I have been trying out the cool toned images for the desert scenics, sometimes that works and sometimes it hinders. All of which is a personal call, for the printer. Perhaps it is an old bias of historically liking warm toned images. Much of that has to do with the image itself, for me, some images work well when printed in cool tones, when in full sun or middle of the day when the color temperature is up over 6000K, good daylight work. Late afternoon lighting on the other hand, is warm and lays that soft yellow ochre color on things that hold and reflect light, mostly in the middle tones and some highlights. For me that demands warm tone developing, using sodium citrate then toning in palladium.
The palladium toner opens up middle tones, opens up some shadow detail and deepens and blacks. Overall the toner keeps the image's warm color from the sodium citrate developer intact. Gold toning the same warm image shifts the shadows to a cool tone, and the longer the toning the more cooling of all tonalities, thereby losing the warmth of the print image. The gold toner used was the 1% formula with 1% thiourea the (all at once) toner. Not only does one get the warm toned image desired from the palladium toner, but also ends up with a palladium print, after the palladium salts in the toner completely replace all the silver salts in the print. The "poor man's" palladium.
Sam paper, different developer and toner from the last post with this image. This will be the final print. The first one will be destroyed. This print, as the others printed now, will all be unique prints.
Palladium toned Kallitype
"Desert Sunset #3" ~ 11x14
Avra Valley, Arizona
