I interesting in knowing about any interesting split-tone results that anyone has gotten from any combination of paper and toner(s). I've been doing a lot of comparison testing, lately, with various papers and toners, searching for a subtle mixture of warm and cool tones in a single print. I'd love to know how certain well-known photographers and printers are getting their split tones (like Michael Kenna, for example).

Here are the more interesting paper/toner combos I've come up with:

Forte Polywarmtone in selenium 1:9 produces a redish-brown shadow with a cool highlight (for some images its beautiful, for others it can be garish). Agfa Multicontrast Classic in Kodak Polytoner 1:50 produces a cool shadow with a warm, buff mid-highlight. Ilford Multigrade IV LIGHTLY toned with Fotospeed variable-sepia (with a very short time in the bleach) produces a pearly mix of cool shadows and warm, olive green-brown mid-highlights (for permanence, you should follow that with highly-dilute selenium, as thiouria alone does not enhance permanence). Multigrade IV also looks nice toned lightly in Agfa Viradon, producing a very subtle warm color.

Generally, I've found that warm toners go better with cold papers and vice-versa. But, then, my taste is for very subtle, yet complex print color. Let me know what you've found.

-- Joel Pickford (Pickimage@csufresno.edu), October 30, 1998

Answers

Joel,

I've been horsing around with split toning, but obviously not as extensively as you. I was originally turned on to the idea by the work of Olivia Parker. In that time I've run across a variety of references & techniques but haven't been able to try them all. I have found that a split tone doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to all darkroom denizens. Supposedly View Camera is going to run an article on split toning in the not-too-distant future.

According to Jim Stones book DARKROOM DYNAMICS ISBN # 0930764072, Olivia Parker uses/used Kodak Azo in Selectol 1:1 at 25 deg centigrade for Gr 2 & 3 and 23 deg centigrade for Gr 4. She emphasizes the importance of the warm dev temperature as well as the possible effect that impurities in the local water could have on the process pro or con. Then she uses a combination toner/clearing bath, although she does allow that seperating them into two baths may be necessary if fixer stains occur. The combination bath is 70ml Selenium, 30 ml PermaWash, and 20g Kodalk or sodium metaborate to 1 liter of H2O. Seperatley it's the same ingredients to 1 liter ea. She says the period prior to the split will take about 4 minutes. She also says that she threw out quite a bit of paper before she became comfortable with the process. Hers is the effect I have always admired and tried to replicate for myself with mixed results. Basically the highlits stay white or very very light grey, the darker tones and blacks go deep black with a purplish tinge and the mid- tones go light brown/sepia -ish. It's a very startling effect and helps make the flat 2-D print a little 3-D.

Now, to complicate the issue, in the July/August 96 issue of View Camera mag, Michael A. Smith points out that "new" Azo doesn't split tone as well as "old" Azo used to. How different and so forth I don't know, I havent had a chance to ask him but he's on the web through the Lotus View Camera site.

When I started contact printing on Azo, I bought 1 pre-'94 "Proud Sponsor of the U.S. Olympic team" box of Azo at an old dusty camera store in Philadelphia. There is No expiration date anywhere in site. It was grade 4 and split-tones like the dickens! I haven't had any luck or at least similar luck with the lower grades. SO, is that because, as Smith says, the "new" doesn't work like the "old", OR, because the Grade 4 splits really really well and achieves the affect I desire? I won't know until I can afford to buy that 500 sheet box of Azo GR 4 as that appears to be the only count it comes in now.

In other quarters there was a good how to article in the January '94 issue of Camera & Darkroom, a magazine that has gone the way of the passenger pigeon. Eric Matthews, a photographer in Derby England wrote the article and gives a good step-by-step procedure using Agfa Record Rapid (Insignia in the U.S.) toned in Rapid selenium 1:10 for 1 to 5 minutes. Then bleach in Potassium bromide 20gm, Potassium ferricyanide 30 gm & 1 liter H20. WATCH THE PRINT CLOSELY. Have the WATER RUNNING! When it gets where you want it pull it and rinse with all haste. Then rinse as per usual for fb or rc. The key is how long you selenium tone the print and how concentrated the toner is. "The longer the print is left in the selenium toner, the more the shadow areas are protected from the action of the bleach, and the further the dividing line, where the split will occur, is pushed up into the higher values". Send me an S.A.S.E. and I'll send you a photocopy if you like.

Tim Rudman of the U.K. has a book, the title escapes me but the ISBN is 1857324072, with an extensive chapter on toning & split toning. The # of formulas and techniques is too great to go into here but it bears looking at at the local library or AMAZON.com or whatever.

So, there's what I've found out, I've got a lot of work to do to experiment with it all and "publish" my results on the web. I'd like to correspond with you about your results and/or share prints if that grabs you.

Sean Yates

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), November 23, 1998.

I have used the split toning brew described by Sean Yates above with Forte Fortezo, followed by toning in Gold toner. The gold toner only inparts a blue tone to the shadow par of the split for a very plesing effect that works even at lower contrasts.

-- Les Warren (eyeseales@netscape.net), September 23, 1999.