Black and white print manipulation

Urban Medium · 20th February 2009

I have seen James Whitlow Delano's images. His prints seemed to be manipulated with chemicals like toners and stuff.

How do you go about doing it? Or is there any other alternative chemical we can find anywhere that we can experiment with the prints to get experimentative results?

enivre · 20th February 2009

Originally Posted by Urban Medium

I have seen James Whitlow Delano's images. His prints seemed to be manipulated with chemicals like toners and stuff.

How do you go about doing it? Or is there any other alternative chemical we can find anywhere that we can experiment with the prints to get experimentative results?

Sephia toning? Can call ruby to check if they have stock.

Xtol19 · 20th February 2009

Originally Posted by Urban Medium

I have seen James Whitlow Delano's images. His prints seemed to be manipulated with chemicals like toners and stuff.

How do you go about doing it? Or is there any other alternative chemical we can find anywhere that we can experiment with the prints to get experimentative results?

There are sections on toning in B&W books, and even complete books on toning. Read them.

Bottom line is that you need chemicals for toning. And lots of patience and rework too.

Urban Medium · 20th February 2009

Hmm okay. Ruby uncle said we need to order in bulk as they don't bring in anymore. Just another question, what affects the photo prints??

fastshot · 21st February 2009

There used to be quite a few suppliers for Sepia toners that can give the "warm aged" look in the prints. Due to low demand now for b/w darkroom practice, I think no camera shops are bringing in them now. However you can still get them from US, Germany and Japan.

The sepia toning effect can be build up by using warm tone paper and developers. Agfa used to produce them. And then you apply the sepia toners, or gold toner, or split toning with 2 colors etc. To increase the local contrast, you can hand bleach some parts of the print by using ferricyanide solution. Delano also burn in the corners of his prints which most people do to a degree. Selenium Toner from Kodak was also a popular choice, but it gives only a mild toning effect although the primary intention is to increase print permanence.

In my opinion it is probably easier to do these b/w warm toned prints digitally. You take your picture in color (raw preferred), do the processing/manipulation using photoshop, lightroom, raw processors etc, convert it to b/w with/without toning, and then print it out with a printer that has 2 or more black ink cartridges (photo black, matt black, light black, grey, etc). You can now get very good baryta like paper from Hanemuhler, Harman etc. with the traditional fibre paper textures.

The digital b/w prints can be so good that the giveaway is that it is too technically perfect when compared to the traditional wet print.

If you have not started on b/w prints in the wet darkroom, then my suggestion is to go the digital route first. It will be much easier & cheaper to get early successes and therefore spur your interest to develop your personal style in b/w prints. Thereafter, you can seek how to replicate your style by the traditional way ~ which I'm afraid to say is usually very challenging for most people and only the most committed and stout hearted ones can be triumphant.

20th February 2009	#1
Urban Medium New Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 36	Black and white print manipulation I have seen James Whitlow Delano's images. His prints seemed to be manipulated with chemicals like toners and stuff. How do you go about doing it? Or is there any other alternative chemical we can find anywhere that we can experiment with the prints to get experimentative results?

20th February 2009	#4
Urban Medium New Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 36	Re: Black and white print manipulation Hmm okay. Ruby uncle said we need to order in bulk as they don't bring in anymore. Just another question, what affects the photo prints??

21st February 2009	#5
fastshot Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: 3rd Mile Stone Posts: 374	Re: Black and white print manipulation There used to be quite a few suppliers for Sepia toners that can give the "warm aged" look in the prints. Due to low demand now for b/w darkroom practice, I think no camera shops are bringing in them now. However you can still get them from US, Germany and Japan. The sepia toning effect can be build up by using warm tone paper and developers. Agfa used to produce them. And then you apply the sepia toners, or gold toner, or split toning with 2 colors etc. To increase the local contrast, you can hand bleach some parts of the print by using ferricyanide solution. Delano also burn in the corners of his prints which most people do to a degree. Selenium Toner from Kodak was also a popular choice, but it gives only a mild toning effect although the primary intention is to increase print permanence. In my opinion it is probably easier to do these b/w warm toned prints digitally. You take your picture in color (raw preferred), do the processing/manipulation using photoshop, lightroom, raw processors etc, convert it to b/w with/without toning, and then print it out with a printer that has 2 or more black ink cartridges (photo black, matt black, light black, grey, etc). You can now get very good baryta like paper from Hanemuhler, Harman etc. with the traditional fibre paper textures. The digital b/w prints can be so good that the giveaway is that it is too technically perfect when compared to the traditional wet print. If you have not started on b/w prints in the wet darkroom, then my suggestion is to go the digital route first. It will be much easier & cheaper to get early successes and therefore spur your interest to develop your personal style in b/w prints. Thereafter, you can seek how to replicate your style by the traditional way ~ which I'm afraid to say is usually very challenging for most people and only the most committed and stout hearted ones can be triumphant.