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Sepia toning a Selinum toned print


david_sacco1

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Dave -you will have to try it. It has been a long time since I have done this type of thing or tried to figure out the chemistry behind it. My sense is that nothing will happen as you have already changed the silver to silver selenide. A noble metal -I don't think it will accept toner now. Also whenever toning - make sure to use a nonhardening fixer! . I could be totally wrong -please try it. I have been out of the research labs for a long,long time now. Best regards -RichD
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"Once it has seen selenium, nothing else is going to happen."

 

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

 

Many photographers including myself split tone prints in both selenium and sepia. Sometimes the selenium is done first and other times the sepia is done first.

 

You can bleach a selenium toned print and pull it before the bleach works into the shadows. Then pop it into the sepia bath and you will have selenium toned shadows and sepia highlights/midtones depending how long the print was left in the bleach.

 

So much mis information is passed along on these forums that one really has to be careful to throughly check out what is being said and by whom.

 

I would recommend diluting the bleach 1:3 or 1:4 and experiment with bleach times as full strength bleach will work much too fast and somewhat uncontrollably.

 

Good luck.

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David, Michael Kravit is correct. Selenium before or after it does not matter.Bleaching solution: 1 tablespoon of potassium ferricyanide 1 tablespoon of potassium bromide

1 liter of water ( room temp )

immerse the print until the darkest tones are pale. wash the print in running water until the yellow coloring of the bleach is removed.

Now you can sepia tone. Regards Peter

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Thank you for the correction -as I said you would have to try it. David -would love to see what it looks like after you are done -please post an example after you do it and let us know of your experience. I again would have guessed that nothing would have happened -even in Farmers reducer - after it had been archivally processed properly in selenium toner. Wish I could go back in the darkroom {can't -medical/health}and try this. Please please please use heavy rubber gloves and tongs!!!!!!these chemistries are bad ,bad, bad - I used to scoff at the warnings -now I have terminal,incurable cancer. It is traced back to my old "darkroom {daze} days.

To the smarter posters who corrected the post -how much reduction can be done on a fully selenium toned print -a little -or -as much as you could do to a print that had never seen selenium? Thanks and best regards -richD

again -please be careful with darkroom chemistry!

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I would look for the book by Tim Rudman, I think it is called Master Photography Course. He is also the fellow who has popularized Lith Printing. He has the most on creating polychromatic "silver emulsion" prints through combinations of toners. Remember, many consist of chemicals that require great caution in use.
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Rich,

 

Sorry to hear about your condition. I wish you good health.

 

Anyway you are 100% correct. I so often hear folks say that they have been doing DR work for years with their hands in the chemicals with no adverse affects! Even if so, why take the chance. All my darkroom work including platinum printing is done with purple nitrile gloves. After getting used to them, I feel naked without them.

 

My physician aks me each year at my physical if I am still wearing gloves. I am happy to say that I am.

 

As far as sepia toning goes, you can reduce a selenium toned print pretty much to completion. It all depends on the length of time the print is left in the bleach. However, if you selenium tone a print, my assumption would be that you would only want to bleach so far in order to maintain some of the selenium dmax.

 

Again, warmest wishes to you.

 

Michael

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Michael -thank you. I do appreciate it. Also thanks for mentioning the "purrple nitrile" gloves -these are the really good ones that will protect you from the chemistries. I have had some of the latex gloves break in some chemicals-not good protection. Thank you also for the info on reducing -For some reason I did not consider this -my brain simply locked on putting it in a one part toner bath. I think a one bath toner would have little effect. Take care all and best regards -RichD

ps. always remember safety in the DR

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