A question about toning...

Adam Kimball (afk@SIRIUS.COM)
Sat, 1 Jul 95 14:24:37 -0700

Last night I tried to tone some already fixed Kallitypes in a Palladium toner.
It is compounded as follows:

Palladium 20% 1.5ml
Concentrated Sulfuric Acid 12.5ml
Water 250ml

I tried prints made in both the Borax-Rochelle and Sodium Acetate developers.
The prints acquired a nice brownish-red tone in the toner. I slipped them
into a wash for about 5 minutes and then fixed them in a plain hypo fix (50g
hypo to 1000ml) for a couple minutes. But... the prints acquired a serious
yellow stain in the fix. The entire paper was stained including areas of the
paper which were never coated with sensitizer. What happened? Next I toned
a plain piece of paper- uncoated Arches Platine. I gave it the same bath
cycle, but the paper did not change color in the fix this time. It remained
freshly white. So, I gather from this that it is not the toner reacting with
the hypo bath- nor is it the sensitizer reacting with the toner (the margins
which were uncoated were still stained in the intial test)- so what else
could it be. I wonder if it is the palladium reacting with OLD hypo which
was never washed out of the print? Anyone got ideas? Judy, I know you've
had similar problems- any ideas?

Also- why is it necessary to re-fix a print after it is toned?

Any help would be appreciated,
Adam