Anyone know the history of Lith printing?

[Andrew Moxom]

Martin, Is there an update on the Fomatone paper yet? I know this is very worrying for a lot of people.

 

[Martin Reed]

Yes, there is, and I'm pleased to say it's all positive. Shane Gilliver here has spent quite a few hours in the dark and tested the latest Fomatone, FB & RC. Both are reacting very favourably to lith, and giving a strong well coloured image. The development seems very fast, Shane was getting a good image in just over 2 minutes using Novolith developer, quite warm, at about 30 C. The RC has a clean white base, so might be a good choice for maximum brightness. The FB as stated before is quite highly yellow pigmented, but most of this will actually wash out with an extended wash of 4-5 hours!

Another interesting attribute is that a split tone can be produced in gold toner after lithing, which is unusual, generally one gets a blanket blue, but a short gold bath gives shadows retaining the original colour, with mid tones & highlights more cold akin to selenium.

I'll scan the prints & try to post them up tomorrow, maybe some of the tones will come across.

 

[Andrew Moxom]

Thanks Martin, I know a lot of folks will appreciate this update as a positive step as we have lost so many emulsions over the last few years, another one would be felt quite badly, especially for 'lith-heads'. This is really good news. Although, it's only a matter of time before they clean the Foma paper up just like the others that have been and gone.

Thanks again.

 

[Tom A]

Thanks Martin for the update. I'm happy to hear that Fomatone is still very reactiv to lith.

Tom

 

[Fintan]

I'll scan the prints & try to post them up tomorrow, maybe some of the tones will come across.

Excellent, look forward to seeing them.
Thanks
Fintan

 

[tim rudman]

Gold. And selenium Blue Spot.

Yes, there is, and I'm pleased to say it's all positive. Shane Gilliver here has spent quite a few hours in the dark and tested the latest Fomatone, FB & RC. Both are reacting very favourably to lith, and giving a strong well coloured image. The development seems very fast, Shane was getting a good image in just over 2 minutes using Novolith developer, quite warm, at about 30 C. The RC has a clean white base, so might be a good choice for maximum brightness. The FB as stated before is quite highly yellow pigmented, but most of this will actually wash out with an extended wash of 4-5 hours!

Another interesting attribute is that a split tone can be produced in gold toner after lithing, which is unusual, generally one gets a blanket blue, but a short gold bath gives shadows retaining the original colour, with mid tones & highlights more cold akin to selenium.

I'll scan the prints & try to post them up tomorrow, maybe some of the tones will come across.

thanks for posting this Martin. It looks as though this paper hasn't changed too much apart from the base tint?

Fomatone MG etc has always been remarkably responsive to developer dilution, getting increasingly colourful as more water is added and this of course affects the reaction to toners too.
At the high dilution / longer dev times I use it always does split beautifully in gold but also in selenium into 3 colour bands, but you have to push the dilution a bit for best results.

The one and only thing I don't like about this paper is that it suffers from what I have christened Blue Spot Syndrome in selenium. Every so often selenium induces a rash of blue spots. Sometimes they are faint and at first can be missed. Othertimes they are florid, bright and totally cover the paper.
Some sheets later the problem vanishes as suddenly as it came. Maddening.

Tim

 

[Martin Reed]

Bleaching & lith redeveloping?

I haven't got your book in front of me, Tim, but I'm sure you went into bleaching & then re-developing in lith as a way of overcoming variability in the manufactured product. When we were doing the experimental stuff for the Silver Gelatin book, Mike Crawford used this as a way of delivering a controllable print quality - performing infectious development on handcoated printing paper has an almost 100% wastage factor. Getting the print right, then bleaching & lith re-developing was the answer. Maybe it is also a way of getting a 'lith' result from unresponsive papers?

 

[tim rudman]

I haven't got your book in front of me, Tim, but I'm sure you went into bleaching & then re-developing in lith as a way of overcoming variability in the manufactured product. When we were doing the experimental stuff for the Silver Gelatin book, Mike Crawford used this as a way of delivering a controllable print quality - performing infectious development on handcoated printing paper has an almost 100% wastage factor. Getting the print right, then bleaching & lith re-developing was the answer. Maybe it is also a way of getting a 'lith' result from unresponsive papers?

Yes it can be Martin.
papers respond in different ways according to their emulsion properties and according to the type of bleach used of course. I use it regularly and teach it on my workshops.
With some papers you get a typical lith print look and with others you get something quite different and unique to that paper. The results depend a lot on how early the print is snatched from the 2nd (Lith) developer so some overexposure prior to the 1st developer is helpful.
Tim

 

[dancqu]

HQ formulas were used to develop paper c1902 but the
presence of significant sulfite in most of these early formulas
would prevent the catalytic reaction so they would not work
as lith developers.Yule recommended 1g/L sulfite for
half-tone dot negatives. Early HQ formulas are on
p 0494-8 here:
www.rodsmith.org.uk/photographic-dictionary/index.html

IIRC, hydroquinone was discovered to be a developing agent
in the early 1880s. As has been mentioned the half-tone screen
was invented in the mid 1880s. It would follow that the
infectious nature of hydroquinone was known.

Print shop operators still have a good selection of lith
films and developers available. Valley Litho is a good mail-
order source. Local sources are likely still around. They may
be a source for lith papers although with a quick look
I could not refind.

Yule and 1 gram per liter of sulfite. Don't know Yule but
he's right about the 1 gram. Check APUG's psvensson's
contributions. His lith paper developers use even less
although he goes a Lot longer on the carbonate,
hydroquinone and bromide than I. Both our's
are one shot/session types. Dan

 

[Martin Reed]

Fomatone Lith Prints

I've put the Fomatone lith samples we did on Wednesday on one of the Silverprint news pages;

http://www.silverprint.co.uk/News05_2.htm

In tone they're not too far away from the originals, and it does show that the RC base is considerably brighter.