Mr. Kachel said: "Even a visually undetectable
selenium toning provides adequate protection. (Try a 1:20 dilution for a
minute or so.)"
I know this is off topic, but the composition of selenium toner changed.
Tests at RIT's Image Permanence Institute showed that selenium toner no
longer gives the same protection that it used to. Google "Doug Nishimura
Selenium Toning."
On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 10:41 AM, David Kachel <david@...>wrote:
> **
>
>
>
>
> On 8/14/13 9:52 AM, "Mark Savoia" <mark@stillrivereditions.com> wrote:
>
> >I assume the green silver prints you remember were on Kodak papers only?
> >Agfa and Ilford had some pretty "neutral gray" tones before any toning.
> >It also mattered on what developers you were using. We still print silver
> >here for clients and the only real reason for doing a slight selenium
> >toning is for archival reasons, not to get the print to be more "neutral".
>
> I printed on virtually every paper that existed during the 80's and 90's.
> Kodak, Ilford, Afga, Seagull, several of the Eastern European papers
> foisted on a gullible public as "quality B&W papers", and a sea of papers
> for which I have forgotten the names. There was never any such thing as a
> neutral paper. Just some that were less green. As a side note, ALL B&W
> photographic materials are/were green, film included.
>
> Mark, if you are making untoned silver prints for clients, you are doing
> them a disservice. Untoned silver prints are substantially less permanent
> than toned prints. No silver print should ever be hung on a gallery wall
> or sold to a client as art, without toning. Even a visually undetectable
> selenium toning provides adequate protection. (Try a 1:20 dilution for a
> minute or so.)
>
> Also, you may think you are making neutral, untoned silver prints for your
> clients, but I promise you, they are green!
>
> Initially, selenium toning was not applied for the primary purpose of
> making prints more neutral. It was applied to get rid of the green and add
> a little purple and then to make the prints more permanent (though the
> latter wasn't known initially).
>
> If you are really convinced you are making non-green silver prints for
> clients, try this experiment: make two identical prints, both at the same
> time, both through the same process, both never dried, both straight from
> the second fixing bath. Place one in a tray of water, the other in a 1:10
> selenium bath (make sure the trays are identical, preferably white),
> agitate constantly. Watch both under the same STRONG light. Keep looking
> back and forth between them (this is the standard method for selenium
> toning anyway, because changes are generally subtle and watching an
> untoned print is the only way to see the change). Don't worry about how
> purple the selenium print gets, just keep watching the other print and
> comparing. Eventually, you will see the green. It was plainly there to see
> without all this effort in the first place, but our visual cortex(s) fool
> us. The selenium trick shocks one's vision into seeing what one is
> generally not inclined to see. It's just like walking into a room full of
> fluorescent lights from outdoors. The mind doesn't let you see the
> overwhelming green color of the fluorescents, but it is there nonetheless,
> and far. Far stronger than the green in an untoned B&W print.
>
> One last note. Silver gelatin B&W prints tend to have weak blacks, despite
> high dMax (Personally, I do not worship at the altar of dMax). Selenium
> toning dramatically improves the look of silver-gelatin blacks and
> therefore is indispensable for this additional reason. The only valid
> reason for a fine art silver print NOT to be toned in selenium is because
> some other toner was used instead.
>
>
> David Kachel
>
> ___________________
>
> Artist-Photographer
> Fine B&W Photographs
>
> www.davidkachel.com
> david@...
>
> Gallery:
> www.reddoorfinephotographs.com
> director@...
>
>
> PO Box 1893
> Alpine, TX 79831
> (432) 386-5787
>
>
>
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