"Lew" wrote in message
...
I plan to produce a series of prints which will require
brown toning.
I've never toned a print before, so I'd appreciate any
pointers,
gotcha's or product recommendations the group can throw my
way.
Another consideration is how close the mat color can com
to the print
tone. I'd like to start with the neutral black FB & RC
papers I
usually stock, so I guess that's a consideration, too.
TIA

There are three commercial toners available from Kodak
and there are some other brands of similar toners. The three
a
Kodak Brown Toner
Kodak Sepia Toner II
Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner

These all have somewhat different results. The effect
of a toner depends on the paper emulsion and also to some
extent on the developer. You pretty much have to experiment
to find which is most satisfactory to you.
Kodak Brown Toner is a polysulfide type. It is usually
used at elevated temperature, about 100F, because it is very
slow when cold. KBT tones evenly (all densities toned
equally) so it is useful where one wants only a little color
change. For this reason it also provides good image
protection where images are only partially toned.
Kodak Rapid Selenium Toner is used at various dilutions
from about 1:19 to 1:3. It tends to tone dense parts of the
image first. KRST at 1:19 was once recommended for image
protection but it was discovered that it failed on microfilm
because of the uneven toning. However, where images are
toned enough to obtain a noticable change in image color or
density it still provides very good iamge protection. KRST
works best on warm tone paper as far as image color change.
On neutral or cold tone papers it will somewhat intensify
the image (increase contrast) with little or no change in
color.
Kodak Sepia Toner II is an "indirect" toner, that is, it
is composed of two parts: the first is a bleach, the paper
is first bleached until the image either disappears or turns
cream or yellow colored. Then the paper is rinsed in water
and re-developed in a soldium sulfide solution. The
re-development takes only a couple of minutes. While Sepia
toner can be used for partial toning by only partially
bleaching it is usually used when one wants complete toning.
Image protection is excellent when toning is complete.
Unlike the "direct" toners indirect types give best results
on neutral or cold tone papers. They tone warm tone papers
fine but the resulting color may be too yellow. Actually,
image protection from any sulfide or selenium toner is
excellent provided toning is complete.
There are some good books on toning, IMO the best is Tim
Rudman's book _The Master Photographer's Toning Book_ I
think this maybe out of print but am not sure. Search Google
Books for "Tim Rudman" to find more, he has several other
excellent books.



--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA