Can film be lithed ? Lith on film

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I confess my best gallery experience comes from holga 120 and lithed prints and some hasselblad x pan pictures.
I cant print film and most importantly I am interested in lithing the film not paper, as much successfull as print lithing.
Is it possible ?

Umut

 

[M Carter]

Might be some testing in order. I do 90% lith printing, but I'm much more into how it renders tonality than color effects, though I like those as well. Never tried regular film in lith dev though.

I use litho film for masking, and I'll develop it in very dilute film developer, dilute lith developer, or strong lith, depending upon the contrast I need. So it would seem that regular film might develop in lith developer, but you might have a long road of testing dilutions and times. I'd be interested to see how it comes out though. Are you after grain, oddball tonality, contrast effects?

 

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

I am after grain and dense or lighter collected grain which gives out tonality which look like bw pencil drawing. thanks.

 

[bdial]

Under exposure and over processing in a print developer would probably get you there. Possibly processing in a lith developer for even more activity, and more contrast.

Processing film with typical lith printing techniques (massive over exposure and processing in very dilute lith developer) would be difficult with film, as so much depends on the "snatch point" where you quickly pull the print out of the developer and put it into stop bath. Seconds matter a lot here, because of the exposure and infectious development, you go from usable tonality to too dark or completely black in a few seconds.
Since pan films don't lend themselves to processing by inspection, accurately getting to the snatch point would pretty much be impossible. It would be theoretically possible to use the technique with an ortho film though.

Another possibility might be to either make the original photo on lith film, or duplicate the full tone negative with lith film to eliminate most of the middle tones.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Arista AB Premium Liquid Lith Developer has film developing in instructions.
I did the mix, this developer 20 min first and then rodinal for 15 min. Kentmere 400 negs scans.

I didn't bother with more experiments since I lith the prints.

 

[voceumana]

High definition developers, specifically FX-1, supposedly provide "engraving like gradation". If you are "into" old movies, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold seems to have been processed in a high definition developer, and some of the scenes are reminiscent of engraving-like gradation. The gradation has also been called "soot and chalk".

True lithography films provide virtually only black and white tones when processed in true litho developers (not "high contrast" developers)--most of these developers have paraformaldehyde in the formula .The resulting characteristic curve is pretty much a vertical line, so slight exposure variation will move you from clear to Dmax. The developers are designed to give completely transparent clear areas free of fog.

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

The older literature I have seems to indicate, that in the beginning the lith process was made with regular film and that Lith film was created later.

Nevertheless, film has changed since then, and it could be that today's film is unsuitable.

I'd give it a try with some test strips, most probably you will get some interesting results.