Split-Toning Monochrome?

[Jager]

I've long been a primarily black-and-white photographer and printer.  A bias I cemented a few months ago when I converted to Piezography. 

I'm interested in exploring split-toning, a process that I know has a long, rich history, with a nearly infinite number of varieties.  I'm also aware that many things affect a multi-tone effect, including the elements of the image itself, paper choice, inkset, viewing environment, etc.  Putting aside those many variables for just a moment, and considering just the inks themselves - a slightly warm set, with just a hint of sepia (Cone's Warm Neutral); and a cooler set (Cone's Selenium) -  what is the general thinking regarding where to place warmness vs. coolness, with respect to shadows, mid-tones, and highlights?  Does such an aesthetic even exist?

I find it interesting that many (most?) of the original wet-process split-tone prints had the shadows go selenium/cool and the highlights go sepia/warm, with the transition happening somewhere in the mid-tones.  Whereas most digital pigment-on-paper printers seem to do the reverse - with warmth in the shadows-to-mid-tones and cooler shades in the mid-tones-to-highlights.  I realize darkroom printers were/are constrained by their chemistries and that may have dictated their choice.  That said, is there more to it?  Is there anything in historical art practice or color theory that would suggest one direction versus the other?  I haven't found much via google.

Ultimately, I know a lot of this is up to personal taste and experimentation.  But before I embark upon that voyage I wanted to solicit the thoughts here.

Thanks in advance...

[Ernst Dinkla]

The long lasting pure carbon pigment black inkjet inks are warm. MK, PK and the grey inks included. For most brands with the exception of the HP pigment Vivera PK (not the MK) and the Vivera grey inks which are neutral but still not cool. Cooler third party pigment quad inks may exist but are an exception too. Cooling the warm carbon pigment with blue inks/pigments is possible but hard to achieve up to black (Dmax compromised) and fading in time will bring back the warm carbon. So what you observed may well be a limitation of inkjet technology like you see the opposite toning happening in silver halide processes. Of course taste could well be on the same path.

The variety of inkjet media can not be a limit on the light side of the tonal range, warm-neutral-cool is all possible, but long lasting OBA free papers are at least warmer than neutral. The choice in silver halide papers is limited these days and was probably never as wide as it is in inkjet media right now. OBAs have been used in silver halide papers for half a century, the typical warmer portrait papers could have been without OBA content. In time the OBA papers media white has shifted to warm anyway due to OBA dye fading. So what might look like a cold to warm split tone now, could have been a cool print initially.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[john beardsworth]

I find it interesting that many (most?) of the original wet-process split-tone prints had the shadows go selenium/cool and the highlights go sepia/warm, with the transition happening somewhere in the mid-tones.  Whereas most digital pigment-on-paper printers seem to do the reverse - with warmth in the shadows-to-mid-tones and cooler shades in the mid-tones-to-highlights.

I'd agree with the first part of that comment about wet prints, not the second part, but by "printers" do you mean the person or the hardware? If it's hardware, aren't you trying to compare a creative (and partly chemical) choice with a mechanical process?

I'll pass over that as your question seems to be more about the aesthetic. Assuming "digital pigment-on-paper printers" refers to the human, I'd contend there's been no change in how people choose to split tone. Warm highlights,  cooler shadows. There must be all sorts of reasons including convention or tradition. But with some huge generalisations, I think "warm highlights, cool shadows" is analogous to how we treat colour in photography. A red object tends to stand out and attract our eye, blues draw us deeper in. With B&W, you're drawing attention to features and image regions by lightening them, and making them less obvious in the composition by darkening. So sepias and warm tones are performing a similar job to brighter tones, while blues fit the more subdued tones.

[Paul Roark]

Ernst, I think the MK inks are the only ones in OEM inksets that are "pure" carbon.  (Even then the Epson MSDS dodges the issue, but theirs looks and fade tests just like a top notch pure carbon ink.)  The PKs and grays of all the OEMs appear to be blends of carbon with color pigments.  HP just, from our perspective, has the "best" in terms of looking neutral when used by itself in a B&W print.  MIS (k4 PK, LK, LLK, "Eboni" and various B&W inksets) and Cone carbon sepia are the usual 100% carbon ink inputs used by most B&W printers who choose not to go the OEM route.

Since the OP was using Cone inks, matte paper appears to be the medium.  For matte paper, the MK can be neutral or near neutral.  See page 2 of http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Carbon-Variable-Tone.pdf where I have graphs of 100% carbon (MIS "Eboni v. 1.1" [STS Inks wholesale source]) on Premier Art's Smooth HP 325 gsm paper.  With a natural matte paper, where the paper itself is somewhat warm, the "natural" carbon curve will be warm through most of the print, but have a black that is cooler than the paper.  Getting a good dmax on matte paper with a blended carbon plus color ink is difficult.  With glossy it's easy, which is one reason the OEMs do it.

The "Eboni" MK is the most neutral carbon, but, like all of them, it becomes warmer when diluted for the lighter inks.  With a printer like the Epson 1430 that has a tiny 1.5 picoliter drop size, the "black only" (MK) can be used to pull the warmth of diluted carbon inks down.  As long as the MK (black only curve) is only about half of the total image forming substance, the smoothness will be good enough for most.  This is not the case for the wide format printers or any with a 3.5 pl drop size (unfortunately).

Most of the split-tone inkjet prints I've measured or seen data on have curve that are not that different from the ones on the the PDF linked above.  They tend to push down the warmth earlier than the pure carbon, however.  With QTR if you have profiles for the warm and cooler inks, use the sliders to emphasize the warm in the highlights and cool (or with Eboni -- black only) curves in the shadows, but starting them in the midtones to pull the 50% value down from what it would be with pure diluted carbon.

FWIW

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[Phil Indeblanc]

I haven't experimented with this much in printing, but I will be soon, and I too often think about this when processing for such intents.
I think I would lean in with what John says.

...The shadows can be cold as the color temperature goes higher in the shadows. I noticed this when photographing some caves. I would get nice rich warm colors in the photos where there was sunlight bounced in, but where there is shadow and some dusty smoke in the air, the colors were cold blueish. *This was in one frame, you could see the difference right in the one pic. This is in color, and maybe helps this "translate" into BW/?

That is some great useful inputs about the HP ink system and others (Ernst & Paul), since I now use the z3200.

Great post....I too would be interested to hear from others about this.

[Jager]

Thank you, gentlemen.

John, you are correct - I am speaking here of aesthetic, rather than process.

Just to clarify... Jon Cone's K7 process involves eight distinct shades of black ink, of which seven are used at any one time (depending upon whether photo black or matte black is used). 

The other six inks - shades 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 - are each specific to the inkset they belong to (Cone sells five K7 inksets:  Neutral, Warm Neutral, Selenium, Carbon, and Special Edition).  Each shade was designed to have the same tonal density across the five inksets.  So, for example, shade 2 will have the same ink load and density in the Warm Neutral inkset as shade 2 does does in, say, the Selenium inkset, even though the resulting "color" is very different.  That shade-equivalence has the propitious quality of allowing one to mix shades across inksets - replacing, for example, our Warm Neutral Shade 2 with Selenium Shade 2 - and by so doing to achieve a variety of multi-toned effects. 

I hope that's not too embarrassingly unclear!

Anyway, I've been using the Warm Neutral inkset for awhile.  I have another set of carts and a full set of Selenium inks on order.  Because I will be able to combine the two inksets in any combination (as long as the respective shade positions are respected), I can direct warmth or coolness to whatever part of the curve I like.  Most digital printmakers doing what I'm proposing seem to prefer the mid-tones to highlights going cool (using Selenium in shades 5, 6, and 7), with the shadows to mid-tones warm (using Warm Neutral in shades 2, 3, and 4).  Some actually physically mix the shade 4 inks 50/50, to better start the transition in the mid-tones.

Silver gelatin printmakers have it reversed, with the Selenium tones in the shadows to mid-tones and the warmer sepia in the mid-tones to the highlights.  That choice is driven mostly (or entirely), I'm sure, by how the bleaching and toning is dictated by chemistry.

Ergo my wondering if there is, or has ever been, any kind of study, practice, or theory behind why one might make those various selections.  John, your post has me thinking.

Thanks again guys.  Am very interested in any other thoughts anyone has...

[David Sutton]

An interesting thread. Whatever toning I'm applying I prefer to add it to the shadows and restrict the effect on the highlights to perhaps 25%. It seems to give the image more depth to my eye.  Usually I'd use a luminosity mask to do this, often off just one channel or off an lab version, and adjust the mask with curves to suit.
David

[TylerB]

I mess with the different Cone sets for blends and splits a lot. Being from the darkroom long ago, and preferring chlorobromide papers, selenium toned, I tend to agree with your assesment and generally like the selenium inks in the darker positions.
For access to more experienced users with these sets, ask here-
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/piezography3000/info
and here-
http://www.inkjetmall.com/tech/forum.php

You might also ask Cone.. as they "may" have a new variable system that let's you choose your splits on the fly, soon.

[Ernst Dinkla]

What I understand of this thread so far is that this forum's aesthetics are cool shadows and warm highlights. The OP observes the opposite in inkjet prints. In my experience with B&W inkjet prints in general is that any black cooler than neutral sacrifices Dmax compared to slightly warm blacks. Based on printing B&W with the old Epson 9000 loaded with Eboni, grey inks + blue and sepia toner and B&W printing with two HP Z printers. This might have been the case with selenium toning of B&W prints in the past too. Paul's examples show warm papers and near neutral but not yet cool blacks in my opinion. Not the selenium cool blacks. It is all relative of course but when I encounter labels on OBA containing RC papers that say Warmtone where I measure up to Lab b -4.4 for them I wonder how consistent our observations are. There are RC papers going up to b -11 so -4.4 is warmer or better, less cool. But they are not Warmtone. It would not surprise me if the OP could be right and has seen split tone prints on OBA content papers where the black and shadows are warmer than the highlights. Probably not made by this forum and based on the Color or ABW modes of the normal drivers using the OEM inksets on OBA papers. I do not have another explanation for that observation.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[john beardsworth]

What I understand of this thread so far is that this forum's aesthetics are cool shadows and warm highlights. The OP observes the opposite in inkjet prints.

I think one has to be careful to separate the aesthetic from the mechanical. Although it wasn't clear, the OP wasn't talking about prints per se, but observes that people make the opposite aesthetic decision when they make inkjet prints. That's not my own experience - I preferred warm highlights cool shadows in the darkroom and then with digital prints - and it's not what I've observed generally. I don't think the aesthetic choices are any different, and thankfully they continue to drive what we do.

I'd take Phil's point about how we expect cool shadows in real life and how that translates into believing sepia-blue B&Ws. I feel it's a minor factor compared to my theory of the roles of highlights/shadows in B&W red/blues in colour, but I'm sure it's in our minds.

John

[Ernst Dinkla]

I do not advocate that other tastes are better nor dispute that the base for the cool shadows warm highlights taste is not sound. I try to find a cause for the OP's (to me visual, not theoretical) observations. And I think they could be mechanical and possibly the result of mainstream hard- and software. Where the OP sees a possible limitation in the chemicals for silver halide, and I do not, but instead think there is a compromise on Dmax to be made in inkjet prints when really cool blacks and shadows are needed. Yet I read the comments here and I see people go for the cold black/shadows to warm highlights and no mention of lower Dmax. That suggests to me that the cool black shadows are actually neutral or slightly warm and the highlights much warmer. Or is the Dmax compromised and blacks/shadows are really going into Lab b negative values? Edit- Or do they start from OBA content gloss paper which allows a negative b black of good Dmax?

There is mild split tone print hanging to my right here with near neutral blacks to warm highlights on a near neutral OBA free paper quality and I know that it is a compromise for me as I would have liked a cooler black there. The impression is more sepia if not Van Dyke brown in 3000 K light and has no coolness in daylight.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[Phil Indeblanc]

can we see a picture of the print Ernst?  I think the mood of the picture relates to the subject matter. If I have a some hard structure and metal and so forth, I would also lean towards a cooler neutral. If the image has life in it, I may want to lean towards warmer neutrals. There is nothing scientific about how I do my process, but I am constantly thinking of the image, and the intended expression I sense, and that I want to communicate. If I can see the print gain substantially from an adjustment, I will make it. The hardest part in my approach is visualizing the large print. I have made a few tests in smaller size and decided on a tone, then realized this can go less, or more.  I don't think (or at least I don't know) if I can apply a formula to such things.  I am open to trying if some has some specific parameters one should try.

[JayWPage]

I wonder how much influence the paper profile has on split toning, at least some I suspect.

If you are creating the split tone/sepia/etc effect through the use of software, i.e. Photoshop, and not the printer software, then the profile you are printing with must be able to accommodate color ink. I use ImagePrint and their grey profiles do not allow any coloring effects in the file to be printed unless they are added using the ImagePrint interphase, otherwise you have to use a color profile. I don't know how much color ink is used, if any, in their grey profiles.

While there are some knowledgeable people following this thread, I would be interested in hearing their opinions on if or how a custom profile could be used to influence split tone effects.

[TylerB]

I'm not touching the mechanics of this issue as others have, just the subjective preference issues. I don't think there is preference carried over from the darkroom. An obvious exception is Olivia Parker, who used to split tone Azo achieving silvery mids and highs, and rust colored shadows. I've seen plenty of older hand coated processes with warmer shadows, some kallitypes do that. It's up to the artist. In fact one nice thing about ink is that you can play with these things at will, easier than papers/developers/toners/bleaches etc.. I'm not sure that historical trends are good indicators for how to make artistic decisions anyway. I have a variable system, and make choices about splits and blends on a per image basis.

[TylerB]

...I would be interested in hearing their opinions on if or how a custom profile could be used to influence split tone effects.

If printing with a color ink system, I prefer to have as accurate a profile as possible, rather than profiles with splits or other deviations built in, then put the split in the file, and accurately print it. That also opens up your paper options. On the other hand, some of us have made custom profiles from various processes, spit azo, platinum, etc.. but not for output.. for assigning to an image to emulate that process, then accurately printing normally, so they are not output profiles in that sense.. the QTR profiler is an excellent tool for such things.
I don't use Imageprint, but I imagine they have enough color ink present for you to make toning choices, I'd assume a split is well within that capability.

[deanwork]

I have found that when using the Vivera inks on most quality matte media like the Canson Rag Photographique and Edition Etching there is always some natural subtle split going on between the cooler neutralized shadows and midtones and the warmer paper base that effects the highlights and higher values.  I personally like this and think it gives the print more dimension.

Sometimes I will print a totally neutral image out of True Black and White software on the Canon onto one of the warm fiber gloss media like the Harmon warm tone. This can give you a nice punch that is quite sculptural but also pretty natural looking. By that I mean it doesn't look like a bad mistake from a poorly made rgb icc profile trying to print monochrome.

Another thing to consider is the paper that is being used. I've found the Epson Hot Press Bright (which is not very bright at all) and Hot Press Natural will give you more of an overall cooled print color with the same inks and paper than say the Canson or Hahnemuhle matte rag media. This is even true with the Piezography K7 warm Carbon inks. Some of the Premier Art papers also print cooler overall with various insets such as Epson Ultrachrome using QTR.

The curve slider capability of QTR with oem Epson inks is a good way for most people to become involved with various printer driver assigned splits in an easy and predictable way- assigning one hue to highlight, one to midtowns, and one to shadows, or just one to highlights and just one more  hue to midtowns and shadows. In this way Roy Harrington has done all the work for you.

The method that Tyler uses with Studio Print and Piezogrpahy, and actually mixing the various hues of different channels in the ink carts themselves to personal taste for a specific project,  is the most refined way to doing this in my opinion, but it takes a lot of practice, patience, and experimentation and is not for your average user. Cone's "Special Edition" inkset is a good example of a pre-made inkset that is designed for a specific split that looks natural, and dimensional, though overall warm. 

A third way to achieve a split between high values and the midtowns and shadows is to print a cool or warm overall light tone on the paper, let that dry, and then run the print back through with neutral, warm, or cool inks for the image area. There is a lot that can be done this way, and I don't see it being explored that much. An example could be laying down a very light bluish hue to the whole paper and then print a warm toned image on top of that ground. This gets you into an area done a lot with traditional printmaking like lithography and photo silkscreen printing.



John

[richardboutwell]

The great thing is there are a lot of options, but the bad thing is there are a lot of options. . .

I use QuadToneRIp for all my black and white printing, either with dedicated B&W ink sets or the standard Epson inks—I have an older version of studio print for a 7600 with the last few drops of the old PiezoTone inks, but I never had a PC to run it, and just used QTR to build and mix the carbon/selenium profiles.

With printing through QTR using the Epson inks my particular preference is to keep the highlights on the neutral/warm side, and then start adding a selenium in the mid-tones through the shadows. With the QTR split toning option checked it might look like this: Highlights: 50%Warm, 40% Neutral, 10% Selenium — Mid: 40%W, 40%N, 20%S — Shadows: 40%W, 30%N, 30%S. The main reason I stay away form the selenium in the highlights is that the the magenta/light magenta used to create the selenium profile adds too much pink to the highlight relative to the rest of the scale. Some people might like it, but it looks too obvious for to me. It is like selenium toning Azo prints; you need to keep the KRST down to 1:128 or 1:64 or else the highlights go too pink too quick. 

Toning with dedicated black and white ink sets can be done one way that doesn't require mixing different hues of the same shade (like selenium and carbon), but it will require you to make your own QTR profiles.

Something I experimented with a few months with a six ink printer was creating a 5-shade carbon QTR profile as a "warm" base profile, and then using that as a platform to create a second profile to incorporate a selenium shade 5 toner that runs the whole length of the tonal scale. It worked great, and was able to smooth out any jumps or gaps from the way the QTR curve creator partitions the inks and gives the ability to control how much toner goes into the highlights/mid-tones/shadows just like printing with color inks. 

I just put a set of Cone carbon shades 1-6 and selenium shades 2.5 and 4.5 into a 3800 so my next attempt will be create a six-shade carbon base profile and and another with a 2-partition toner profile with a shades 2.5 and 4.5. That just happens to be what are loaded in the remaining slots in the printer from the digital negative ink set, but a similar same thing could be done with additional carts loaded with shades 3 and shade 5.

[Some Guy]

The OP might want to look into the website of Making Art Safely ( http://www.makingartsafely.com/Artists_Workshops.html  ) where Jon Cone teaches a class on ink mixing and outputs.  Held near Santa Fe, New Mexico about twice a year I think.

I've often done split tones just keeping an image in Adobe RGB and swinging the curves in PS to add color highlights and densities with a printer with more blacks (PK, LK, LLK, etc.).

Heard of a guy who does platinum printing but runs a second pass of the print to add color tones to it too.

SG

[Jager]

Thanks for the thoughts and the dialogue, gentlemen.  It has been very helpful.

I decided to go with the general consensus here and went with the cooler Selenium inks in the shadows through the mid-tones (shades 1, 2, 3, and 4); and the warmer Warm Neutral inks in the upper mid-tones through the highlights (shades 5, 6, and 7).  After printing with that setup for close to a week, on a number of different prints, I am very pleased.  The now cooler dark tones impart a very different emotional effect than did my original Warm Neutral inkset.  Much closer to neutral.  And closer to a conventional silver gelatin darkroom print.  I like both inksets.  Different images benefit from one or the other.  And different papers respond slightly differently.  But I think if I were to go back to a single inkset it would be the Selenium.  

That said, I don't think I'll be going back to a straight inkset anytime soon.

When I first began running my Piezography setup a few months ago, the singular thing that drew me was the rich, gentle tonal separations, extending all the way into the deepest shadows and all the way up into the brightest highlights.  It was a quiet high-fidelity.

The split-tone effect seems to amplify that richness, albeit in a very subtle way.  It's not at all harsh or bold.  Many might not even notice it at all.  But to those attuned to nuances of tone, it seems to add another dimension to how tonal separation occurs.  It's a very delicate effect.

I like it very much.

[deanwork]

That sounds like a promising option for a split. Most of the mixes I've done were with Selenium, Neutral, and Carbon Sepia. I"d like to try that.

Another combination that looks very silvery and clean is all Selenium except for shades 6 and 7 which I've used the neutral inks for in those channels. This eliminates the slight pinkish highlights of the straight Selenium set, but avoiding what I've come to feel is a slight greenish hue of the whole neutral set. Different papers react differently though. I use Canson matt rag. The Epson Hot Press is cooler.

Another interesting mix that I like a lot is to actually mix all the hues 50% neutral and 50% Selenium right in the ink carts for all of the channels. I like that better personally than either of these insets alone or the warm neutral alone.


John