seleniun toner question

[marcosb]

Hope someone can help me . This weekend ibought some rapid seleniun toner. I don't know to much about it or how to use it for my prints.

My question is does anyone still use this toner for B&W ?
How to mixit?
Does any preparation to the print need to be made before applying toner?


Any tips will be really appreciated.

Thanks marcos

[henrysamson]

Hi Marcos,

I use it frequently. One caveat though, I use it with fiber based papers. I am not sure if my procedure applies to RC papers. I use it to slightly increase D-max and to make the print more archival. The tone only changes slightly. You have to compare two prints side by side to see the difference. I use it for enlarging (Ilford Multigrade IV) and contact (Azo and Lodima) papers. Where gloves!

At the end of a printing session all of my prints have been fixed once in Kodak Fixer for five minutes and are in a tray of water (sometimes they stay here overnight and I finish the next morning). I prepare a tray of sodium thiosulfate solution (basically the same as Kodak Fixer without the hardener) and a tray of Kodak Hypo Clearing Agent. I add the toner to the Hypo Clearing Agent so that is is at a dilution of 1:64 (1/2 ounce of toner to 32 ounces of working solution). I transfer the prints in groups of 15 (but one at a time) to the sodium thiosulfate tray and keep shuffling through them (pull the bottom print and place on top) for 5 minutes. This serves as a second fixing bath. Then I transfer them to the Hypo Clearing Agent/toner solution one at a time and do the same drill for 4 minutes. Then they go into a tray of water where they are parked until all of the prints get the same treatment. After that they are placed in an archival print washer for at least an hour. While they are washing I clean everything really well so the washed prints don't get contaminated. I rinse the prints through two baths of distilled water (to avoid water spots) before squeegeeing them and placing them face down on screens to dry.

This is the procedure that Kodak and many others recommend for producing archival prints. They warn that using the toner by itself or placing a water rinse after the second fixing bath and before the Hypo Clearing Agent/toner bath can result in uneven toning. It IS true . . . it has happened to me. Looked awful.

Henry

[marcosb]

Thanks Hank really appreciated. I need to buy the Hypo Clearing Agent