Tea as toner??

I just finished a roll of HIE, with plan to send it off to the dr5

lab, who's always done good work by me before. Now, HIE can NOT be

sepia-tone developed, which is something of theirs that works on most

films, and in my opinion makes SFX utterly beautiful (not like it

needs any help, but..)...

 

So! I'm thinking, since the last 8 frames were of the outside of my

apartment, these are good candidates for toning! I was thinking of

black tea, or red tea but have doubts about tea toning in terms of

tone proportional to density. Formulary copper toner would be cool,

but I can't place an order with them for a few weeks.. Any ideas,

folks? ANY experiences with tea toning?

I knew there had to be another besides me in the closet. Make a cup of tea and dump it in stoppered sink. It works ok on resin paper. The key to depth is the intensity of the initial dunk - seems like it can't be made darker in subsequent tries.

Tea is not a toner in the strict sense--there is no toning proportional to density. Tea tones the paper base and not the silver in a print. However, I really like the effect and recommend dumping 5-6 cheapo black teabags into a tray of warm water, agitate and remove, then tone for 5-8 minutes with constant agitation. And if anyone asks you what you'll be doing, under no circumstances say you'll be in a dark room tea baggin'.

Why can't prints from HIE be sepia toned? I've done it. Just make a normal b+w print, bleach and thiocarbamide tone as per any other. Other than that I have toned prints with standard cold water textile dyes.

Sure, <b>prints</b> could be sepia toned, but DR5 process yields positives - they offer neutral & sepia developer, and HIE can only be run in neutral. I didn't think tea would work proportionate to density, but it still might be worth trying. That and Formulary copper toner, that beautiful stuff which works nicely on Luminos & Ilford RC papers; I haven't printed on fiber in some years. Well thanks for responses, ideas... I've got some stuff to try. If I can figure out how to post images right inside threads then I'll post some of my results when I get the film back (it's not getting sent off right away).

I just tried a mixture of coffee and tea on a couple of papers.

 

The effect with Ilford MG RC satin was a lovely, subtle glow. Better than Kodak rapid selenium toner on this paper.

 

Luminos classic pearl warmtone fiber paper, tho', looked ghastly. I'll stick with selenium for this paper.

Luminos is an interesting paper. Note that I've only used the RC VC as of yet - it tones WONDERFULLY in Formulary Copper Toner.

 

Ilford RC VC Cooltone toned nicely in Copper Toner also. Not nearly as quick, and deep a tone as Luminos, but still noteworthy.

 

Oriental RC VC turned into a blotchy MESS. Utter mess.

 

The Luminos stuff interests me, a lot. I'm going to get some DW Fiber of it, as soon as I figure a way to dry the damned stuff.

 

Thanks, folks.

The only Luminos paper I've tried is the classic pearl double weight, which is a fixed Grade 2.5. It seems to respond readily to any form of toning, even warmtone developers. It's a beautiful paper and tones evenly, including the unexposed borders, in Kodak selenium rapid toner. However when I process it in Alta ZonalPro HQ Warmtone the subtle warmth imparted by the developer is often all the toning I want.