format"

I don't see a greenish cast when I look at the print myself, but maybe the scanner does. So, I'm thinking a little selenium toning might not be bad for this combination just to get the green out.

Thanks,

Will

don sigl · Dec 13, 2006

Using Forte PWT, I use a Defender developer and Nelsons Gold Toner. The Nelsons is the key. It is by far the best brown toner I have found. The gold will enhance the blacks and the persulphate will create beautiful brown tones. Forte reacts extremely well in this toner and is very controllable as far as level of warmth. See my portfolio for examples.
I hear a lot of talk about sepia, selenium, etc., but none of them has the quality of nelsons. At least on the Forte papers. Admittedly, it is a bit of a pain to work with, but the results are superior.
The Forte papers are considerably enhanced with toning in Nelsons, unlike some of the statements made in this thread.

Will S · Dec 13, 2006

don sigl said:
The Forte papers are considerably enhanced with toning in Nelsons, unlike some of the statements made in this thread.

I think Ilford Warmtone FB tones well too. I know I've heard Les McClean say so, though I might be mistaken. Ilford RC papers do not tone well IMO.

Is that Nelson's the expensive gold toner that goes off after 5 minutes, or is it something else? I'm definitely interested in trying it, but the gold toner I normally use is scary expensive and doesn't last at all, so I don't use it all that much.

[Edit: I just checked photoformulary and see that it is not the same thing and that it lasts very well. Think I'll try it.]

Thanks,

Will

don sigl · Dec 13, 2006

The Ilford warm tone does not tone as well in Nelsons as the Forte. But then Forte papers are known for their toneability. Nelsons can be a bit quirky with some papers. Recently, I discovered the Arista warm tone advertised by Freestyle as repackaged Forte PWT, tones considerably differently. Unfortunately, it tends to go warm orange in Nelsons with prolonged toning, where the color goes a rich brown in Forte.
I mix my own, but I believe the formulary pack is simply a prepacked set of the needed chemistry. You will have to mix them together yourself. Mixing is somewhat elaborate. One part has to be mixed hot, another part needs to be mixed cold and they cannot be combined until they are both at room temperature. After combination, the solution usually has to sit overnight and then the clear liquid is decanted off the sediment.
The toner needs to be used hot (110-110F) and I have found that sediment is constantly a problem. I usually filter it prior to each use. The sediment does not do any harm, but it will begin to coat the print and hinder viewing. I continually wipe off the print during toning.
Nelsons will last for a long time. You will be able to do many prints with the initial solution. The times will slowly get longer and longer as the toner wears out. It can be revived to some extent by adding additional gold chloride. However, I have noticed that additional gold will return the pop to the dark tones, but will not do much to decrease the time it takes the image to go warm.
When a print is submerged in the toner, it will start to turn COOL initially, this is the gold taking affect. The whole image will gain a little more contrast and the blacks will get deeper. After about 3-8 minutes, the image will start to get brown. After about 20 minutes it will reach maximum toning. The image wil lcontinue to warm up in subsequent wash, refix, wash steps. So it is a good idea to test before you commit. Also, there is a little bit of bleaching associated with extended toning. I usually judge the required density of untoned prints while wet to get an idea on the final toned density. Nelsons will usually counteract print dry down.
If it starts taking longer than 20-25 minutes for a print to start warming up in the toner, the toner is reaching exhaustion.
All of this information can be applied to most fiber prints, with some variance. The information is based on experience mostly with Forte PWT

regards,

Will S · Dec 13, 2006

Don,

That is great information. Thank you very much! I have both the forte pw and the ilford so I'll have to do some tests. Do you use a coffee filter for filtering or just the grid in the bottom of the funnel? And is it bad to filter it too much?

Thanks,

Will

don sigl · Dec 13, 2006

Will:

You will need a box of coffee filters. Initiallly when you decant it, you will probably only need to filter the last bit. But after that, each time you plan to use it, it will take about 10 filter changes per gallon.
Note, that I have used it unfiltered and it seems to work fine. You just need to wash the sediment off the print (in hot water) during the toning process.

A few other details: I have noticed that the color of the tone is also affected by the vc filter combination used to make the print. I have noticed this with Forte. Its subtle, but is noticeable if you were to compare a print made with a one filter and a print made with four filter. This makes sense, since I notice a difference in print color with Forte as the print goes from soft to hard.

Let me know what you think of the toner. I have done minimal comparisons with other papers. So, I would be interested in your opinions comparing Forte and Ilford warm tone papers. I have tried nelsons with Kentmere fine art, and the toner had virtually no color affect. Only an increase in contrast (due to the AuCl).

Ryuji · Dec 13, 2006

As I said in my previous post, Dektol 1+2 is a good choice for prints to be toned. Use it if you tone the prints in any of your toners.

Jon Shiu · Dec 13, 2006

Hi, I like using both Forte and Ilford warmtone papers, but for a brown tone I use Ilford MG IV (neutral tone paper) in dektol 1:2 and then Kodak sepia toner or Fotospeed variable sepia toner.

Jon

AlanC · Dec 13, 2006

Hi Michel,
Developer choice is important. Ilford Warmtone fiber paper in Neutol WA comes out slightly warm, and warmer in Ilford Warmtone developer.
If you then selenium tone these prints you will notice bigger differences.
The Neutol WA print will go a cool purple and increase noticably in contrast.
The Ilford developer print will go a very attractive slightly cool brown.
I like both developers for untoned prints but if i'm going to selenium tone Ilford Warmtone prints then I would develop them in Ilford Warmtone developer for preference.
Maybe other developers will also do the trick. Developer choice is important.

Alan Clark

MMfoto · Dec 13, 2006

Ryuji said:
Prints made with warmtone paper and warmtone developers are beautiful but many toners make them very weak image. So, use warmtone developers ONLY IF you don't want to tone the image at all and live with the shortcomings on the inferior permanence.

Ryuji, what did you mean by "..but toners make them very weak image?"

Also, by "inferior permanance" I assume you mean the inferior permanance of any non toned images and not just warmtone developed ones?

MMfoto · Dec 13, 2006

Ryuji said:
I have a developer called DS-14 (published formula) which is optimized for best toning performance in polysulfide toners such as Kodak Brown Toner and Agfa Viradon. QUOTE]

What developer charactoristics make one developer better than another for a specific toner?

don sigl · Dec 13, 2006

Dektol is a good general developer, but I don't use it much anymore. When I started mixing my own chemistry, I found there were other formulas that produces tonal and color variationsthat were much different than dektol. Ansco 130, 135, and the old Defender portrait developers work very well with warm tone papers and in my opinion are capable of producing more subtle tonal separations than dektol.
I have never toned a warm tone paper that was develped in Dektol, but it is an interesting idea. I'm thinking possibly dektol would offset the tendency for some warm toners to bleach the image. If the argument is that it (dektol)produces a stronger black, then why not use an Amidol based developer. Might be worth a try. Its something I've been thinking about doing with a Forte PWT/Nelsons toner combination. Unfortunately, the last batch of amidol i ordered turned out to be bad (quite oxidized). I have an order on the way, so I'll probably give it a try just to compare.

Ryuji · Dec 13, 2006

When you have warm brown image obtained by warmtone paper and warmtone developer, and tone it in a toner, many toners will make the image weaker. A common symptom is loss of shadow density, loss of contrast, loss of highlight details, and disturbed tonality. It's best to begin with solid black to slightly warm image with full development.

A print developer that maximizes the surface area to volume ratio of the developed silver grains is best for toning applications. This not only increases the intereaction of the silver and the toning chemicals, but also helps to maintain good shadow density of the toned image. In terms of chemical composition, you must tweak rates of chemical and physical developments, among many other factors. Developing agents, sulfite, bromide, pH, other additives, etc. all affect this. It's also influenced by the emulsion and exposure.

Untoned silver image is more susceptible to oxidative degradation than sulfur-toned image, but untoned silver images vary a lot. Most camera nagative film images are much more robust than print images, and warmtone images are most susceptible to such degradation mechanism as a general rule. If anyone prefers to keep untoned image for aesthetic reasons, I recommend use of Fujifilm Ag Guard. The reason why I recommend this product and not others was already discussed many times, and we already saw irrational responses to my point; I don't feel like repeating it. You also find in-depth discussion of this product on my web site.

don sigl · Dec 13, 2006

So, the reasoning is that the dektol offers better density, thus compensating for the potential bleaching that can occur with some warm toners. however, Nelsons contains AuCl, and actually increases shadow density and contrast as the image tones. This can easily be witnessed. The first thing you will notice is a cooling of the image and an increase in midtone and shadow density. Continued toning will begin to warm the image tone. But the image shadow and mid tone density is maintained. Only after extended toning will there be any bleaching affect. And with Forte it is minimal. So I would not agree that dektol is universally a better developer to use for all warm toning. A toner like Nelson's Gold Toner compensates for the bleaching affect with AUCl, and offers a rich brown tone on some papers with increased shadow density and contrast. I've been using it for 100% of my presentation pieces for the last 11 years.
However, a comparison would be interesting to do. I already planned a test with Amidol, I suppose I can include dektol or d72 as well.

john_s · Dec 13, 2006

Ryuji said:
........... and warmtone images are most susceptible to such degradation mechanism as a general rule.....

From my personal experience, and based on a small sample, I have observed this. Although I have not used an "archival" washer for most of my printing over the last 40 years, I have prided myself on my processing, especially using fresh fixer. But I was recently surprised to hear from someone that some prints that I made for her had "silvered out" which I had not seen on prints before except very old ones (100 years+). The paper was Portriga Rapid which was quite warm toned (its natural tone: I did not do any toning after development).

The prints are not mounted. I was wondering if there is any process that might clear the silvering without otherwise affecting the prints.

Ryuji · Dec 14, 2006

don sigl said:
So, the reasoning is that the dektol offers better density, thus compensating for the potential bleaching that can occur with some warm toners.

I did not say that. I gave my reasoning based on the different shapes of the developed silver grains.

Ryuji · Dec 14, 2006

john_s said:
The prints are not mounted. I was wondering if there is any process that might clear the silvering without otherwise affecting the prints.

There were some cleaning solutions proposed in the past, but as far as I know, images treated with such solutions lead to another problems related to the treatment. Therefore, I don't think there is any recommended procedure for such treatment. Frankly, if that's your image, I think by far the best option is to reprint it from the negative, and this time make sure to treat the image with polysulfide toner or Fujifilm Ag Guard.

MMfoto · Dec 14, 2006

john_s said:
From my personal experience, and based on a small sample, I have observed this. Although I have not used an "archival" washer for most of my printing over the last 40 years, I have prided myself on my processing, especially using fresh fixer. But I was recently surprised to hear from someone that some prints that I made for her had "silvered out" which I had not seen on prints before except very old ones (100 years+). The paper was Portriga Rapid which was quite warm toned (its natural tone: I did not do any toning after development).

The prints are not mounted. I was wondering if there is any process that might clear the silvering without otherwise affecting the prints.

Were the prints framed? Might she have framed them with the glass directly on top of the print?

don sigl · Dec 14, 2006

MMfoto said:
Were the prints framed? Might she have framed them with the glass directly on top of the print?

I was thinking the same thing. I remember reading in Photo Techhniques several years back an article that identified a potential to accelerate image degradation when the paper was unable to beathe. However, I recall that this concern was with RC papers only.

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