Lith print completely white, is something wrong with developer?

silvercloud2323 · Oct 7, 2024

Hi,
I am new to lith printing. And I have done some lith prints successfully.

But then , yesterday I was trying again but all the prints turned out to stay all white.
Cannot find out where the problem is.

Exposed the paper for 32 seconds at F8. Which was 2 stops over exposed from the base conventional exposure black and white. ( which was F8 and 8 seconds)
I still want to mention my bottle Easylith developer, diluted (1+25), was about almost 2 weeks old that i mixed max and that it had been stored in a 2 litre plastic bottle.
So there was air in the bottle for about 1 litre.

I tried a fomatone MG Classic paper in the Special edition Easylith developer.

And I tired a Forte paper in classic Easlith developer

Both papers in the 2 developers gave me a white print...

What made this happen? ?

thx

koraks · Oct 7, 2024

silvercloud2323 said:
diluted (1+25)

Working strength lith developer is usable for a few minutes up to maybe 1-2 hours if it's really really stable.

ic-racer · Oct 7, 2024

Put some paper in the developer under white light...what happens?

jimjm · Oct 7, 2024

Like koraks said, working strength lith developer has a short life, even if stored in bottles. Once mixed, the A and B parts immediately begin to oxidize. Unless I replenish with fresh developer, it's rare to get more than a few hours in an open tray. Also, the development times start to lengthen as the developer ages.

silvercloud2323 · Oct 7, 2024

koraks said:
Working strength lith developer is usable for a few minutes up to maybe 1-2 hours if it's really really stable.

Thx Koraks, I'm new to lith. What you mean with stable?

silvercloud2323 · Oct 7, 2024

jimjm said:
Like koraks said, working strength lith developer has a short life, even if stored in bottles. Once mixed, the A and B parts immediately begin to oxidize. Unless I replenish with fresh developer, it's rare to get more than a few hours in an open tray. Also, the development times start to lengthen as the developer ages.

If i'm right , i kept the bottle for about 2 weeks in the bottle and used it maybe 3 or 4 times for a lith session.
So probably the mix was exhausted.
Is it now "Old Brown"?
I didn't know lith developer has a short life span. Shorter than normal or conventional printing developer

jimjm · Oct 7, 2024

Yep, now it's "old brown". Often, there's a sweet spot where the batch of developer gives optimal color and lith effects before it starts to become less effective and your development times will increase.
Usually the first few prints in a new batch won't give me the best results (based on the dilution and exposure time), but then the next 4 or 5 prints will be close to what I'm looking for. Adding a small amount of old brown helps me to reach this point quicker, sort of like seasoning the developer.
There's a lot of variables that come into play here, like dilution ratio, type of paper, exposure times and developer temperature, as well as snatch time.
I've used various papers, and this is where you can sometimes get great results from old expired paper. For current papers, the Fomatone MG131 is a good paper, but my favorite so far was some old expired Forte Fortezo grade 3 matte that I got off eBay. Huge surprise with this 25-year old paper and I've had a hard time replicating the results I got with it.
If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend Tim Rudman's book "Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course". Great information here.

This was one print on that 8x10 Fortezo paper, and I'm having a heck of a time replicating it on the Fomatone.

silvercloud2323 · Oct 7, 2024

jimjm said:
Yep, now it's "old brown". Often, there's a sweet spot where the batch of developer gives optimal color and lith effects before it starts to become less effective and your development times will increase.
Usually the first few prints in a new batch won't give me the best results (based on the dilution and exposure time), but then the next 4 or 5 prints will be close to what I'm looking for. Adding a small amount of old brown helps me to reach this point quicker, sort of like seasoning the developer.
There's a lot of variables that come into play here, like dilution ratio, type of paper, exposure times and developer temperature, as well as snatch time.
I've used various papers, and this is where you can sometimes get great results from old expired paper. For current papers, the Fomatone MG131 is a good paper, but my favorite so far was some old expired Forte Fortezo grade 3 matte that I got off eBay. Huge surprise with this 25-year old paper and I've had a hard time replicating the results I got with it.
If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend Tim Rudman's book "Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course". Great information here.

This was one print on that 8x10 Fortezo paper, and I'm having a heck of a time replicating it on the Fomatone.

View attachment 380287

thx for advice!

Bill Burk · Oct 7, 2024

Do you use a step wedge? Lith goes from white to black in one step so without a scale can be hard to see where you are exposure-wise.

silvercloud2323 · Oct 7, 2024

Bill Burk said:
Do you use a step wedge? Lith goes from white to black in one step so without a scale can be hard to see where you are exposure-wise.

No I am not using step wedge.. I have never heard of it. Can you explain that and how is related to seeing where you are exposure wise?

Bill Burk · Oct 7, 2024

Here’s a page from “Keepers of Light” a book worth getting ahold of.

Step wedge at the top is a negative with density ranging near zero to near 3.0 (so it covers 7 stops). If your picture doesn’t appear (or appears too dark or too light) you can tell how much it’s off.

If you see anything on your picture you count the steps from “what you got” on the picture where it matches the grayscale. Count the steps to where it looks like “what you want”. Each step might be half stop (or third stop depending what you bought most are half stop)

koraks · Oct 8, 2024

silvercloud2323 said:
What you mean with stable?

By 'stable', I mean surprisingly (for a lith developer) resistant to the effects of oxidation. Which is a bit of an oxymoron, since a typical lith developer is purposefully formulated to balance on the brink of death to begin with. So it's inherently unstable to begin with, but some developers last a little longer than others (i.e. hours instead of minutes).

silvercloud2323 said:
Is it now "Old Brown"?

Sort of. Personally, I'm not a fan of the 'old brown' approach. 'Old brown' mostly (1) dilutes the developer with some completely oxidized hydroquinone (which does essentially nothing except maybe impart an overall yellowish tone to the gelatin emulsion) and (2) it adds halides that leached from the previous prints that were developed. It's an inherently unpredictable factor and (again, personally) I find it can be substituted for controlled addition of halides etc. I find it makes it easier and more consistent hitting that sweet spot of the developer that @jimjm mentions. Mind you, adding Old Brown works, I don't contest that - but it's not my personal preference.
Getting back to your developer - it's Old Brown only in the sense that it contains a lot of oxidized developer, but it's not particularly rich in halides, so it will work differently than Old Brown that became 'old' because it was used on prints until it died.

silvercloud2323 said:
No I am not using step wedge

You really don't need one, especially in lith printing, IMO. It's not wrong to go that way, but it's unusual and IMO only introduces a false sense of control over what's inherently a somewhat random process.

silvercloud2323 · Oct 9, 2024

Thanks to Koraks & Bill Burk

I think my initial mix of Easylith developer run out of life.

But meanwhile i made a new lith mix and tried it with some old Forté paper. These old the results below.

I see some strange small black points. Is this pepper corning or the black dot syndrome??
Can this be cured with some Lith C in the mix? If so ,how much do you recommend?

Thanks a lot,

M

koraks · Oct 9, 2024

silvercloud2323 said:
Is this pepper corning or the black dot syndrome??

IDK; it's black dots, that's for sure.
Forte paper is really old so there's a good chance that over time, developable centers have emerged in the silver gelatin emulsion due to background radiation etc. Or maybe this is something of a chemical nature.

You could try adding a little bit of this or a little bit of that. Experiment, see what you get. I think Moersch has written a bit about pepper corns and how to deal with them. I've had them appear on a specific paper; I think it was Fomabrom, but I'm not really sure. Could have been Adox MCC as well. It was kind of neat. I still switched to another paper though.

silvercloud2323 said:
how much do you recommend?

Start with Moersch' guidelines and then experiment from there.
Nobody can give hard & fast numbers for lith. You'll have to rely on your own experimentation and gut feeling.

If I were you I'd do a bunch of test strips with different exposures, development times/snatch points and then different additives to get a feeling how the process responds to different parameters.

silvercloud2323 · Oct 11, 2024

I found this about dilution Lith C ...

Sodium Sulfite (Moersch C)

All lith developers oxidize over time in the tray,

some faster than others. Weak dilutions will oxidize

faster than strong ones. If you wish to extend the

tray life over a long day of printing, then adding

Moersch C/sodium sulfite will help do the trick.

Moersch C is a 20% solution. Experiment in 5 ml

increments. I typically make a 10% solution of

sodium sulfite and experiment in 10 ml increments.

Too much sodium sulfite will kill infectious

development, so proceed in small steps.

Lith print completely white, is something wrong with developer?

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