Hi, recently i decided to take a photography class in my third year of college. I have fallen in love with the darkroom as well as taking pictures. While messing around with the different toners, i chose to use the blue tint for one pose. After i had agitated it until the print looked blue, i dumped the remaining toner out, and washed under water like I should. THe problem i'm having is, around the borders where it is completely white, i'm getting a remaining blued residue from the toner. I've let the picture rinse, and rinse, and rinse, but it's not helping. Any suggestions on what i can do differently to not get that blue residue on the side of my portraits? I would like to continue to use this color of tint, but i don't want it to stain my borders! A Tint of Frustration, Aubs

-- aubs (aubspap@aol.com), November 21, 2001

Answers

Blue toners are not really toners, as they act on both the silver and the paper base, so a blue toner is bound to color the paper itself. A toner like selenium or sepia which acts only on the silver of the image will not touch the unexposed whites. These are true toners which will increase the archival permanence of the image - blue will not.

-- Anthony. (ant_ro@hotmail.com), November 22, 2001.

Hi aubs,

What you can do is to mask the part of the photo that you don't want to be tinted. You can get the masking fluid from Arts shop. When applied they are usually yellow in color and form a 'rubbery' layer on top of the print. This will prevent the masked area from been tinted, you can rub off the mask using finger or soft eraser after the tinting process when the print is thoroughly dry.

-- Adrian Seah (prophoto_sg@yahoo.com.sg), November 28, 2001.

Since when has toner been Camera Equipment?
You might get some more informed answers in the Printing and Finishing forum.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), November 28, 2001.