What kind of toning process is this?

[Bob Carnie]

I tried silver prints with bleach back and without toning the prints did fade,
I assumed they needed to be fixed and washed again.
I like the look , what toners other than sepia would make this permanent?

It's not exactly a secret process

In the Art of Photography exhibition 1989 shown US the Uk and Australia to celebrate 150 years of photography there were many older POP images, they ahd to be viewed in very subdued light due to their impermanence.

Early photographers soon found the images degraded and began using toners to give protect and give images a longer life.

Ian

[Ian Grant]

I tried silver prints with bleach back and without toning the prints did fade,
I assumed they needed to be fixed and washed again.
I like the look , what toners other than sepia would make this permanent?

Weak plain Sodium Thiosulphate fixer followed by Gold toner even a plain fix will take a percentage of the silver.

Needs more thought & some experimenting.

Ian

[Nicholas Lindan]

This differs from traditional printing-out in that the excess silver has already been removed. Exposure to light shouldn't cause the print to go uniformly dark as happens with POP/proof prints.

Bob, when you say you saw fading - was that fading to a dark print or fading to a light print?

[Gerald C Koch]

I'm just curious, does exposure to bleached silver on a print convert it to a form that is stable when exposed to sunlight? It seems that when I expose the print bleached in the solution of potassium bromide and potassium ferricyanide, the image comes back brownish which is pretty stable.

When the silver image is bleached with ferricyanide in the presence of potassium bromide. it is converted to silver bromide. This is once again sensitive to light and the print will soon darken unless the print is refixed. A brown color to the image is caused by the smaller size of the silver grains. Years ago photographers gave out "proofs" on printing out paper. They were easy to make since they were not fixed and would darken on exposure to light. This guaranteed that the photographer would get paid. You can get all sorts of interesting colors by exposing photographic paper to light and not developing and fixing it. However, once in the fixer the colors are lost.

[Bob Carnie]

Memory serves me correct , fading to light

This differs from traditional printing-out in that the excess silver has already been removed. Exposure to light shouldn't cause the print to go uniformly dark as happens with POP/proof prints.

Bob, when you say you saw fading - was that fading to a dark print or fading to a light print?

[Ian Grant]

Memory serves me correct , fading to light

The problem is that without a fixing stage there's still Silver Bromide present in the emulsion, as it's insoluble washing isn't sufficient.

How ever it should be possible to tone then fix, one of the alternative processes uses this sequence.

The issue of leaving spent halides in an emulsion is that they can reverse, bleaching, that's how some reversal B&W papers and now discontinued films work.

Ian

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Here's a scan of the print tone in the solution of potassium bromide and potassium ferricyanide. As you can see, it looks very organic. The process is very unpredictable. I also love the imperfections of spots from the process. The print after bleaching is re-exposed while it's still wet. If I squeegee toner from the print, it will have less mottling.

[Rich Ullsmith]

It looks like you got a little solarization on the leaf. It's nice. I know you can get solarization by heavily flashing the print when re-developing (after the rehalogenating bleach). It works sometimes in lith developer, I don't know about others. But it looks like you have a little there.

[Mainecoonmaniac]

It looks like you got a little solarization on the leaf. It's nice. I know you can get solarization by heavily flashing the print when re-developing (after the rehalogenating bleach). It works sometimes in lith developer, I don't know about others. But it looks like you have a little there.

I like the look of the process. It's unpredictable as I mentioned. So is my soup of potassium ferricyanide and potassium bromide a rehalogenating bleach?

[Ian Grant]

You aren't using any toner Just the bleach, if you bleached in the darkroom in subdued/low light and washed before re-exposure you'd probably cure the imperfections.

Ian