Two themes are explored with regard to the properties of the metal to ligand charge-transfer (MLCT) excited states of Os(II). For a series of Os(II) complexes it is shown that the MLCT excited states undergo facile oxidative or reductive quenching. Excited-state redox potentials have been estimated by both kinetic quenching and spectroscopic techniques for excited-state oxidative couples and excited-state reductive couples. The second theme, the manipulation of excited-state properties by synthetic changes, follows from a consideration of these factors that dictate excited-state redox potentials. It is shown that in the series (phen)OsL/sub 4//sup 2 +/ (L = pyridine, CH/sub 3/CN, PR/sub 3/, AsR/sub 3/, ... and phen = 1,10-phenanthroline) where the metal-ligand basis for the MLCT chromophore remains the same and variations are made in the nonchromophoric ligand, emission energies, excited-state redox potentials, and radiative and nonradiative rate constants all vary systematically with the potential of the ground-state Os(III/II) couple. The results show that it is possible through synthetic changes to control excited-state properties in a systematical way. 37 references, 6 figures, 5 tables.