Re: When to tone?

Did I say "never"???? I was completely unable to buy any emulsion with my
degree asessment coming up, and my key print overexposed in a moment of
stress misjudgement....so I decided to sepia tone it as I knew that
bleaching back for sepia would take the density back a bit....so I bravely
dumped it in the bleach, watched it until it was about a stop UNDEr exposed,
then washed it thoroughly and put it into the sepia....result....a beautiful
colour tone between brown and purple - most unsepia like, and the key print
the most successful of the lot!!! I did have a backup print btw, but the
composition wasn't quite as good. I should know never to say never by
now.....btw this toning was done about 2 weeks after I made the print.

I think some of the problems I was having in the earlier post relate to my
having to soak the paper off boards before processing - perhaps any
chemicals applied to the emulsion would necessarily be diluted by water it
had already absorbed? I also wonder about the possibility of the water
acting as a barrier to the emulsion taking up the chemical..

Kate Mahoney

> Kate,
> I had the same problem with a home made liquid emulsion. As best as I
> could tell this relates to incomplete washing of thiosulfate. Brown stain
> was always stronger when the emulsion was thicker. I ended up washing
> prints for a very long time before toning. Perhaps the use of a basic
> fixer (like photographers formulary TF4) instead of standard fixer would
> help. I would also try Mr. Suzuki's suggestion of a basic wash (sodium
> carbonate solution) after fixing. I know the pain, a perfectly good print
> goes into the toning bath and comes out a disaster.
>
> Marek
> > I have a question on this topic - or almost on this topic. I've been
> > selenium toning prints in tetenal "work", and have had some problems
with:
> > a) no tonal change or no discernable tonal change (selenium diluted
1:3)
> > b) odd staining in some portions of some prints but no others, at the
same
> > dilution. These stains are quite dark brown.
> >
> > (a) seems batch related and I wonder if anyone else has had problems
with
> > "work"or any other liquid emulsion.
> > Has anyone else tones liquid emulsion prints and with what results??.
> >
> > (b) is bloody annoying and has just ruined one of my best prints.....I
am
> > not going to tone any more for colour change with this emulsion.
> >
> > I now realise that problems I had earlier this year which I thought were
> > related to possible contamination by other students were probably due to
> > some other factor.
> >
> > I'm using Arches Aquarelle paper, 300gsm, unsized as this paper is
> > tub-sized anyway, processing in 1+15 Neutol NE, using water for stop and
> > fixing in two consecutive baths of half strength standard fix. I then
> > wash
> > the prints, give a 2 min bath in Kodak hypo clearing solution followed
by
> > a
> > half-hour wash. I dried the prints and l;eft them for a few days, then
> > toned
> > after a 10 min soak. I've had the same problem with Saunders Waterford
> > paper
> > as well.
> >
> > I'd appreciate your input.
> >
> > Kate Mahoney
>
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Received on Fri Nov 21 15:19:57 2003