lundi 20 décembre 2004

Browned off with black, white and grey prints? Then warm them up chemically In over thirty-five years of taking and printing black-and-white images I've rarely, certainly not more than a few times a year, considered toning a print with colour. If I had ever wanted to make a subject appear slightly warmer to suit a particular mood then I used a chlorobromide paper... usually Agfa's Record Rapid or Portriga Rapid and sometimes Kodak Ektalure (sadly long gone from dealers catalogues). For any subject which I thought would benefit from a cold look I chose an ordinary bromide paper... of which there were many. And there lies the rub with black-and-white printing papers... there were many... past tense! For further subtle colour changes of the "warm" look I used various combinations of Agfa Neutol WA (warm), NE (neutral) and BL (cold-tone) developers. The apparent variations produced were sometimes very subtle both in the printer's mind and to a perceptive viewer... and by and large they were only really noticeable to the majority of observers when the extremes of variation between warm and cool were viewed side by side under good lighting. As an odd example... when Ilford released their Cooltone Multigrade RC paper a few years ago, to much acclaim, I bought several boxes after discovering that to my eyes it wasn't cooler in appearance... but slightly richer in tone, which suited what I wanted from my negatives. Since nobody ever commented on my "cool" prints I guess they didn't see cold tones in them either. Whilst other reviewers extolled the virtues of both Ilford's Warmtone and Cooltone papers I saw no difference between the normal and cool versions... only between the normal and warm. Chlorobromide papers were forced to change their make-up ten or so years ago because of environmental concerns over their use of cadmium in manufacture. But, if a warm tone paper and a warm-tone developer don't produce a strong enough effect then there is a simple alternative at hand... sepia toning. And to go for the other extreme for a cold look... there is blue toning. Chemical Toners There are many suitable pre-prepared liquid sepia toners available from various photo chemical suppliers including Fotospeed, Rayco, Speedibrews (supplied in powder form) and Tetenal in the UK. When supplied as liquid concentrates they are easy to mix, economical to use and therefore cheap at the price... and all are fun to use except for Sulphide Sepia Toner which produces the recognisable bad eggs smell. Agfa Viradon brown toner, although not classified as a sepia, is also easy to use being a single solution (no bleaching required) and giving a more chocolate brown than traditional sepia... I'll write more about this versatile product another time. One advantage with toning prints is that it's done in daylight. You don't have to imagine, unlike when making black-and-white prints under red safelight conditions, what the actual toned effect will look like when you've switched the normal room lights on. The other advantage is that you can sometimes salvage a print that didn't quite come out right... say it was a little bit dark or too light, or didn't have the correct burning-in or dodging done to it... by giving it a coloured tone for a slightly different visual effect. That doesn't mean that you can automatically turn a bad print into a good one! What you should aim for is to make a good print even better by giving it something extra for visual impact... but that doesn't mean you should tone every print just for the sake of it. Sulphide Sepia Sepia toning require prints to be bleached first and the necessary chemicals are provided in kits for this step. It should be noted that although toning sounds an easy process it can only work successfully on prints that have been fixed and washed properly beforehand. Any traces of residual fixer in prints, especially in fibre papers which require lengthier washing times, will result in partial staining and possible discolouration, notably in highlight and white border areas. Also, if the intermediate washing stage between the bleach and the toner baths is too short a yellowing of print borders usually results... so wash prints well at all stages. Sulphide sepia toning is the traditional way to make prints look old. What is generally overlooked is the effect of hydrogen sulphide on any sensitised products in the darkroom. For safety, and for a fresher house, the toning process should be carried out in the garage or other remote area. The gas, if it reaches your boxes of paper and film stocks, can desensitise them in a few hours. With all sepia toning, the print is bleached out as far as it will go before redeveloping in the toner. Most images take between one and three minutes to fade to a pale buff colour. After a thorough rinsing, the print is immersed in the toner for another minute during which time toning is rapidly completed. Both the bleach and toner may be rebottled and used at a later date... each litre of working solution processing at least thirty 10x8 in prints. Simple clear instructions are enclosed with packs of toner chemicals so there's no need to describe the dilution process here. No extra equipment is required unless you are dedicated to "slot" processors... in which case you will need two print developer trays, one for the sepia bleach process the other for either of the other toners. An additional tray will be needed for print washing between and after the bleach and toning steps. Rubber gloves are also a good precaution with chemicals of this nature. Comparisons As an interesting comparison try toning identical prints different colours... even though the chances are that one may be quite good whilst the other may be no too interesting. It all depends on the subject and it's colour tone. As a guide, soft, romantic, natural and nostalgic subjects suit the warm sepia tone treatment. Hard, artificial, mechanical and nocturnal subjects suit cold blue toning. These ideas are only meant to be the introduction to an intriguing process. For more inspiration search on Google for articles by Dr. Tim Rudman, author of "The Photographer's Master Printing Course" which has a long chapter on the subject. A very comprehensive reference book with very fine landscape images is "Creative Elements" by Eddie Ephraums... in it you'll see why toning is such an attractive enhancement for black-and-white photographs. BTW : Both images were made with a Leica M4/P... the top one (Two Horses) with Leitz 400mm f/5.6 Telyt and a 135mm f/2.8 Elmarit (Horse in Stable)... both using Ilford XP-1 chromogenic film. 7:09:57 PM    comment []