Kodak's Selenium toner is a cumulative poison. I splashed about in it gloveless, with a cigarette in my mouth totally unaware of the harm that I have now done myself. . Then there is the waste of so much water for washing prints and film.
Selenium toner can be made by combining selenium with sodium sulfide to make sodium selenosulfide. The other way to do it is to combine selenium with sodium sulfite to produce sodium slenosulfate.
Kodak Poly- Toner, which contains both selenium and potassium sulfide, gives results similar to those obtained with plain selenium toner, and there seems to be no special advantage in using this toner.
Selenium toner acts as a preservative and can alter the color of a print, but Adams used it subtly, primarily because it can add almost a full zone to the tonal range of the final print, producing richer dark tones that still hold shadow detail.
I loved this article. I am trying to work out a digital formula for selenium toner. Any ideas on that?
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 See also: Camera, Photographer, Tone, Darkroom, Processing
  
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