My First Lith Print

Only new to Lith printing myself so cant give any guidance really. To keep the temperature up I put a larger tray under tray holding the lith developer. I poor very hot water into this larger tray which helps to keep the temperature of the developer in the lith tray up

Very nice shot. The wide and gle and colour makes for a very nice intense image
M

martinhughesireland said:

To keep the temperature up I put a larger tray under tray holding the lith developer. I poor very hot water into this larger tray which helps to keep the temperature of the developer in the lith tray up

Click to expand...

I tried that but it cools off very quickly. I was thinking about a hotplate, but don't know where to look (stores on internet) or what they're called

I love the detail in the bark, as do you. I also love the composition. The wide lens has a real abstract quality on this particular composition and the lith development emphasizes that. Good choice!

I don't know your dilution and the time spent in the soup.
Your exposure is basically for the highlights and you let the blacks kick in.
Snatch point is tricky because you always think you got black and it isn't. You need to wait a little bit more and fight against the desire to pull the print.
For your print I would overexpose much more and see what's going on.
And it's really becoming interesting when print stays a long time in dev (you don't need hot plate)...
Enjoy the addiction !

What Guillaume said....

Great first effort, though! Keep it up!

the dilution was whatever was in the instructions for Fotospeed LD20.
15ml-partA : 485ml water + 15ml-partB : 485ml water then mix together and add old brown @ 1:4. I tried about 6 different prints using different exposures and times etc. the longer exposure left no detail in the bark and the longer developing left it a darker brown. The infectious dev didn't seem very infectious. It just seemed slow. I suppose it's just one of those trial & error things. I used a hotwater bath to warm up the developer and that seemed to help too. I suppose the right negative for the learning part will help too. an easier negative maybe.

thanks for all your comments. I've been studying Tim Rudman's book during my lunch 1/2 hour at work too. I have a submersible water heater for a fish tank. do any of you use one of those? It only goes to 88 degrees.

Guillaume is spot on. I'd try doubling or tripling tthe exposure and see what you get. Sometimes lith prints need burning in and this may be one of them.

Also, I usually float my developer tray in warm water in a larger tray. I do this because I am impatient more than anything else.....it also makes agitation very easy.

Mark Fisher said:

Guillaume is spot on. I'd try doubling or tripling tthe exposure and see what you get. Sometimes lith prints need burning in and this may be one of them.

Also, I usually float my developer tray in warm water in a larger tray. I do this because I am impatient more than anything else.....it also makes agitation very easy.

Click to expand...

when I tried that (tripling the exposure) it lost all the contrast/texture and charm of the tree bark and got soft and muddy which is why I went for a shorter exposure. I could however try burning the tree tops to balance out the trunks with the sky. does the warmer temperature change the color?

thanks for the suggestions. (I have a feeling I should have put this in the technical gallery. oh well)

- Too fresh dev acting too fast.
- When it's exhausted go for long exposure. x3 x4 whatever.
- Dodge your trees, you will get contrast and blacks.

thank you all for the suggestions. this keeps me from getting frustrated.