Split toning

[Soulreaver]

I learned sepia and selenium toning last week, pretty amazing the effect on the pics.
But we didn't use blue toning, guess I will have to search the stores.

Let me ask a few things :
1 - I do a bleach in the pic b4 toning, either sepia or selenium.Is that how you do it too?If so, and you are split toning, do you make two bleachs?
2 - If you tone without protecting some areas you will get a good effect?
3 - I dont know what rubber cement is...

tks

 

[ksmattfish]

I only bleach before sepia toning. I selenium tone without bleach.

When I've split toned with sepia and selinum in the past I bleached first, but not all the way (leave some silver for the selenium). Then I sepia toned, and then selenium. The bleach and the sepia affects the highlights and the selenium gets the shadows that are left.

I consider what I described above split toning. I consider toning only specific parts of the photo selective toning, which could be single or split toning also. It just depends on the photo if any particular toning technique will enhance the image.

I don't know how to describ rubber cement. It is a very common household adhesive; you should be able to get it almost anywhere. There is a more expensive product called artist's friskette that is similar, and can be used for selective toning. I prefer the cheap rubber cement.

 

[Soulreaver]

Looks like fun.
I will try it next class, see if I can get a good result.Any hints about what kind of pics work best?

Should I start with sepia too if I intend to split sepia and blue toner ?

tks

 

[Jamie R]

There are several books I have on split-toning. It fell out of favour with me because I kept on screwing up my prints. Sepia is the only one I feel I have mastered with any confidence. It's also less toxic. Of course, all of you guys who are used to using toxically carcinogenic selenium will say I'm a wimp

I quite fancy split-toning gold and copper, although after working to produce the full tonal range of a print, I feel awful when I watch it all disappear in the bleach, knowing that if I'm 5 seconds late, I'll have lost what I had spent the whole night working on in no time.

Got some way to go I guess.