I have used toner before as a separate step after fixing. Does anyone have any experience putting toner into the original fixer bath so that all prints get toned?

I was thinking of adding a small amount of selenium toner, less than you might use in a regular toner bath, with the intention of generally sprucing up the black tones of the paper. My toned prints look, to me, MUCH better than the non-toned version so I thought, why not tone them all?

-- Don Karon (dkaron@socal.rr.com), April 22, 2000

Answers

Indeed, why not tone them all. I actually tone all my prints for archival permanence, though not always in selenium. Some look better when toned in gold toner, sepia toner, or split-toned in, e.g., selenium and gold. Where no change in tone is desired, I do agree that selenium at high dilutions and for not too long a time is fine. I have my doubts, however, that it works as intended when mixed with the fixer. W/o being able to substantiate that right now (as all the stuff is in the lab at home) I believe that selenium toner is alkaline, and most fixers are acid. So bringing them together might render at least one of them ineffective.

-- Thomas Wollstein (thomas_wollstein@web.de), April 25, 2000.