Selenium Toning Dried Prints

I'd like to start selenium toning for archival purposes, and have read previous posts and suggestions by Ansel Adams about it. Many mention a relatively long string of wet sequences I honestly do not currently picture myself having the patience for (until I get an archival print washer, perhaps.)

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Personally, it's seems much more realistic to take a batch of "keepers" from previously processed prints, perhaps accumulated over the course of a day or two in the darkroom, and selenium tone them then (ie, after they have already received a hardening fixer treatment, hypo clearing, final wash, and are in the "dry" state).

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Can anyone with experience selenium toning a dry, previously processed print please tell me of your procedure?

I appreciate it. Andre

I just soak them for 10 min in water after I have enough to tone.

They need to be good and wet though. I don't know if the dry, wet

impacts archival issue though -- anyhow, it tones them nicely in a

batch -- I flip 5 or six prints through at a time outside and take

them out as they tone the degree I want. I do it outside because who

wants that stuff inside, and you get the good daylight to judge (That

is in an always overcast environment -- if you live in sunnyville, I

dunno)

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Dean

Just saw this "Next Door" on the Lusnet button and Printing and

Developing -- right to your questoin.

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http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006XwV

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Dean

Just saw this "Next Door" on the Lusnet button and Printing and

Developing -- right to your questoin.

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http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006XwV

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Dean

Dean, "Whew!", I never saw that site before, it appears to be

parallel univers to this Large Format Plane. I recognized some

spirits over there, but their embodiment was foreign to me. Scary!

Lots of uncapitalized words and poor grammar too. Other than

absorbing the knowledge from your recommended thread, I'll pretend

that site doesn't exist :>)

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So regarding selenium toning dried prints, is it best summed: re-

soak in water a few minutes, selenium tone, then final, thorough

wash? Is there any re-fixing involved as far as anyone knows? Andre

Andre,

I use the Ilford archival fix two-bath fixing method, which means

(according to Ilfords recommendations!) one minute for bath 1 and one

minute for bath 2 in film-strength rapid fixer for up to 40 8x10s per

liter. I normally divide the printing and toning sessions thusly:

Printing session consists of develop, stop bath one fix, then wash

and dry. After evaluating and choosing the keepers, sometimes after

several days of printing, I tone. The toning session consists of a

water soak of at least 5 minutes, fixing bath 2 for one minute, and

then directly into the selenium toner without an intermediate rinse

for the desired time. This is followed by a hypo-clearing bath (Kodak

recommends 3 minutes, Ilford 10 minutes, so I leave them in for

around 10 minutes while fixing and toning more prints), then wash.

This way, you can tone large batches of prints at a time. My

bottlenecks are always washer capacity and drying space.

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I save and reuse the toner, repenishing it with small amounts of the

concentrate when toning times become too long, and filtering out the

black sediment using coffee filters at the beginning of each toning

session. I have a gallon of toner that has been going strong for

almost 2 years now with no ill-effects. This saves dumping selenium

into the environment unnecessarily.

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Hope this helps. ;^D)

I had a long conversation with David at US Ilford who is the technical

support specialist there. I too use the Ilford archival sequence for

my prints. That is develop, stop, two non hardening fixer baths for 30

seconds each, 5 minute wash, 10 minute Ilford wash aid, and 5 minute

archival water wash. Long after making lots of prints I decide which

are the keepers.

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David advised me to procede as follows: Resoak in water for two

minutes. Selenium tone in your favorite dilution for your favorite

time. Use Ilford wash aid for 10 minutes (gets rid of residual

thiosulfates) then wash in your washer 30 minutes. He said there is no

need to use fixer again at any point in the process.

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Hope this helps...

Scott and Doremus, your processes are approximately the same, save

where you divide your "dry step", Doremus, which is what I intend to

do as well.

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I was just wondering, these fix and wash times seem a little short.

Are you refering to RC or Fiber paper in these instructions?

Thanks. Andre

Andre - those wash and fix times are for fiber-based papers. The "new

theory" is that minimal time in a high strength fixing bath fixes the

image while reducing absorption into the paper fibers. Also the

formation of insoluable complex molecule chains may also be

minimized. It is an "archival" process that reduces wet time and

(hopefully) improves the stability of the final print.

As mentioned by several people above, you can simply re-wash the

print for a few minutes, tone, hypo clearing, and then archival wash.

This procedure will work fine �IF� the print was sufficiently washed

the first time.

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If not sufficiently washed the first time, you have two options. 1)

use hypo clearing and rewash to archival standards, or 2) re-fix and

go directly to toner from the fixer (see Adams� book "The Print" for

details on this method). Any unevenness in the amount of fixer in the

print causes problems in the toning.

O.K., great plenty to consider here, including evaluating my current

fixer procedures. Andre

The usual advice is to avoid hardening fixer if you plan to tone a

print. This may or may not be one of those photographic myths but

since there's no real good reason I know of to use a hardening fix

for prints (as opposed to film), I'd forget about the hardening fix

in all events and particularly if you plan to later tone them.

There seems to be consensus here except on one point. Scott, I would

like more info about the fixing times you received from David Carper.

I have the Ilford fact sheet "Processing Black-and-White Papers;

Fibre-Base" and the recommendations there are for 60 seconds in each

film-strength rapid fixing bath when using the two-bath method,

despite the fact that the recommendation for using a single bath is

also 60 seconds. I suspect that it has to do with what Ilford

calls "Optimim Permanence" and capacities. In order to keep the

residual silver levels in the fixer solution at 0.5g/liter (the level

for ("optimum permanence"), the capacity of the fixer is greatly

reduced as compared to the recommendation for "commercial use" of

2g/liter. This is especially noticeable in the one-bath procedure

where Ilford recommends only 10 8x10-inch prints (!) per liter of

fixer. Using two-bath at 60 seconds each extends this to 40 8x10s per

liter. For those of us interested in "optimum permanence", i.e. all

of the photographers who sell prints, it would be good for us to heed

the capacity recommendations and test residual silver in the fixing

bath regularly. I usually toss the fixer long before the recommended

capacity is reached, adding my own "fudge factor" to the one almost

certainly included by Ilford. Possibly David from Ilford would like

to comment on this as well. Regards, ;^D)

Hi there:

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Answers to two questions posed to me above. My recommendations are for

fiber paper. Secondly I was told by David at Ilford that 30 seconds in

each of the two baths would be just fine and didn't have to do a full

minute in each bath. In reality my total time in the fix is a little

longer than this in that I do all my FB prints in a jobo (I know, it's

strange, but works great!) so that by the time I pour in, pour out,

pour in again, pour out again the total time is probably more like 90

seconds total (45 seconds each bath)just because of the time it takes

to change over the fluid. Hope this helps...

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Scott

Doris, it always has been a pretty short fix time, in a fresh

film-strength/non-hardening fix. In the old Ilford spec sheets & even

the " Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice" manual (focal press)it was

a short fix time. Another good book of that period was Dennis Inch &

Lawrence Keefe Jr.'s "The Life of a Photograph" (also focal). Keefe

went on (may still??) to work with Light Impressions. They have the

archival sequence for fb paper (galerie) with a very short, strong

fix. I always thought it was odd when Ilford revised their spec sheets

in the paper packs with a 60 sec. fix. It could be just to be on the

safe side really, because it used to be listed as a 20 sec fix, with

10 sec. fudge room. Then it moved up to 30 sec each bath. I know that

with RC paper, in a processor like an Ilford 2150 (where the fix is

basically mixed at a 1:4 ratio, but running at 80 something odd

degrees), that the print moves through the rack in close to 20

seconds. Ilford techs have told me that was just right and I would

assume that it would be the same for FB, as the big issue there is not

with the emulsion, but with the base & residual fix being absorbed.

Alot of this stuff changes every few years, so I wouldn't use a 20 yr.

old book for the absolute reference. Just look at the requirements for

acceptable residual fix levels, changes in toning sequences etc. It

used to be that hypo eliminator was recommended by some people...and

now HE is a thing of the past, and a little bit of fix left in the

paper may be a good thing...

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The big problem I would see with using a drum to process this way,

might be with making sure the fix was hitting all parts of the print

evenly. With the short time, it doesn't leave alot of room for error.