Brown toner BLOOMS in HCA

[tkamiya]

What's interesting is, in HCA, it really TAKES OFF! Say at 4 minutes, I have a dark brown tone. Put it in HCA, in 30 seconds, it shifts to reddish brown. It goes BOOM! It looks more like something in HCA is acting as a catalyst.

I'm going for a certain brown, so timing of this is critical. Holy cow it's critical....

[pentaxuser]

I had a quick read of Tim Rudman's book "The Master Photographer's Toning Book" and while there was some mention of HCA in terms of its use I could see nothing to indicate that HCA would do what it appears to be doing in your experience.

Very strange

pentaxuser

[john_s]

For what it's worth, similar instructions for Agfa's Viradon (which in the past had been a combined selenium + direct sulphide toner) which was by then a sulphide-only direct toner. I have used this and it has worked well to stop the continuation of toning. By 10% they mean 100g/L as mentioned in a post above.

Direct toning

VIRADON 1 + 50
(1 part AGFA VIRADON (depending on intensity
+ 50 parts water) needed) 1 – 10 min


Stop bath (10% sodium sulphite solution) 1 min
(only necessary to prevent post-toning
in the wash)

[tkamiya]

Thank you for that hard data. Appreciate it.

[brian steinberger]

What's interesting is, in HCA, it really TAKES OFF! Say at 4 minutes, I have a dark brown tone. Put it in HCA, in 30 seconds, it shifts to reddish brown. It goes BOOM! It looks more like something in HCA is acting as a catalyst.

I'm going for a certain brown, so timing of this is critical. Holy cow it's critical....

It's taking off because brown toners work quicker at weaker dilutions. So when you put a print with brown toner on it into the HCA, there is not enough sodium sulfite in the working solution HCA to stop the toning action and when the ambient brown toner gets diluted with the HCA toning takes off. You need to rinse as much toners off very quickly, less than 30 seconds, then into 10% solution of sodium sulfite, 100g in 1 L for a few minutes.

[tkamiya]

REALLY? Weaker = faster? This, I got to try for myself.

I did a quick wash between the steps and it basically halted the process. Thank you.

[brian steinberger]

Yes, brown toners work faster at weaker dilutions. Makes no sense, but it's true!!

[RidingWaves]

Yup, which is why I stated you need to tweak the dilutions to find Your own method. Brian's advice is solid.

[DREW WILEY]

I discovered that the need of HCA to allegedly stop the action of the toner is a myth. Plain water works just
as well. But most of the toning will proceed for awhile regardless, so you always pull the print out of the toner
bath prematurely - well before it reaches the desired degree of toning. The trick is to pull it very quickly from
the toner bath and immerse it entirely in a tray full of fesh water, and agitate in that. If you try to do it under a
running hose, you'll get an uneven print. Do the prints individually - no more than one print in either the toner or
rinse tray at a time.

[Guillaume Zuili]

All the polysulfide toners work faster with high dilution.
Pull the print prematurely as Drew said. Then sodium sulfite.
But effect of toning in the wash with very high dilutions (1+100 and even weaker) can bring beautiful tones.