[pure-silver] Re: Selenium followed by T-8 Polysulfide
- From: Lloyd Erlick <lloyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:45:18 -0500
At 10:51 PM 12/15/2004 , you wrote:
>
>My goal is to produce prints that look very much like my regular
>selenium toned prints but which are more stable. Normally, I tone Ilford
>FB paper for 5 minutes in KRST toner diluted 1 + 9 for 5 minutes at
>70F. Would following up with T-8 polysulfide brown toner be a decent
>idea for improved stability? My thought is that I'd get the benefits of
>my regular selenium toning, namely some image protection, a hue change,
>and a dmax increase, and some protection against hue shift with the T-8
>toner, and the T-8 toner would protect the parts of the image that
>weren't completely selenium toned. Does anyone have any thoughts on the
>matter?
>
>-Peter De Smidt
>=====================
dec1604 from Lloyd Erlick,
I've done exactly the same thing for the same reasons.
I tried all four of the possibilities: selenium alone, polysulfide (T8)
alone, and each before and after the other.
Selenium is my preference in terms of final appearance of the print. I find
the result from T8 too "light brown" or perhaps too much in the direction
of yellow. When I toned in selenium, then in T8, the result was very
slightly less deep, less golden, less brown, and a bit in the direction of
the T8 color. Conversely, T8 first followed by Selenium yielded a mostly T8
appearance that was modified toward the darker, richer color of selenium.
I was looking for a concentration of polysulfide that did not affect print
color (in other words, I wanted to find the smallest amount of sulfide I
could use). Also, I wanted to find out if I could find a small enough
amount of sulfide that the hydrogen sulfide odor stopped being evident.
My last attempt, which I considered successful, was a small amount of
sulfide dissolved in my working solution of selenium toner. I did find a
small enough amount that the odor stopped bothering me, and that amount did
not have a large effect on the final print tone compared to the selenium.
The problem (for me, and anyone who wants to take my word for it ...) is
that I don't have scientifically rigorous data on volumes and weights of
the substances involved. I also do not have scientific data on the final
appearances of my prints, so it's all anecdotal and personal perception
(and you will have to take into account my own less than perfect color
perception!)
However, I can tell you that it will be possible to achieve what you are
after. My look into it was based on using Ilford Warmtone FB paper (MGW),
and Kodak selenium toner (KRST), diluted in distilled water 1+5. My usual
toning time is ten minutes at 32-34C. When I finally started putting the
potassium polysulfide in the selenium, I was using small fractions of a
gram for my three liter mix.
My motivation for all this was the report a few years ago about the print
lifespan-enhancing qualities of KRST. It was claimed (I believe this came
from the IPI, Image Permanence Institute, but I'm subject to correction
here) that a change in the manufacturing setup of KRST had changed the
actual substances in the jug at the user end. It came out that the newer
version of KRST was less effective at lifespan enhancement, and suggestions
were made that the new version was a higher purity product, and that
certain impurities had been eliminated, and that one of those impurities
was a sulfide. Hence the look at sulfides as print toners for longevity of
the print. Reports were that very small amounts of sulfide sufficed. So it
seemed logical to dissolve a small amount of sulfide in the KRST working
solution, but hopefully not enough to noticeably change the final
appearance of the selenium toned print.
I can provide no details as to the success of print lifespan improvement by
this method. I don't have accelerated test facilities, and my prints are
not old enough to tell, and anyway most of my prints are toned in the old
sulfide-impurity 'version' of KRST. I hope this helps, and if there are
ever any reportable hard data I'd be fascinated...
regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email: portrait@xxxxxxxxxxxx
net: www.heylloyd.com
________________________________
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