I'm working on a video about selenium toning

@@tnp651 great

There's a good chance of it. I'll see if I can test it.

I'm using sodium citrate (200 grams/ liter of distilled water). In my experience, the toner, not the developer, determines the color so you might as well use something cheap. I heat the water to help the citrate dissolve. For a 9x12" print, I add 130 ml of fresh developer each print. and discard the same amount The rest of the developer gets used again and again.

Yes it does. I've switched to Scotch Removable Tape. But I've also embraced the irregular edges I get with a brush, so I only tape the corners.

(blushing)

Most alt process printers I know use Epson SureColor printers. I have an Epson P600.

@@tnp651 Thank you for the great video! And reply

I've used them both and have seen no difference in resolution.

I have no experience with VDB. You’d have to do your own experiments.

Yes you will have very similar results with VDB prints, since they are also an iron+silver process.

I’ve never found that it does. I switched to inexpensive sodium citrate developer.

Since after toning, the results will be the same no matter which developer you chose, you'd better pick up the cheapest developer.

Laser printers create an image made of noticeable dots or lines. Inkjets put down a spray of microscopic droplets.

Wolfgang Moersch posts beautiful prints he's toned with his toner so I'm inclined to follow his advice. As for reusing the toner, go ahead until it stops working. You should be able to re-tone in fresh solution at that point. Good luck and welcome to alt printing!

@@tnp651 Thank you..... Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

You don't seem to suffer from the dreaded bleaching of the highlights. What dilution do you use?

@@tnp651 I use 1+100 (KRST). Toning is complete in about a minute (20C)

Glad it was helpful!

Gold toner gives a very neutral black. Palladium gives a slight sepia with a slightly less intense black. I've seen (but but not tried) selenium. It seems to give a rather nice sepia look. Rather than mixing a liter of toner as shown in the video, I now add drops of toner concentrate to just enough water to cover the print.

Hi Robert, I don’t want to pretend to more expertise than I have, but you might try a short soak in distilled water (just enough to cover) before toning. You can also try inexpensive de-ionized water you can find at fill stations in some grocery stores. Try those and let me know; I may be able to help further.

@@tnp651 Hello Tom. Thanks for the answer. I bought a machine that makes distilled water, but with the electricity prices in Western Europe it will be cheaper to make platinum prints. I'm joking :) I bought the de-ionized water at the store and it works fine, but the prices are high. The color change occurs after the second water rinse. I do as you describe, dividing a liter of water with a little citric acid into two rinses. So I don't think it will help with a short soak before toning since the color change will be a fact. Wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem?

@@roberoto100 1. Try adding more citric acid to the rinse water. Your water may be particularly alkaline. 2. You may be able to get by with re-using acidified distilled water for the two-part rinse. Add a bit more citric acid to make up for what was used. These are just guesses, since I don't have the problem you do. Good luck!

@@tnp651 Hello again! You had some very interesting thoughts about using the same water multiple times. I will try both of your suggestions and share with you what was the result. Have I mentioned that the tap water measures approx. pH=8.4

@@roberoto100 you'll definitely need to use more citric to overcome your alkaline water. I happened upon the following exchange on some bulletin board (I don't remember where): Dennis Moser Admin Two things to be very careful about with the iron-silver salt prints (especially kallitypes and argyrotypes): 1. Mix fresh baths of the expendables such as EDTA and citric acid. Always. Never try to economize and reuse from session to session. 2. Water quality. Unless you're using distilled water. Not just the pH (you should be checking that anyway), but the chlorine content. And not just for chlorine content but chloramine content. If you have to use tapwater, try boiling up a couple of liters and let them cool down, then test them. Distilled always works but isn't always easily available and can eliminate some of the staining. Paul Alexis I had this problem with the kallitype, . To eliminate the yellow haze, I used to do 3 baths, the first one with a pinch of citric acid and demineralized water, the 2 following ones with edta (4/100) and the final rinse (after the fix), a 1/100 sodium sulfite bath (hypoclear). The recipe is not mine but it is effective

I appreciate your comment, Tony. Good luck with your studies!

I'm using ammonium dichromate and I use 1 drop in the sensitizer to increase contrast ( for a 9x12" print). I also have some potassium dichromate but haven't used it yet. There's so much testing I could do! One of my video ideas is to see what eliminating or increasing dichromate will do. Stay tuned!

@@tnp651 Thanks, Tom! What is the concentration of your dichromate? And another question: why not increase the contrast of the negative? Presumably, the effect would be the same as adding dichromate. Or not? Regarding dichromate in the clearing solution, I found this from Sandy King: "Some small amount of dichromate is needed with kallitype, even with negatives of optimum DR, which is about 1.8, to completely clear the paper. The same is also true with straight palladium, where you need either a bit of platinum, peroxide, Na2, or dichromate to clear the last bit of stain. As for the amount of dichromate needed to adapt the negative DR to the process, here are my figures. However, it would probably be better for you to get a Stouffer TP 45 test step wedge and test for your own conditions since the choice of paper and chemistry can change matters a lot. However, assuming a 5% solution of potassium dichromate, here is what I would add to a liter of developer for needed DR control. Negative DR Amount of Dichromate per liter 1.8 2ml 1.6 4ml 1.4 8ml 1.2 16ml (but dangerous to go there because of grain) These are real figures based on my work, but use them as a guide and best to test your own materials."

@@nomos3 I use a 5% solution, which I found somewhere. I hadn’t known about its role in clearing the print. Inkjet on transparency film struggles to get enough density to hold a full range of tones. Increasing the contrast of the sensitizer helps give a full-tone print.

@@tnp651 Huh... that's helpful, thanks. Just ordered some ammonium dichromate: will try and report back!

Sandy King is using milliliters, perhaps from a molar solution. Bostick & Sullivan sells the 5% solution, perhaps from milligrams of dry powder. That’d be 50 mg per liter.

I make a liter of acidified tap water with just a pinch of citric and use half of it for each rinse. In my 11x14" tray, I use 200 ml of 3% citric and fixer.

Thanks for the comment. My advice to avoid matte ink comes from my experience using it on Pictorico transparency film. If it doesn't smear on Folex, go for it!

Matte paper absorbs more ink than glossy paper, so matte ink is applied more thickly. Plastic films don't absorb ink at all, so the lighter application of glossy ink is better for them.

No imprimo paladio, pero aquí hay un vídeo que podría ayudar. kzbin.info/www/bejne/e5bbe2yFodGZr9U

Try it and see, then report back. I haven't heard of anyone doing it.

I don’t know. You should make a test to see if the print is dark enough to print a white, and does not have visible lines or dots.

That wasn’t apparent from the start, and was the exact thing I wanted to test. I was interested to find that the difference among the films became smaller when I went from scanning the film to making a print.

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t able to find much info on it, but since they call it “white” film, a thought it has a white diffusion backing which would require a longer exposure time.