Discovery made while lith printing last night

On certain papers, I've found it very difficult to get consistent tones across the print. Slavich Unibrom was the problem child last night. I tried pre-soaking the print in hot water first to swell the gelatin and it made a huge difference. Thought this was worth passing along as I've never seen it mentioned for lith printing before. I'm sure others figured this out ages ago, but it was news to me!

News to me as well. Give us a bit more detail, i.e., soak, enlarge, Lith? Do you do a two stage development? What Lith chemicals do you use? I've gotten quite different results with Moersh SE5, Easy Lith, as well as Fotolith. Have you tried Moersh Omega as a two bath developer? Prying minds want to know...

Expose, soak in hot water about a minute or so, develop as usual. My thought was to get the emulsion full of water so that the developer would get in more uniformally.....sort of like some people do with film developing.
I use Rollei developer almost exclusively (50ml A-50ml B-1500ml water-300 ml old brown) with the tray floated in a hot water bath. Honestly, I still don't feel like I've completely learned what I can from one developer. I've used Arista Liquid, but I hate the formaldehyde. I found the results similar (but not the same) to the Rollei/Labor Partner product. I have a Moersch kit, but I haven't used it yet.

Never seen that problem before, Mark. Unless there was a problem with the paper. What are your developing times (generally) with this dilution, and the presoaking?

My developing times are typically around 3-5 minutes at 35C (I do hot development) with it extending to 7-10 minutes at the very end of the developer life. They weren't noticeably longer with the presoak although it could have been a minute longer and I would have never noticed. The difference with my Slavich (unibrom Gr2) was really surprising. Everything really evened out. I've only seen the issue with Slavich and to a lesser extent Fomabrom. Both of these papers are very grainy, a neutral tone paper and show stronger infectous development compared to other papers I've tried (and I think I've tried them all at this point!). If Tim Rudman is looking in on this thread, perhaps he has some insight on this.

Anyway, if you haven't had the issue don't bother with the presoak. If you start having the problem with a particular batch of paper, it is worth trying. It worked for me.

Can you show with a print scan, or explain what you mean by 'uneven tones', Mark? I'm curious, because it can mean many things.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

Can you show with a print scan, or explain what you mean by 'uneven tones', Mark? I'm curious, because it can mean many things.

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Sorry I tossed them. What I mean is that the tones went infectious at greatly different times in areas you wouldn't expect. Usually, you see it start in the darkest areas and spread. In this case, it was in a few patches at random. It almost looked like insufficient agitation. I've done a lot of printing with this paper to know it is not normally blotchy. Unfortuantely, I am seeing the banding on the paper that Mayfair noted a few months ago so nothing is perfect! It is ok in my images, so I'm not sweating it.

I understand. I wish I had known about this when I was printing on Portriga that was even getting too fogged for lith. Basically uneven development due to different rate of development in different areas of the paper.
This would have been worth a try.

Thanks for explaining, Mark! I'll remember this if I come across any more papers like that.

- Thomas

Mark Fisher said:

My developing times are typically around 3-5 minutes at 35C (I do hot development) with it extending to 7-10 minutes at the very end of the developer life. They weren't noticeably longer with the presoak although it could have been a minute longer and I would have never noticed. The difference with my Slavich (unibrom Gr2) was really surprising. Everything really evened out. I've only seen the issue with Slavich and to a lesser extent Fomabrom. Both of these papers are very grainy, a neutral tone paper and show stronger infectous development compared to other papers I've tried (and I think I've tried them all at this point!). If Tim Rudman is looking in on this thread, perhaps he has some insight on this.

Anyway, if you haven't had the issue don't bother with the presoak. If you start having the problem with a particular batch of paper, it is worth trying. It worked for me.

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This is a well known problem with a few papers Mark - generally the coldest tone ones, of which Slavich Unibrom is the coldest and the worst offender by far.
In 'The World of Lith Printing' I have a forum section in the back for contributors favourite tips and tricks and you will find one of the Russian contributors describing how he rigged up an aquarium pump to evenly spread the developer over the print to get rid of this frustrating inapproriate exuberant infectious development around the print. An extreme measure but apparently it worked beautifully. You may find a similar solution by switching to Naccolith for this paper
Tim

Tim, I use Naccolith quite a bit and I've been told by someone at Freestyle that Nacco no longer makes Naccolith. I've tried contacting Nacco direct but I can't seem to get an answer from them. Do you have any insight on this?

Sorry Mark, didn't mean to hijack your thread

Hijack away....I've been curious to find a US source for Naccolith.

Travis Nunn said:

Tim, I use Naccolith quite a bit and I've been told by someone at Freestyle that Nacco no longer makes Naccolith. I've tried contacting Nacco direct but I can't seem to get an answer from them. Do you have any insight on this?

Sorry Mark, didn't mean to hijack your thread

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It was Arista Lith (liquid) until recently (as you would already know from my newsletters Travis). Arista Lith has now switched but I thought Naccolith was still around but no longer competetive in price for Freestyle. If it is out of production I don't know (it's not around here in the UK) but would like to know, so if anyone knows for sure please let me know.
Tim

Thanks Tim, I'll keep trying to get a definitive answer.

Glazer's Camera in Seattle has Naccolith 611 in stock. It's probably been on their shelf for a while. They ship.

Rich Ullsmith said:

Glazer's Camera in Seattle has Naccolith 611 in stock. It's probably been on their shelf for a while. They ship.

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Thanks and ordered. I went to the Nacco web site and they still list it. I suspect they mainly sell to graphics houses rather than through photo shops. Hopefully, they still sell it.

Hey Mark,

What a good tip you gave, I will try it right away. I also use Slavish Unibrom and get uneven developments in strange spots (in the sky for instance). I am about to print 50x60 lith on this paper and was really concerned about the uneven development.
Now tell us about the Naccolith developer, does it work well with this paper?
I have tried for months to find it in Europe bat alas no success.

Vincent

VincentM said:

Hey Mark,

What a good tip you gave, I will try it right away. I also use Slavish Unibrom and get uneven developments in strange spots (in the sky for instance). I am about to print 50x60 lith on this paper and was really concerned about the uneven development.
Now tell us about the Naccolith developer, does it work well with this paper?
I have tried for months to find it in Europe bat alas no success.

Vincent

Click to expand...

Or you could try the aquarium pump approach (if you have one handy)!
I'll share with you 2 of the forum posts from Russia in The World of Lith Printing
Tim
• Method of continuous developer stirring: Lith printing on cold-tone papers (Forte Bromofort, Polygrade and Slavich Unibrom) can be a challenge as they are very responsive to infectious development and tiny variations of semiquinone, so if an area comes in contact with high-semiquinone developer it rapidly darkens. Semiquinone rises when exhausted developer comes in contact with fresh developer. Due to agitation developer near the edges of tray is fresher and developer near the print is more exhausted. Thus prints will have darkened edges and some random streaking along developer flow. My solution was to develop emulsion in a thin moving layer of developer using an aquarium pump to continuously supply developer to the centre of print from the bottom of tray. Due to high productivity of pump (around 10 litres per minute) and water surface tension, developer forms thin even layer on the surface of print. Developer in this layer is quickly exchanged; fresh portions come to the centre and exhausted portions come off the print near the borders. Duration of contact with emulsion is around 1-2 sec. This method gives ABSOLUTELY even development to any lithable paper. Now I can completely control edges of cold-tone lith prints! Arthur Suilin Russia.

• Printing on Slavich papers. I live in Russia so many lithable papers described by Tim Rudman are not available here. But we have Slavich Unibrom paper. It can give excellent prints with unique tonality between Forte Bromofort (very cool, almost grey) and Sterling Lith (warm, beige). Depending on developer, the tone varies from yellowish-grey to pinkish-brown. Shadows are much colder than highlights, grey or brownish-grey. Dilute ferricyanide bleach shifts highlight tones from yellow to pink, leaving cool grey shadow tones. In gold toner, highlight tones shift to lavender, lilac, and violet. Unbleached print gives tones from lilac to blue. Anastasia Medvedeva Russia.

Thanks for the tips Tim though I alreday was aware of them, would be nice to get a picture of this aquarium pump set up if Arthur comes by.