Re: When to tone?

During several years toning silver gelatin and hundreds of tests, my
finding was that for nuances of tone, the main variables were conditions
of printing (the developer, how well used it was, etc.) and of the actual
toning (if used one-shot, the mix, the temperature, etc.), but I never
could see any difference in toning wet or dry -- EXCEPT ... toning wet
happened when the print had been in water for a while, so the emulsion &
gelatin were softened, therefore far more likely to get damaged in
handling. Let it dry & it hardens again.

For that reason, as well as general convenience, after initial tests I
toned dry prints only. There's also the fact that contrary to some
"experts" in the photo press, silver gelatin DOES have dry down, or the
paper I used did... and I always wanted to see the final (or semi-final)
print before toning it. I of course was toning for effect as much as if
not more than archivality, but the print dry looks different in many ways
from wet & I wanted to see it.

J.
Received on Wed Nov 12 16:24:33 2003