Liquid Light and Lith

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thebanana

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I recently acquired some Bergger Cot 320 paper that I plan to coat with Liquid Light. Has anyone ever tried processing a combo like this using a Lith developer?
 

Photo Engineer

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Bergger COT320 is a superb paper but varies IMHO with emulsion coated on it, and also with the typical B&W process. It is a cotton based product that can vary from batch to batch enough to suffer from lack of cohesion in the developer and fix, as well as bubble formation during coating resulting in small bubble defects in the coated material.

But, of course, this has varied over 3 batches, good, bad, fair so to speak.

I urge you to try it, but don't be discouraged. There are other batches and other good papers. Also, make sure that the weight is 100# or greater for best results in processing.

PE
 

gandolfi

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I have never tried any liquid emulsion that wasn't destroyed in lith developer!
I asked Moersch and I asked Tim Rudman, but they couldn't help me...

However, in the book "silver Gelatine" there's a "way out"...
Apparently, if you develop normally - fix and rinse, then you can bleach the image and re develop in lith..

(havn't tried this my self)
 

paul_c5x4

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Just been doing a little bit of lith printing with a D85 mix. Had some SE1 emulsion (see here) coated on glass to hand - Initial comment: Yes, it does show some infectious tendencies, but no noticeable colour shift. Coated on a good quality paper base may change that.

If you have a selection of surfaces, it is probably worth experimenting with.
 

psynchro

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Has anybody ever followed up on this? I'm working with liquid light and would really like to try the lith developer. I would be happy to test if someone has some leading suggestions. I haven't worked with a lith developer before.
 

M Carter

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A couple thoughts -

I'd also try the Foma emulsion. It's spectacular stuff. A member here uses it for bromoil printing, but I've never tried it in lith. It comes with a hardener, so you'd want to test with and without. I've read so many comments and threads that seem to point to LL having some uniformity problems from batch to batch, but the Foma liquid is just the shizzle. Winderful product.

Biggest issue with lith is the development time - we generally heat the developer up to speed the process. But in my work with foma, I chill all my chemistry (I've only used it on canvas, but it can lift quickly). So you may be in for some really long developing times, or emulsion lifting. Maybe on a rag paper it would be locked on a little better.

The bleach and re-develop takes care of the time issue, but I've never been happy with that. Highlights in lith just don't seem to return, so your first print would possibly need some heavy exposure or flashing. While I like the color shifts in lith, what I love most is the strange ways it can render tonality. it can be otherworldy and very interpretive, and I haven't achieved that with 2nd pass lith.

The most extreme lith colors come from warmtone papers - I don't know how that would work with emulsions, and i's really best on the classic papers, though there's a current Foma that liths very warm.
 

Jerevan

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The paper issue mentioned earlier in the thread could perhaps be lessened if you coat the emulsion on the Adox Art baryta papers, available from Fotoimpex (and Freestyle if you happen to buy from the US).
 

psynchro

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I definitely want to give this a try, but decided to focus on plate processing for now.

Well as far as uniformity in liquid light, today I had a funny experience. I have a batch from 2015 that I reheated a lot (maybe 10 times due to so much small batch testing), some from a year ago that was never used, and one I received a few months ago. All were refrigerated when not used. I read on a thread here that sensitivity increases over time to the point of being like AG+. I just did some test strips using emulsion on watercolor paper that had only dried about an hour. The 2015 batch is about 1/2 stop more sensitive but lifted off the paper, while the remaining two had about the same exposure and stayed on the paper even with such a short drying time.
 
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