Homemade toners

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Hi,

Anybody have any homemade formula for red, green and blue toners???

Thanks,

Charles

-- Charles (charlesbronsondias@hotmail.com), April 19, 2000

Answers

Get a copy of "The Darkroom Cookbook", there are a bunch of toner recipies in it.

-- Terry Carraway (TCarraway@compuserve.com), April 20, 2000.

http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Developers/Formulas/formulas.htm This is my formulas page, which has Ansco 231 and Dupont 6-T, both of which are gold toner formulas that give blue tones on chloride papers. Thiocyanate-based gold toners are very expensive, but give beautiful results for certain prints--I really like them for photographs of water. Raise the toner temperature up to near 100 degrees F for faster toning action.

-- (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), April 20, 2000.

If you're looking for primary colors, you will have to use dye toners, which are not true toners--just dyes. You can get them from Berg.

Otherwise, here's the scoop on real toners:

Red: I know of nothing that will give a deep red. However, a sepia- toned print re-toned in any gold formula will produce a good orange- red. Sepia is available from Kodak and from the Photographer's Formulary. Gold is available from the Formulary, either Nelson Gold (which produces a beautiful brown on cold-tone papers) or the Fassbender formula (which produces a soft blue to navy blue, depending on the exact formulation).

Green: The only formula I ever discovered that gave a green was vananium toner. And that toner was *very* difficult to use and get right. The green varied from olive, to blue-green, to a fairly bright lime green, depending on the paper. You will have to mix this one yourself.

Blue: You can get a deep blue with iron toner. Iron toner is available from Berg and from the Photographer's Formulary.

I must stress that the use of these toners is a relatively advanced technique, and that, with the exception of the sepia/gold, they are not archival.

You can find the above formulas in a library with a good selection of old photo texts. Experimentation is everything. Good luck.

BTW, you might see if you can find a reprint of my article published in Photo Techniques about 15 years ago.

http://www.ravenvision.com/peterhughes.htm

-- Peter Hughes (leo948@yahoo.com), April 22, 2000.


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