What went wrong with Selenium here?

ericdan

Member

Joined

Feb 28, 2014

Messages

1,359

Location

Tokyo

Format

35mm RF

• Mar 1, 2020

• #1

I made a lith print on fomatone MG 131
wash
Adox selenium 1+6 30sec
wash
Weak Bleach 1min
wash
Sepia Toned 2 mins
wash
gold toned 2 mins
wash
didn't look contrasty enough after the bleach sepia
Adox selenium 1+6 10mins
now the highlights started getting orange!
what went wrong here? Does this mean I didn't fix it enough?

Thanks

 

koraks

Moderator

Moderator

Joined

Nov 29, 2018

Messages

22,298

Location

Europe

Format

Multi Format

• Mar 1, 2020

• #2

ericdan said:

Does this mean I didn't fix it enough?

Click to expand...

Most likely, yes. And perhaps insufficient washing between the steps. Bleach needs to be washed out thoroughly before selenium. But this looks mostly like insufficient fixing.

 

mshchem

Subscriber

Joined

Nov 26, 2007

Messages

14,537

Location

Iowa City, Iowa USA

Format

Medium Format

• Mar 1, 2020

• #3

Yeah, I would look at the fix. Se toner will stain under fixed prints.

 

Doremus Scudder

Member

Joined

Sep 10, 2002

Messages

3,585

Location

Eugene, Oregon

Format

4x5 Format

• Mar 1, 2020

• #4

mshchem said:

Yeah, I would look at the fix. Se toner will stain under-fixed prints.

Click to expand...

I concur. Don't ask how I know

 

mshchem

Subscriber

Joined

Nov 26, 2007

Messages

14,537

Location

Iowa City, Iowa USA

Format

Medium Format

• Mar 1, 2020

• #5

Doremus Scudder said:

I concur. Don't ask how I know

Click to expand...

Ha! Me too!

 

adelorenzo

Member

Joined

Mar 10, 2012

Messages

1,421

Location

Whitehorse, Yukon

Format

4x5 Format

• Mar 2, 2020

• #6

Gold toner following sepia would give you orange tones. Gold toner can also create orange stains IME even without sepia toning first.

For whatever reason perhaps the second selenium toning step triggered this but I suspect the gold toner is the source of the orange stains.