Current Lith Paper Availability

I am out of my supply of Fomatone paper for lith printing. I consulted Tim Rudman's blog (last updated 2013) which said emulsions on lots of papers had changed and no longer lith well.

What currently available papers lith well? I am not interested in purchasing out of date paper on eBay. I'd like to find a currently available paper that liths well, and lay in a stock for the future.

This info comes from my supplier (AG Photographic) who supplied my Fotospeed LD20 lith developer: "Foma Fomatone 131, 132, 532, 542 are papers well known as good Lith papers as well as Fomabrom 123. Customers have also had great results using Adox Fine Print Vario Classic and Adox MCC".

Not sure if that is any use to you. I haven't personally tried any of them.

Svenedin said:

This info comes from my supplier (AG Photographic) who supplied my Fotospeed LD20 lith developer: "Foma Fomatone 131, 132, 532, 542 are papers well known as good Lith papers as well as Fomabrom 123. Customers have also had great results using Adox Fine Print Vario Classic and Adox MCC".

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Old info I'm afraid. 123 is discontinued. Some of the current Foma's might lith. I'd post on the Lith Facebook Group, very active, and Tim Rudman and Wolfgang Moersch are regulars there.

Slavich Unibrom is still popular, but a hard paper to control, many people get that "broken xerox machine" look exclusively with it. Wolfgang has gotten smooth results, I think he uses a lot of Lith B to get there.

Bob Carnie does lots of lith using Ilford MGWT. It's an odd process though, you develop until the blacks just start coming on (the print will look flat and dull), then stop and fix. The contrast sort of blows up in the fix. Something you have to get a feel for as far as snatch time goes. I've tried it with Arista liquid and got one good print and a whole lot of blothcy mess prints. I messaged Bob who says LD-20 works for him with this paper, as well as Moersch - I still want to try it.

The good news is, there's often lots of old papers on eBay - Agfa MC111, Brovira, etc. Even pretty badly fogged paper will lith with clean whites and borders. I've bought up quite a stash, and while I've gotten my fair share of fogged-black paper, I've also found some keepers. I've yet to find an older paper that doesn't lith, in fact.

Fortunately or unfortunately I have a huge stash of lithable paper in my freezer (old Fomatone, Forte, and others), however, the last few times I have done any lith printing has been with Fuji's Fujibro graded RC paper (only available in Japan).

It would be nice if we could get a list going of what papers people are currently using and are still available.

I would be interested in hearing if anyone has used the Bergger papers, I want to do a series this winter and would like to give this company a go.

Bob Carnie said:

I would be interested in hearing if anyone has used the Bergger papers, I want to do a series this winter and would like to give this company a go.

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Coated by Harman I believe, though not sure how much of the emulsion technology is from Guilleminot & how much is Harman's - been thinking about trying the semi-gloss WT, though not for lith.

Lachlan Young said:

Coated by Harman I believe, though not sure how much of the emulsion technology is from Guilleminot & how much is Harman's - been thinking about trying the semi-gloss WT, though not for lith.

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Thats interesting, I will try to give some of the papers a go, I am also trying out their WT version for a couple of purposes.

faberryman said:

I consulted Tim Rudman's blog (last updated 2013) which said emulsions on lots of papers had changed and no longer lith well.

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The latest edition of Dr.Rudman's email-newsletter is April 2016, so far as I have received. There should be a link somewhere on his website for subscribing to it.

Foma changed the emulsion since then again. Fotoimpex sells the FOMA Fomatone MG 131, 132, 532, 542 explicitly as excellent Lith Paper with the current emulsion.

Bob Carnie said:

I would be interested in hearing if anyone has used the Bergger papers, I want to do a series this winter and would like to give this company a go.

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Bob in the Facebook lith group there are results with Bergger CB. Some are second pass lith and others I believe are standard lith.

I personally do not use facebook and actuallyl do not own a cell phone, My company does and is managed by Carissa here, so I would not know how to get to that group as I am a real luddite when
it comes to facebook.

Some of the paper-developer combinations as recently mentioned in the Lith Printing Group on Facebook:

Moersch lith/slavich unibrom
lith moersch , papier forte
8x10 Fomaspeed 312 / Moersch Easy lith
Moersch lith/foma 133
Kentmere Art Classic developed in Arista EasyLith: A50+B50+H2O900 (1:10)
Ansco Cykora, Expired 1960, SE5 & quick selenium pass.
Moersch lith, ilford mg300 paper
Unibrom 04.1992,home made dev.
Foma 123, 1:14
Kentmere Fineprint FB Warmtone, dev. dillution: Moersch Easy Lith 8+8+600+25OB
Foma warmtone
Orwo BH111 with Moersch lith 1+1+20 10 min.
Fomatone 532 / Moersch Easy Lith
Fomatone MG Classic 13, Developed in Moersch SE5: A12.5+B12.5+D7.5+975 H2O (1:20)
Kentmere At Classic in Moersch Lith SE5
LD 20 , papier slavitch Unibrom 160 G
Fomabrom Variant IV 123, Moersch Lith - A25 B25 C2.5 D15 (1:4) 750ml 16 Min. - 25°

You can find Tim Rudman's newsletters here.

From the April 2016 newsletter from Tim Rudman:

Polywarmtone paper project gathering speed
I have covered this ongoing project to revive Forte's beautiful Polywarmtone paper extensively in the past, together with the hope that this might also bring a new and much needed lith printing paper to the market, a process for which the original PWT excelled.
Eventually progress slowed and for a while there appeared little to report.
Some of you may have thought that the project had stopped, but you would be wrong.
Adox have good credibility here. In the past they successfully revived Agfa's MCC paper and have now also produced a silver chloride contact paper as reported above.
Last year I reported that Adox acquired Ilford's medium scale coating plant, which opened the way up for them to make relatively small coating runs of film and paper themselves.
The good and potentially exciting news is that Adox are currently undertaking tests to establish what influences paper's 'lithability'. They are also trying to adjust the paper's red safelight requirement to orange. The paper, I am told, will then be ready to go into production.
If all goes well the anticipated target date is Photokina 2016 (September 20-25).
Although 'lithability' has not yet been established I am sure that, like me, many printers out there will be keeping their fingers crossed!

From the October 2015 newsletter from Tim Rudman:

Foma
Foma has recently gone to great lengths to improve its warm tone paper emulsions in terms of lith printing (I have published the all-important batch numbers in previous newsletters), but now they have announced the discontinuation of one product - Fomabrom Var.IV. 123, which Foma report was unsuitable for conventional printing, being mostly used for Bromoil - for which they now suggest Fomabrom N 115 and Fomatone MG 133 as alternatives.

From the April 2015 newsletter from Tim Rudman:

Foma
In the previous newsletter I reported on the very welcome new changes that Foma have made to improve the lith printing response of a number of its papers and gave the all-important new batch numbers, which hopefully the lith printers amongst you will have kept. As stated, Foma have been further testing and refining these papers and have now issued new advice in the technical data sheet and supplement for lith. This information arrived here just minutes ago. I shall be testing the new emulsions in due course and will let you know my findings.

Moersch
That powerhouse of darkroom chemistry Wolfgang Moersch (site in German and English) has become a legend in the hand printing and lith printing world and is currently developing a new product 'Lith G' for the enhancement and control of image colour. His results look impressive and are already attracting much interest. Samples arrived here for testing in the last hour, so I shall report on this too when time permits.

Has anyone lately tried to lith Arista papers? In the past I had heard that they were re-branded Foma

Bob Carnie said:

I personally do not use facebook and actuallyl do not own a cell phone, My company does and is managed by Carissa here, so I would not know how to get to that group as I am a real luddite when
it comes to facebook.

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I don't use my phone for Facebook, you can access it via any web browser. It's actually kind of a pain on a phone.

I'm 55 and scratch my head at people posting every single dinner photo and the whole "my life is amazing and my every random thought is fascinating" social media stuff. But the Lith group on Facebook is an example of how well it can work. I've seen some really inspiring work (there's a kid in Europe shooting pinhole with lith who deserves a major gallery show), chatted with some interesting people across the globe, picked up some good techniques, and the yearly print exchange makes the world feel a little smaller. Great resource for anyone new to lith printing (or wanting to perfect it - Wolfgang posts lots of tests and comparisons for instance).

M Carter said:

I don't use my phone for Facebook, you can access it via any web browser. It's actually kind of a pain on a phone.

I'm 55 and scratch my head at people posting every single dinner photo and the whole "my life is amazing and my every random thought is fascinating" social media stuff. But the Lith group on Facebook is an example of how well it can work. I've seen some really inspiring work (there's a kid in Europe shooting pinhole with lith who deserves a major gallery show), chatted with some interesting people across the globe, picked up some good techniques, and the yearly print exchange makes the world feel a little smaller. Great resource for anyone new to lith printing (or wanting to perfect it - Wolfgang posts lots of tests and comparisons for instance).

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I try to limit my computer time to APUG and LARGE FORMAT, I am not on DPUG as I am hoping Sean works out a system that works for us to talk about digital workflow to aid historical wet printing. I cannot handle any more websites to go to. As you can see by my posts I come here each day to see whats up here, as well I go to Large format each day.


Also when I approach my work and that of others I try not to be influenced by others work, for example I started Solarizations about 14 years ago and I deliberately tried to not look any more at Man Rays work, at least until I had done a few thousand print solarizations, then I felt I joined the club so to speak and started negative solarizations, which are very close to my heart.
With Lith Printing I was deeply influenced by Mike Spry and his way of making lith's for Anton Corjbin, but frankly none of my liths look like his, but for sure I am in the direction with a gritty non pretty colour look.

I am about to start solarizing large sheets of film that are digitally exposed through my Lambda, and during process turn on the lights. I think I will work with one of my good clients with this method where we make
size as film, solarize , and then make contact lith prints on various papers, therefore my interest in Bergger paper.
A second way would be to take the images and make them smaller lets say 8 x12 on the film , gang up a bunch, solarize the whole group and then high resolution scan the smaller film to make files that I can then resize and use as the base for tri tone and duo tone gum over palladiums.

So as you can see I have a lot on my plate and really two sites is enough distraction/satisfaction for me, and I hope to be setting trends and not following them. I am really not a pompous ass , but I have
problems with following other peoples work , as well in business I really do not follow what other printers are doing. I think this mindset keeps me fresh.

M Carter I should have signed off Hey how about those Jay"s

From the April 2015 newsletter from Tim Rudman:

Foma

...As stated, Foma have been further testing and refining these papers and have now issued new advice in the technical data sheet and supplement for lith. This information arrived here just minutes ago. I shall be testing the new emulsions in due course and will let you know my findings.

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I read his follow-up newsletters, but did not find any further information. He has obviously been swamped with getting his Iceland book out.

Some of the paper-developer combinations as recently mentioned in the Lith Printing Group on Facebook:[

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Unfortunately, they do not give information concerning the age of the paper.

faberryman said:

Unfortunately, they do not give information concerning the age of the paper.

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Yes, the technical data mentioned is often incomplete or dubious, unfortunately.

Bob Carnie said:

I try to limit my computer time to APUG and LARGE FORMAT, I am not on DPUG as I am hoping Sean works out a system that works for us to talk about digital workflow to aid historical wet printing. I cannot handle any more websites to go to. As you can see by my posts I come here each day to see whats up here, as well I go to Large format each day.


Also when I approach my work and that of others I try not to be influenced by others work, for example I started Solarizations about 14 years ago and I deliberately tried to not look any more at Man Rays work, at least until I had done a few thousand print solarizations, then I felt I joined the club so to speak and started negative solarizations, which are very close to my heart.
With Lith Printing I was deeply influenced by Mike Spry and his way of making lith's for Anton Corjbin, but frankly none of my liths look like his, but for sure I am in the direction with a gritty non pretty colour look.

I am about to start solarizing large sheets of film that are digitally exposed through my Lambda, and during process turn on the lights. I think I will work with one of my good clients with this method where we make
size as film, solarize , and then make contact lith prints on various papers, therefore my interest in Bergger paper.
A second way would be to take the images and make them smaller lets say 8 x12 on the film , gang up a bunch, solarize the whole group and then high resolution scan the smaller film to make files that I can then resize and use as the base for tri tone and duo tone gum over palladiums.

So as you can see I have a lot on my plate and really two sites is enough distraction/satisfaction for me, and I hope to be setting trends and not following them. I am really not a pompous ass , but I have
problems with following other peoples work , as well in business I really do not follow what other printers are doing. I think this mindset keeps me fresh.

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Well, you've also mastered many aspects of this stuff - the FB group is a great resource for people wanting to learn more, share tips and so on. I do appreciate the tips you've shared here - googling "MGWT" and "lith" delivers a lot of Mr. Carnie! (Speaking of, you've mentioned Moersch and one other dev for success with MGWT - I'm thinking it was LD20? Had very little luck with Arista and I'm loathe to burn through my Ektalure and Forte WT!!!)

As for the Jays - I'm guessing that's baseball? Did they just kick the Rangers' butts? Never been a sporty guy, though here in Texas, I'll turn football on because it make me say, "FINALLY, IT'S FALL, no more 106°!!!"

TheToadMen said:

Yes, the technical data mentioned is often incomplete or dubious, unfortunately.

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For current papers, it probably wouldn't be too hard to come up with a list of what works. That FB list had many long-gone papers.

To me, it's a really sort of delight-mixed-with-suspense to try old papers from eBay. Old papers that work well are probably too endless to make any sort of list (especially considering that Maaco and Kodak and many others rebranded or manufactured paper for other brands). I don't have much interest in 8x10 so my choices are more limited, but I've scored some killer stuff in 11x14 and up. Doing the fog test is the first riverboat-gambler moment. Even a fair amount of fog won't phase lith prints. The next ulcer-inducing moment is actually doing a test, but generally, "if it's old it's gold" (well, if it's not fogged black, and generally speaking, if it's not RC, though this weekend I printed an ebay find of 16x20 Forte Warmtone RC gloss and it's freaking spectacular stuff - that was one hell of an RC paper and looks like a good quality fiber gloss).

In fact, you can still get well-stocked with MC118 and Brovira, but those are rather dull papers if you want color without toning (but lovely papers for lith in general). Warmtone papers are usually pretty fabulous and deliver colors that toning can't really reproduce, and you can kick up the orange/reds with Omega, or cut them back with a few seconds of mild selenium.

M Carter said:

Well, you've also mastered many aspects of this stuff - the FB group is a great resource for people wanting to learn more, share tips and so on. I do appreciate the tips you've shared here - googling "MGWT" and "lith" delivers a lot of Mr. Carnie! (Speaking of, you've mentioned Moersch and one other dev for success with MGWT - I'm thinking it was LD20? Had very little luck with Arista and I'm loathe to burn through my Ektalure and Forte WT!!!)

As for the Jays - I'm guessing that's baseball? Did they just kick the Rangers' butts? Never been a sporty guy, though here in Texas, I'll turn football on because it make me say, "FINALLY, IT'S FALL, no more 106°!!!"

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Stick with Moersh or LD20 IMO as I have tried Arista and its not even in the ball park speaking of those Jays .

M Carter - you speak of 106 degree. Funny this was the first summer for me where I spent a long day in the darkroom and felt the full effect of the conditions, we keep the darkroom at 70 degree year round, I was working on a lot of silver so it means about 8 straight hours setting up , process , fixing and washing, at the end of the day on the hottest of hot days I would walk out of my lab and just enjoy walking to the bus in the incredible heat , it was like an immediate sauna, by the time I got home probably about 1 hour I felt very good. It struck me odd that I enjoyed the heat so much that maybe my older bones are saying move to Texas and live longer.


Bob

Hey Bob ! Long time.. Hope you are well.
Didn't try the last Bergger papers as I still have a lot of the older ones.
You should give a try with the new Oriental warmtone. Made by Foma but with a specific formulation. Interesting.
Take care,
G.