Toning for blue violet cool tones

[Gary Holliday]

I am trying to achieve a blue/ violet tone in the dark tones.
I'm guessing selenium, but which warm/ cooltone papers and devs will get this look?

I have a few papers for this:
Ilford FB IV
Ilford FB WT
Kentmere FB Fineprint WT
Kentmere VC Select
Forte PWT

[kevs]

Hi Gary,

On Ilford's MG IV FB papers, full selenium toning will give a very subtle shift towards blue. It's hardly noticeable except in comparison to an untoned print. The other papers, Kentmere doesn't change in selenium IIRC, and i've never tried Forte. MG Warmtone becomes warmer.

You might want to try gold on warmtone papers, where i believe it's most effective. Iron blue toners will work but aren't archival. It depends what you want to do with the prints.

There's dye toners like Colorvir, but they're not archival either.

HTH,
kevs

[RoBBo]

You might want to try gold on warmtone papers, where i believe it's most effective. Iron blue toners will work but aren't archival.

There's dye toners like Colorvir, but they're not archival either.

HTH,
kevs

Are not more archival like Selenium? or are even less archival than just the original print?

[Shawn Dougherty]

Ilford MG IV FB developed in Sprint QSPD and selenium toned gives a nice slight cool tone but it seems a little more on the purple/pink side than purple/blue....

[nworth]

Iron blue tones tend to give a more blue-green look. They can probably be further treated like cyanotypes to give a more purplish look. (I haven't tried.) Gold toning on warm tone papers gives a gray-blue tone that sometimes goes toward violet with very full toning. I also wonder (again, I haven't tried) what partial sulfide sepia (or maybe selenium) toning that just begins to tone the image followed by gold would do. Full sepia followed by gold give brilliant reds. Just a little bit, leaving plenty of silver, might give a purplish blue.

[tim rudman]

Gary,
Selenium can cool off neutral/cool tone papers but this is emulsion specific and even then not really what I would understand as 'violet'. With your warmtone papers it will give a shift to a brown or reddish brown.
For violet blue you really need either a Gold direct toner, or a chromogenic toner, which uses 'colour formers' (often referred to as 'colour couplers'), these can give any colour including a range of blues. violet, lilac and all otherwise elusive colours.
Gold will cool off a silver print and with a warm tone paper will give some blue shift of varying degree. Lith prints will give the most striking range of blues/violets with Gold toner. Ilford's Cooltone paper also gives a good blue shift with prlonged gold toning (patience required).

Iron blue toners will give a range of blues from green-blue to royal or purplish blue, but they are less archivally stable than those mentioned above. They can be very effective with partial gold too, (but the iron element is still less stable)

Tim

[psvensson]

Gary, Tim is the expert, of course. I've done quite a bit of gold toning, but I wouldn't describe the tones as violet for any of the papers I've tried. Homemade lith developer plus gold toner gives me purple tones on RC paper, to my chagrin, because it doesn't fit many subjects. The only time I've really gotten violet tones was when toning a cyanotype in a combined solution of tannic acid + sodium carbonate, but I can't remember if the result was stable.

[Bob Carnie]

I am finding on Galerie paper that, slight bleach sepia , followed by gold, followed by iron blue gives a distintive blue tone in the shadow areas and lower midtones that is nice.
The addition of gold may be what is turning the print more to the blue. when I do not add gold to the above just sepia and iron blue the shadows seem to be more greenish.

[tim rudman]

Gary, Tim is the expert, of course. I've done quite a bit of gold toning, but I wouldn't describe the tones as violet for any of the papers I've tried. Homemade lith developer plus gold toner gives me purple tones on RC paper, to my chagrin, because it doesn't fit many subjects. The only time I've really gotten violet tones was when toning a cyanotype in a combined solution of tannic acid + sodium carbonate, but I can't remember if the result was stable.

Yes, you are correct to point that out. Gold alone on conventionally processed silver prints gives blue (of sorts) on suitable papers, rather than violet. Ultra warm Lith prints though will often go through a range of red (brief) purple, violet, lilac etc before final blue is reached.
As mentioned, iron blue after partial gold is very nice, but more purplish than violet (this all starts to get subjective!), but a straight iron blue can be shifted towards purple by a slightly alkaline bath, but it also becomes less stable, and if the bath is too alkaline or too long, the blue will revert to greys (sometimes giving very attractive duotone splits) .
An acidic bath will shift the blue to the more stable greenish blue.
Tim

[Gary Holliday]

I may have found the toner which will achieve the look I was trying to emulate.

http://www.fineartprinting.de/bilder.php?galerie=kob