Infectious dev gone too far?

bwakel · Oct 2, 2008

Jmal, this thread seems to have wandered around quite a bit but to come back to your initial issue, it does sound like you're under-exposing a little. This will increase contrast and will highlight any variation in the sky. Try increasing the exposure first and see how that affects the print. As others have suggested, an increase in temperature would probably help too - I prefer to develop Fomatone MG at 25C, 1+19 or 1+24 using Moersch Master Lith. This gives amazing tri-tone splits when selenium toned. The weaker the dilution the greater the risk of variations in tonality when under-exposing but equally you may need to use a weaker solution to get the colours you want, it depends on which lith formula you're using and the paper.

Anyway, I'm sorry that it's likely to cost you to find the best combination for your image but with lith there's really little else you can do but experiment - which is part of the fun even if it does cost more!

Barry

Cor · Oct 2, 2008

Bob Carnie method

Thomas,

Did you try flashing with the same enlarger, negative in place, with a piece of white translucent plastic material? That is what I use when I flash to bring some tone in the highlights. It works quite well, the plastic diffusion material seems to even out the "uneven" light from the enlarger through the negative.

Depending on the material relative long flash exposures are needed though,

Best,

Cor

Thomas Bertilsson said:
In reply to Patrick and Travis... Bob Carnie at Elevator does lith developing by time. He controls contrast with preflashing the paper, and adjusts that along with the main exposure time and develops it the same amount of time, every time.
I've tried it, but I don't have the setup in my darkroom to make it work on a full print. I would currently need a second enlarger to successfully flash paper in a controlled manner (my darkroom is so small I can barely fit one 4x5 enlarger in there, let alone two of them).

So you can do lith development other ways than the traditional inspection method. Bob's results speak for themselves. They are some of the most incredible prints I've ever seen.

- Thomas

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 2, 2008

Bill, I don't know anything about using lith film, this thread is about printing with lith chemistry on regular b&w fiber paper using negatives that are developed to yield a normal grayscale.

I've attached a scan to this email that illustrates what it will look like. Or did I misunderstand you?

This is Arista Lith at 100ml Part A, 100ml Part B, 2800ml water, and 500ml Old Brown. 80*F for about seven minutes. Printed on Fomatone MG132.

- Thomas

Bill Edwards said:
Its been a while since I have played with lith but here's some experience.

Lith likes higher temps 75-80 just as a general rule. Time and temperature is the only way to process and hope to get repeatable results. To that end we used to use 8 oz for an 8x10 in an 8x10 tray. After each sheet we would dump 4oz back into a graduate, to process the next sheet we added 2oz each of A and B to the 4oz we saved. That ran consistant all day.

Agitation is important. For routine work we agitated constantly but that tends to fill in fine detail so for "fine line" work after an initial agitation the film was allowed to stand for the rest of the time.

Exposure is the other half of the puzzle. Lith film has a pronounced "break point" where exposure is sufficient to cause density. Where that break point falls determins how much detail is retained. Too little exposure and all the imperfections show up magically, too much and too much detail fills in. The image actually changes size which is the basis of spread and choke in the old photocomp days. It is also why tone separation or posterization works. I think your problem is mainly too little exposure.

When lith printing for high contrast as opposed to extreme contrast we used to use a mixture of A&B and Dektol 2 parts A 2 parts B and between 2 and 8 parts Dektol. Plenty of contrast but a more subtle personality.

Hope this helps
Bill

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 2, 2008

If I was a chemist... Too much to think of and worry about, and to me that's just way too difficult. Gets in the way of my approach of flying by the seat of my pants
Your suggestions are always very interesting and informative.

- Thomas

gainer said:
The only time I did any lith printing was when I wanted to make a line drawing out of a contimuous tone negative...a low-contrast one at that. I used a simple concoction of hydroquinone, sulfite and lye which I mixed fresh for each try. I definitely did not want anything but pure white and pure black. I'm sure you know the trick. I made a lith print on lith film from the negative and a contact print on lith film from the positive. Sandwiching them, slightly shifted, produced what I needed.
If you must waste a number of print attempts just to season the developer, it would seem prudent to waste a little more time trying to find the chemical composition of the seasoned developer and to do the seasoning chemically. But I suppose that has been tried.

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 2, 2008

Cor,

No I did not try that approach, but I have tried pre-flashing with a flash light and using the same enlarger without a negative in it. It works, but it's a pain in the you know what.
There is a great tool that's much like a flash light, but it gives this amazingly even light. I forget who makes it, but I will get me one of those.

Thanks for the suggestion,

- Thomas

Cor said:
Thomas,

Did you try flashing with the same enlarger, negative in place, with a piece of white translucent plastic material? That is what I use when I flash to bring some tone in the highlights. It works quite well, the plastic diffusion material seems to even out the "uneven" light from the enlarger through the negative.

Depending on the material relative long flash exposures are needed though,

Best,

Cor

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 2, 2008

I've hijacked this thread enough. My apologies to the original poster.

I do hope you get your problems resolved, and that you find a way to even out the densities in the print. Please let us know your progress!

- Thomas

jmal · Oct 2, 2008

Hijacker!!! Once my developer arrives I'll continue to play with it.

PVia · Oct 2, 2008

OK, I'll hijack it again with a side note...

A few weeks ago I developed in Moersch EasyLith, then bleached back the print almost all the way, and then redeveloped it in the same lith bath in daylight. It took 12 minutes with constant agitation to come back to where I wanted it, but the highlight separation is incredible and the longest scale I've seen on a silver paper, an older sheet of Agfa MC118...wonderful, with coloring very reminiscent of a platinum print!

Travis Nunn · Oct 2, 2008

Thomas Bertilsson said:
...There is a great tool that's much like a flash light, but it gives this amazingly even light. I forget who makes it, but I will get me one of those.

Thanks for the suggestion,

- Thomas

Is this what you're thinking of?
http://www.rhdesigns.co.uk/darkroom/html/paperflasher.html

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 2, 2008

Travis, you got it. I'm not sure if I can use that for an entire print, or if it's more meant as a local flashing tool, but I've heard good things about it.

PVia, lith print re-developed in lith? That's interesting. I'll have to try that some time. I've only done second pass lith with prints developed in regular chemistry, and it works pretty well, but I need more experience with it before I can have an opinion.

- Thomas

dancqu · Oct 2, 2008

Rich Ullsmith said:
Jmal, if you do not have Tim Rudman's tutorial book,
there are sysnopsis of the process at sites like
unblinkingeye.com.

At Google enter, lith formulas wall . Additional info
including a good selection of formulas.

Most if not all lith developers have been formulated
with film in mind. At great dilution most if not all will
work with paper producing a continuous tone image.

Wall's Normal Hydroquinone is one of the listed
formulas. By chance I compounded a Wall's type;
three basic ingredients but minus the bromide.

I wasn't expecting a lith developer but gave
a paper extended development then wondered
at how the paper had developed. Sure enough
it was a lith print. Later I found that it was of
the Wall's type. An easy home brew.

BTW, beautiful rich browns on an Arista RC
paper. Hey, I was just experimenting. My
first lith print. Dan

Infectious dev gone too far?

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