Development of Arista Ortho Litho 3.0 for unsharp masking

Hi guys.

I bought a big pack of Arista Ortho Litho 3.0 4x5 sheets to create unsharp masks for my 4x5 images (Ilford Delta 100 and FP4+).

I post this in “contact printing“ because I do create the mask by contact printing.

My enlarger, a Jobo 7451 (= Saunders LPL 4500-II as far as I know), is equipped with a Heiland cold light source with blue, green and red LEDs for splitgrade printing of BW MC paper. I understand that the Ortho film only reacts to blue, so I should set the contrast to 5.0 (which means it will use only the blue light) and then make the contact print of my negative onto the Arista film. Does anybody have any idea how long the light should be on?

I know of course that this depends on density and light strength and aperture, but is there a rule of thumb based on the base exposure time of a negative? E.g. if my negative will print nicely at 15 s and if I set the enlarger head to the correct height for this print and close the aperture to the same value I had during the print, can I somehow know how long to shoot.

Or if not, can you at least give me an indication if it will be only 1-5 seconds or more in the area of 30-40 seconds (I really have no feel for this process yet).


If I understand it correctly I have to develop Arista Ortho Litho 3.0 in paper developer, not in film developer. I usually use Kodak XTOL for my film and Moersch Eco for my paper.

Is there any reason why it would not work with Moersch Eco? Does this film need a specific developer? And should I start with the regular development time for papers, which is around 2 minutes?

Arista Ortho Litho is about 75% blue sensitive, and around 25% green sensitive. You could try blue light only.
You will have to test for the amount of exposure, including the diffusion sheet between your original and the Ortho Litho film. And the best result will vary image to image - there is simply no substitute for testing and accumulated experience.

The most cooperative full-scale developer for this film I have found is highly dilute HC-110. If you choose a paper developer instead, well, that has been the source of a lot of frustration to many; but silly old rumors die hard. Paperr developers tend to end up blotchy and muddy in this case. Expect to waste some film and a few weeks of effort getting it right. Try to have fun with this until you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I used Aristo litho years ago for unsharp masks. I exposed under my enlarger which has an Aristo cold light head. I set the lights so that I was using all green and little blue. For developer, I mixed up LC-1B and used dilution of 1+5.

People seem to like it for its low price. The current product also has some texture, which helps to reduce Newton rings. I kept it on hand for highlight masks. You always end up with a fair amount of fbf with that kind of film. I standardized on FP4 and TMX100 quite awhile back for masking purposes. More money per sheet, but very predictable with no headaches.

I do all my mask and interpositive and internegative exposures using a very precise RGB additive halogen colorhead.
I especially like the result of an unsharp mask generated with blue light only when combined with a pyro stained original. My only cold light is a high-output V54 Aristo blue-green 12X12 inch unit.

I also have the V54 in a 12x12 unit, as well as the Aristo 4500VC.

Hi Thoraten,

I use Ilford PQ 1+200 for 2mins to develop unsharp masks with the same film. Good results. Use the developer as one shot. Most controlled way.