Why Won't Selenium Toned MGIV Sepia Tone?

[brian steinberger]

I was playing around with the sepia toner again tonight, and threw a MGIV fiber print into the bleach that had been selenium toned. I bleached that thing for 10 minutes, didn't notice a change, washed it briefly, threw it in the toner, and... nothing. Afterwards I bleached a different MGIV print that had NOT been selenium toned and it bleached nicely in two minutes. What's the deal here? When selenium toning and sepia toning, I though you were supposed to tone in selenium first. I've done this with other papers and it has worked ok. Any recommendations?

 

[Mateo]

Selenium toning is kinda archival, it gets all chemical with the silver clumps and won't let the halogenizing bleach do it's trick. you can sepia tone after selenium if you don't let the print hang out with the selenium quite as much.

 

[bill schwab]

When selenium toning and sepia toning, I though you were supposed to tone in selenium first. I've done this with other papers and it has worked ok. Any recommendations?

I have no trouble split toning MGIV, but I always do the Sepia step first. Hope this will help.

Bill

 

[keeds]

Similarly i thought if you fully bleach and then sepia tone to completion then the selenium toning will have no effect. Both are permanent processes on the bits of silver they get to work on...

 

[Roger Hicks]

You start out with metallic silver.

That is converted to (extremely stable) silver selenide. Look at the periodic table of the elements and you'll see oxygen-sulphur-selenium-tellurium-polonium in the same group.

At this point the silver is no longer available for easy reaction with other compounds.

 

[Dan Henderson]

as suggested by others, if you don't completely selenium tone the image, some silver remains for the bleach and sepia to work on. Done right, you get a nice split tone. Check out Tim Rudman's books, he's the master of these processes.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Brian
As others suggest
Tim Rudmans book on Toning is first rate.
Do the bleach sepia first , this first group will attack the Highlights and upper midtones, the longer you bleach the more you will attack the shadow areas, then selenium tone.
If you selenium tone first and then do the bleach sepia , you must not tone in selenium too long or the selenium will attack the upper midtones to highlights and you will have a difficult time doing so.
It will work but as Bill suggests I would start with the bleach sepia stage first.
Warmtone papers will react much faster than cold tone to bleaching so your times will be all over the place if you use a variety of papers.
I would not test with final prints but test first to get the results that you prefer.

 

[Mike Té]

Thanks for posting this, Brian. I recently puttered around with these very same issues and found some partial solutions and OK results, but I was still left with plenty of questions. Thanks to the responders for their precise answers!

 

[brian steinberger]

Thanks everyone! That's the answer I had suspected. I have Tim's book, but can't find it right now! I'll run some more tests. Thanks again!

 

[BOBBYCTKR]

Which Sepia Toner brand to use in Ilford MGIV FB ?

Never done split toning. Thinking of doing it . Which brand is reccomended to go with KRST and Ilfor MGIV FB paper ?

 

[Cor]

Long time ago I did a complete selenium tone, and than a extremely strong bleach, which revealed peach and maroon tones..exact details I have to look up, but I believe these were called China prints after a guy which China Hamilton and who found this method