Lith Paper from B&H

[MDR]

A small hybrid forum with an emphasis on the workflow (no computer and not too much photoshop talk) would be a good addition to Apug imho.
People complaining on APUG about people wanting to know how to best scan their negatives are a little hypocritical since most of them scan their negatives in order to be able to show them to other Apug users. Criticizing people too much for asking how to best scan negatives might drive them to using Evil Cameras and completely abandon the analogue world.

Dominik

 

[Bob Carnie]

Yes , but the more new people demanding the products we use will make it better for those of us on APUG who need the paper, is a great start.
The schools need to see the reasons for at least keeping a sink line and exposing unit operating.
I am just interested in the ability of talking about hybrid on APUG, one of the homes of darkroom printers.

This is a bit off topic so feel free to ignore it:

I have been meaning to start a brainstorming thread for people to offer ideas for promoting film and darkroom. Like: Give 20 cameras with 3 rolls of film each to 20 high school kids, w/ promise of developing and contact print for each roll. Or: Take gigantic donations from various extremely generous donors and assorted wealthy types and buy film paper chemistry in large shipments for giving away at schools, photography group prizes, etc??

Or, as Bob Carnie is doing, teaching local courses to just show kids and others how cool it is to watch the image come up in the dark.

Helping APUG become tolerant of hybrid discussion would be great, but wont save film and paper.

 

[sly]

Most schools are still using film to teach kids basic photography 101 as well as offering digital courses later.

Really? Our local college, which has an active arts program, dumped the darkroom from their photgraphy courses about 3 years ago. I bought a whack of 16x20 paper on sale when they closed down, but now there's no where in this small city to buy darkroom supplies.

Anything that keeps interest up in film and paper is good for all of us. I agree that DPUG doesn't really work. I know there was a hybrid sub-forum here, before I joined. I would have no objection to it returning. It can always be ignored by the purists. Personally I much prefer an all-analogue workflow, but I've used diginegs, and I've scanned and printed on inkjet. I'm sure there'll be reasons to do so again.

Apug's my 1st choice when I'm looking for photography information, or when I'm just surfing around putting in a few minutes on down-time.

 

[L.J.SILVER]

I'd like to add my "one bit" for a hybrid forum for all the reasons cited here. To return to Bob Carnie's original question, I'm interested to hear how Foma 532-II compares with 131/132 and 111/112 in terms of tint, development time (generally, comparatively) and ease of use. Great discussion here - thanks all.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I too agree that analog photography, as a whole, would be better off if we allowed hybrid work flow discussion into a dedicated segment of the forums.

Has anybody pitched this idea to Sean Ross? And what is the response? Or do we need to do something about that?

 

[Mark Fisher]

Anyone printing in analog should have a place at out family table. What better way to pull people into the light of analog? I tried to follow the digi-neg discussions on DPUG, but lost interest when I saw so few people there.

 

[Guillaume Zuili]

Same with me.

 

[Michael W]

Isn't there some dispensation for groups? I recall people wanting to discuss cine film, where it is unavoidable to discuss telecine, Final Cut etc these days. They were told it was OK within a group & a cine group was started. Not sure how successful it was, but that would be irrelevant to the current discussion. I suppose my big fear is the general forum being taken over by people who want to argue about the difference between a 5D and a D3 - the mindless digi tech trivia seen on so many photo forums these days. Perhaps you can start a hybrid print group, get some keen interested members & share the knowledge you want there. It might get you where you want to be, rather than getting bogged down in a "Should APUG change?" debate.

I'm talking about the groups that operate within APUG, but you have to be a member to read them.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Michael W - the idea is to attract more film and silver gelatin paper users. Unless you have that sort of forum out in an open forum, that just isn't going to happen.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Well it seems the course is filling up and a week this Sat I get to show a group of complete newbies the magic of an emerging print from their Cannon 5d's.
There will be lots of examples and I will try to scan the prints and maybe take a couple of pics of the people in action if I can.

my bet is that I will get one person at least to phone up B& H and order some paper and chemicals after they have witnessed the magic show.

My next tactic will be to do the same thing but this time in a room with the lights off and a tray of prints , and just a basic setup. I want to show people how easy and fun lith printing can really be.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Just finished the course and a quick update. I will post images as my litthhhees send me jpegs to posts.

Ok so the Foma 131 gloss was absolutely brilliant, We used Fotospeed Ld20 Lith Developer at a 1:8 dilution with a bit of old developer and we seasoned the dev with about 10 sheets of paper to white light to start the process in a good spot.

Ok I hear a lot about emergence time in 20 minute range, well we were emerging in under 2 minutes and pulling wicked prints immediately.
Paulette and I looked like absolute magicians as the students were pulling off winners immediately.

We were using hmmmm digital epson negs on Pictorico Ultra premium OHP film with a simple two enlarger setup with one enlarger for the flash and one for the main exposing unit.
Set up for a 30 second main exposure with lens at about mid to wide open and completely out of focus,... a large piece of glass and one box of paper. The second flash enlarger was set up to about 2 seconds wide open apeture and we ended up with either a 2, 3 or 4 second flash depending on the need

No shit folks we had one day , eight students, and we not only made about 75 prints we also toned them with bleach sepia and selenium. Not one of the students had ever made a lith print before this weekend, and for sure at least 3 of them had never shot film or ever made any sort of print in the darkroom.. They just kept walking up to the main unit , exposing, dodging and burned as needed and flashed as required. The hardest part of the whole day was for them to learn when to pull the print, but they all got it and all made good prints.
What was interesting was since all the files were balanced out using LAB numbers earlier in the week, the starting balance was always the same as all the negs 32 in all balanced the end points the same and what was telling is a strong lit scene required flash, a flat lit scene required no flash ,, and we controlled contrast with the flash and the pull time.
So I hope the analogue police do not burn this thread but I have to say folks, I think Paulette and I convinced at least 3 more users to silver gelatin over the weekend, but most importantly if Gallery 44 the host gets good feedback I think this type of course could be replicated again with more beginner level students learning about printing and as well, we only needed a sink, for trays and washing area, and even more importantly we could have replicated this course in any facility with running water, a couple of hanging light bulbs like MAS uses and very simple open space that a couple of safelights can hang.


Here is what I am learning, and yes I am on a soap box right now..... Pictorico is basically overhead projection film which has been around since I started at Fanshawe College,,, not one of my students
gave a rat ass about the silly digital vs film debate.... Each one of them really , really , really liked working in a darkroom with the trays and paper, and I could see the enthusiasm.... making a hybrid solution is going to be the saviour of film and silver paper, I am completely convinced of this and I hope the moderators, council, head magilllas of this site come to this conclusion and decide if using silver paper is envolved in a printing process it is really worth while discussing the whole concept which does include , in some cases, scanners , digital capture and out put devices to make intermediate negatives that are then used to make historic processes.

One little titbit I just discovered in my digital journey to hell and back..... I can make High resolution scanned film outputted to enlarged size Rollie Ortho 25 or Ilford Ortho 24 and contact that film onto different silver papers and then compare a enlarger print of the same image that has been printed on the enlarger... they match in look and quality and one could introduce a print made this way into a body of work and not know that it was done..

What does this mean to all of us..... there can be a huge crop of people who have never used a film camera become extremely interested in using the papers that we all cherish and maybe give our manufactures a product line that works for both groups of people.

I am not trying to start a war of discussion here,:munch: but yesterday was magic for me as most of the students were just out of school and really liked what they did.
I will post their images with their permission as the images come in and you will be hard pressed to tell me I am wrong,,, unless of course this thread gets closed.
The real SAVE THE DARKROOM starts here and now.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Bob, I'm extremely happy to read this. Congratulations to you, those that become interested in printing silver, and the ability to work this hybrid process to a success.

I did some lith prints using inkjet negatives, with the help of a good friend, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by how easy it was to do. There is definitely a future in this type of approach.

Good for you, dude.

- T

 

[Guillaume Zuili]

Lith-Heluya ! Darkroom-heluya ! Bob-Heluya !

SAVE THE DARKROOM !

 

[MartinP]

Thank you for the thread and all the thought and hard work behind the course you ran.

When an analogue-output method works to produce silver prints like those exhibited by Salgado (some of which I have seen in person) then it must surely be acceptable in a section/group/sub-forum here. With darkroom expansion as the aim, even if only defensively, there's some clear thinking from Mr.Carnie in his posts here.

 

[eddie]

As I posted earlier, I am entirely analogue, and have some reservations about controlling the addition of a hybrid forum to APUG. That being said, I'm of the belief that approaches (such as Bob's) can be the "entry-level drug" to creating more darkroom users. As such, I think a narrowly defined hybrid forum would be a "win-win" situation for us all.

 

[MaximusM3]

That is just wonderful, Bob. I applaud your approach, as I do believe it is a step in the right direction.

 

[jglass]

I applaud as well. I would also like to know A LOT more about "epson negs on Pictorico Ultra premium OHP film" and the flashing technique. I know you're busy, Bob, but is there a reference for making those negs? Or would you write about it here or on DPUG? I am interested both for enlarging negatives for alt process and for converting digital files (although I shoot very little digital).

Great work!

 

[Bob Carnie]

I would like to write about it here, but I think I am taking too many liberties as it is.
Ron Reeder and others on DPUg are experts in Digital Negs using epson printers with QTR. I am making negs by my eyes and the numbers on the info palette.
for the lambda negs my machine calibrates the film in 21 step wedges of white to gray with D min and D max settings put forth and the machine calibrates as I make the negs.
I am not an expert in any way in making the inkjet negs and Ron and others are way more experienced than I.
But with that said, making negs for lith printing is as simple as this.

ok so I will take a chance

put pictorico in the printer.
Convert to black and white with your favourite method and edit and sharpen as normal
Adobe 1998 - make your image look great with your highlights almost blowing out and get deep deep blacks
Image size 300 dpi then set your size.
flip horizontal = so when your image is laying on the silver gelatin paper the image should be emulsion down right reading
invert image- now you have a negative
save as to a folder
open image in PS send to printer and make your inkjet neg.

test in in a real darkroom using historically chemicals like photospeed lith, stop , fix, fix, hypo wash ,, then tone as you normally would.
I really liked the Foma as suggested and I really like 1:8 dilution, also I really like blasting the exposure form one enlarger.


Have some fun.
The second flash will fill in the burnt out highlights , that will give the toner something to hold on.

I applaud as well. I would also like to know A LOT more about "epson negs on Pictorico Ultra premium OHP film" and the flashing technique. I know you're busy, Bob, but is there a reference for making those negs? Or would you write about it here or on DPUG? I am interested both for enlarging negatives for alt process and for converting digital files (although I shoot very little digital).

Great work!

 

[jglass]

Thanks very much, Bob. I really think we need to see a full article, with step-by-step on this from you or someone with your darkroom know-how. Perhaps submitting something like this to one of the bigger Photo mags would work, since it combines digi and darkroom. Big audiences of potential converts there!

 

[Bob Carnie]

Ok as promised - Student One - Carlos Garate first time in a darkroom for him. He had a bit of a problem figuring out the less time more contrast to when to pull syndrome, but by the end of the day got it.

 

[John R.]

Bravo for a reasoned and (hopefully) fruitful discussion!

There is much disheartening news these days about the future of analog photography. The way to Defend the Darkroom, is not through bitching and blaming... there is enough of that on this site alone to discourage anyone from taking up analog photography. The way to defend our foothold, or toe-hold as it were, is to carry on. Use analog processes wherever and whenever you can in your work. Tell others, show others, share and teach.

When someone asks, "Can you still get film for that?", the answer is YES! It is not a stupid question to be mocked and ridiculed. It is a public perception that needs to be corrected. Even if it's the thousandth time you've answered it, the answer is yes. That one question is the opening of a door - an invitation to promote analog work.

One of my last students (I am recently retired from a 30 year career as a high school music teacher) is a very talented young digital photographer. He has a good eye and an urge to learn as much as he can about photography. He has just bought his first film camera. He emails me regularly with questions of composition and exposure, etc. When he is ready for the darkroom, I will be ready to answer his questions.

FWIW, in my classroom it was well known that I was firmly in the analog camp. Students being what they are, often teased me about my fashion sense or lack of hair, but they never showed anything but respect for my choice of analog photography. When a student got a new camera, they eventually found their way to my room to show it to me. They respected my opinion, and often said things like, "It's only digital", but I encouraged them nonetheless.

Good luck with the Lith course, Bob. I wish I could be there to share the experience.

Regards,
Tom

I agree with Tom on "Tell, Show, Share and Teach" .... One thing about analog is that it has a great friend in the anti-establishment nature of youth. I think Bob is kind of right that if you find a way to get some youth to experience the lab even in a minimal fashion like a contact printing session it will plant the seed of curiosity and further experimentation, but at the same time it is still encouraging digital from the onset which I think is a double edged sword. I think there is plenty of interest among the youth to create with film from what I have seen. I'm not totally convinced a digital neg is the way to go even though it gets them to the contact printing stage. I guess it all just needs to be a multifaceted approach. I do believe a enlarger experience would have a much greater impact on people than a contact printing experience. I wish Bob a lot of success with his efforts and hope some of his students appreciate his efforts in bringing analog to their doorstep and they take advantage of what they will experience. I do not believe DPUD and APUG should be combined.

 

[TriXfan]

I vote for Bob

I agree 1,000% with Bob Carnie --
if we are not actively encouraging people in analog printing/contact printing from ANY negatives there will soon be no more printing papers -- at any price.

Watching a silver print come up before your eyes is magic.
If we truly want it to continue, it is up to each of us to pass on that knowledge.

Getting trapped in labelling 'hybrid' as somehow unworthy & unacceptable will only turn off and decrease participation here -- and accelerate the demise of analog materials.

Karl

 

[Guillaume Zuili]

Well said Karl.

 

[Bob Carnie]

As Promised - Student 2- Lisa Murzin- Lisa has taken PS classes with me in the past and this was her first go around with lith, I think she is going to do a project based on farm animals and is going to order some Foma 131 I believe in either 16x20 or 20 24 size. I will introduce her to APUG if she bites and starts Lith printing.

 

[MaximusM3]

I agree 1,000% with Bob Carnie --
if we are not actively encouraging people in analog printing/contact printing from ANY negatives there will soon be no more printing papers -- at any price.

Watching a silver print come up before your eyes is magic.
If we truly want it to continue, it is up to each of us to pass on that knowledge.

Getting trapped in labelling 'hybrid' as somehow unworthy & unacceptable will only turn off and decrease participation here -- and accelerate the demise of analog materials.

Karl

Amen. It's a win/win situation as far as I am concerned.