Lith print effects on 16mm reversal film?

Hey everyone,

I shoot and hand develop my own 16mm kodak movie film using a reversal process to create a projectable positive.

That being said, I am beginning to explore the different possible effects that could be done seeing as I am already hand developing my own stuff.

My background is actually in photography and so much of my knowledge, especially of special effects comes from darkroom printing. I especially as the title might imply love to lith print my photographs.

This lead me to wonder if similar high contrast effects could be done with a negative/positive instead of a print. More specifically with the positive reversal process i use for my 16mm film.

The process I currently use is the basic Developer, Bleach, Clearing, Redeveloper, Hardener approach.

Does anyone have any ideas as to weather substituting in a lith developer (I mainly use homebrewn ID-13) into either the developer or redeveloper steps would yield any interesting results, or would it simply have an effect on the development times, but no actual visual effects?

Thanks so much in advance!

Wow still nothing? I feel so... cutting edge hah

Problem with lith printing, is that it's a visual process. You need to see what you're doing to know when to pull the print, or in your case film, from the developer and into the stop.

If you want a lith look I'd suggest trying to use a lith developer at the redevelopment stage. I take it that you re-expose your film after the bleach? Or are you using a developer that does the re-exposing for you? In that case I guess you'd need to re-expose if you are using a lith developer.

You seem to be pretty cutting edge, so try it and see what happens!

You will probably have to use the same developer in both the development and redevelopment stages and the gamma will probably be so steep (contrasty) that you will have a very narrow range of optimal exposure (depending upon development particulars).

This means you may only have a tolerance of 1/2 to 1/8th of a stop to either side of "good" exposure, so a roll may only have a few, if any, good shots the way you like them.

The difference between visual inspection and time/temperature processing/developing make this problematic, but give it a try -- its only film!

Kino said:

You will probably have to use the same developer in both the development and redevelopment stages and the gamma will probably be so steep (contrasty) that you will have a very narrow range of optimal exposure (depending upon development particulars).

This means you may only have a tolerance of 1/2 to 1/8th of a stop to either side of "good" exposure, so a roll may only have a few, if any, good shots the way you like them.

The difference between visual inspection and time/temperature processing/developing make this problematic, but give it a try -- its only film!

Click to expand...

Hello Kino,

I am not sure why one would need to use the same developer for both first and second development. As I understand the question, nbrancaccio wants to get the effect of "lith" print development of prints on paper, as done by Tim Rudman and others, on transparent base, in this case 16mm film by reversal. As I understand the process, the first developer in B&W reversal works on primarily larger grains (due to how the latent image was formed). Since these are removed by bleaching, the second exposure and development is more fine grained. The "lith" effect, as I understand it, is related to grain size and the size of the grains in the final image. Since the second development will be in dilute lith developer, snatched at the right moment, and done with the lights on, it would seem to be possible. The B&W reversal film will probably be much faster than paper (although there are some very slow lab films and some very fast paper), so it could be tricky.

I don't know if anyone has tried lith on transparent media, but an email or PM to Tim would probably be informative. The reflective surface of paper (behind the emulsion layer) must be part of the effect of lith prints. I have no idea if the lith effect works with transmitted as opposed to reflected light.

I have Tim’s book, but it is not at hand at the moment.

Please advise me if I am completely off-base here.

As you say, “…but give it a try -- its only film!”

Also, one doesn’t need to do a long roll to give it a go. A few feet with a wide range of exposure should do. One would have a hard time developing 100’ by inspection – although some ideas come to mind.

Cheers,
Clarence

Just an idea: can you develop your film as a normal negative and make a print on release film, like 7302 ? The film is blue-sensitive, so you could develop by inspection.

mhv said:

Just an idea: can you develop your film as a normal negative and make a print on release film, like 7302 ? The film is blue-sensitive, so you could develop by inspection.

Click to expand...

Hello mhv,

A few musings. Reversal film is usually fogged/exposed completely and developed to completion. Since nbrancaccio may not want to do this to get the lith effect (if in fact it is possible), blue sensitive film would be the choice for partial exposure and development by inspection. Most B&W films can be reversed with better or worse results, so perhaps 7302 would work - You may know. It would be easier than making a print - a fast and dirty test - so to speak.

Cheers,
Clarence

An interesting question - by which response you can probably tell that I haven't tried it!

It wouldn't be difficult to try a few tests on short lengths of film though, so why not have a go and report back? It wouldn't take too long.

If film emulsion responds to this approach, I imagine your best chance would be using dilute lith at the redevelopment stage, as then you can see what is happening and the fairly precise moment to intervene, which will be important, will be more easily determined.

You would probably be advised to over expose the film in camera too, as you won't be redeveloping fully in lith and a denser neg would be a better starting point.

Remember that (with prints at least) the first developer, as well as the emulsion characteristics, can play an important part in the outcome, as can the bleach.
Perhaps do your first tests with a standard rehalogenising bleach and consider moving on to a more exotic one if you feel so inclined.

Anyway, let us know.
Tim

CRhymer said:

Hello mhv,

...blue sensitive film would be the choice for partial exposure and development by inspection...
Cheers,
Clarence

Click to expand...

It occurred to me after posting this that the spectral response of emulsions after partial development and bleaching may be very different (much more limited) than the original film. I don’t know this, but would not be surprised. Others may have an exact answer to this. So, it may not make a lot of difference what the camera film is, at least from the point of view of re-developing by inspection in room or safelight conditions. Grain size, etc. is another matter.

Also, Tim, I believe that increased exposure in camera will give a less dense image on re-development after non rehalogenating bleaching. Or, perhaps that is the goal?

Cheers,
Clarence

Whoops. You are right Clarence. I was still in print mode ;-)
Tim

Hey thanks for all the great replies everyone! I have gone and done quite a few tests (10-15) doing all sorts of things to test variables. What I neglected to mention is that I had begun a few tests before posting this, but I wanted to hear of what people suggested as well, as I am having a bit of trouble.

First let me say that yes! Thankyou all for pushing on using lith as the redeveloper rather then first developer. That does seem to work better. I actually wasted much of my time doing many attempts with dilute lith developer as the first developer to no real avail. firstly, I obviously cannot see the results until after all the other steps. Secondly, It seems that if I was getting any sort of lith effect, it was quite subtle, and additionally, was inversed then the traditional look.

Instead of graphic, grainy cold darks and soft, smooth highlights, because it was a step that was then reversed, it had the opposite look: Smooth soft darks and crisp highlights. Though as I mentioned, this was very subtle. The main thing I noticed was a general muddiness regardless of development times , which I just realized last night is probably largely due to a lack of to quite an old photo.net post on the reversal process

"a mild complexing agent (a "silver halide solvent") that removes a bit of the silver halide (equivalent to fixing slightly /while/ developing). Without this silver halide solvent, the highlights of the final slide look muddy."

So yeah I would call using lith for a first developer largely a failure. Even if I could fine tune it, I found it to actually look too normal.

By the way I should mention that I even did tests where I over exposed my film to further try and push the lith look, and indeed it did help a bit. As with prints, as I increased over exposure I did recive more midtone-centric pieces. And generally lower contrast. I found over all for this recipe to work the best as a first developer, though as i stated before, the results were too normal:

I rated my 100 speed kodak reversal film at iso 12 instead, to effectively over expose my film by 3 stops. From there I found this recipe/dilution to generally work well:

Home brewed ID-13

75ml Lith A
75ml Lith B
20ml 10% Sodium Sulfite Solution
50ml 10% Potassium Bromide Solution

800ml of Water

From there I used my normal process of:

Bleach 4min
Wash 4min
Clearing 4min
Wash 4min
Redeveloper (The kind I use for normal reversal process. NOT LITH) 5min
Wash 4min
Hardener 2min
Final Wash 10min
Let Dry

If anyone has any suggestions of what I should change in the process or in my Lith Dev formula please let me know.

As of just today, I got into testing my lith developer (same solution as listed above) in the redevelopement stage, while using my normal first developer. It was both a sucess and a failure.

I did find that the images did have a bit more of a lith quality, though it wasnt properly exposed or developed; my results where not dense enough.

It was after this that I realized of course! Over exposing 3 stops was actually counter productive with using the lith as redeveloper, because this would give me already a thin negative to start with, so partial development to make it a positive would just make it even thinner. Just looking at the final strips from an artistic, rather then chemist standpoint, it simply appeared as if it was normally developed, but far too over exposed, and was stained (It did have an interesting acidic yellow tint)

Tomorrow morning I will be testing a series of bracketed under exposed strips to see if this helps. I'm hoping that this will yield a quite dense negative in first developer, so that very little is bleached away. And thus, there should be a lot of density to partial develop to reach some sort of a normal density, and hopefully, the lith effect.

Again thank you everyone for your incredibly helpful replies, and please keep them comming, they have both acted to help my process quite a deal and well, as motivation. Once I have some true success with this I will definatly upload a video so you all can see it in action (that is if it can be done)

I'll post again as soon as I know the results to this next test. I know this is a long post, but any more feedback on what I should do/shouldnt do would be of great help

Regards,

Nick

Hello nbrancaccio,

Perhaps I am missing something about the “lith” print effect, but I doubt that using lith developers for your first developer will make much difference. Reversals, for projections are usually developed in a high contrast developer. For good projection you need high contrast, high Dmax, and a silver solvent (in the first developer) to clear the high lights. The image you create in the first development is going to be bleached away, so any effects of infectious development and the characteristic colours due to different sized grains will be gone (I think). It may have an effect on the size of the grains that are left to be redeveloped.

I expect that you would be best to try a redevelopment that comes after either low initial exposure or shorter initial development so there is more silver to work with. Of course you can only go so far with this. There is not much latitude in reversal. In fact, it may be that you have to do a print from a negative to get the 2 -3 stop overexposure that is common for paper lith printing.

Another approach might be developing by inspection of ortho film under an appropriate safelight or panchromatic film with night vision goggles (using “lith print” type exposure and “lith print” type development). I use quotation marks to note that this would not be like making a regular lith negative. This of course will give you the negative image, but you might see any "lith" effects albeit rather strange.

My point is that if this works at all it will be due to the last developer that you use. Also, you may need some "old brown" or the equivalent.

What bleach are you using? Since you are using a hardener, I assume it is permanganate.

Cheers,
Clarence

Thanks for the reply crhymer!

Yeah I definatly agree with you and have found your explaination to be the case through testing. Lith as a first developer is actually far too similiar to normal first developer (in that it is high contrast) except that it does not have the necessary silver halide solvent, and thus produces muddy images.

Tonight, I'm trying to plan my course of action for tomorrows testing. And yeah one thing I am worried about is the small exposure lattitude of slide film, which might inhibit my lithing abilities. I agree that I should additionally have a shorter developement time in first developer to really get a dense image to work with with redeveloper. It is definatly something I have been concidering. The only thing I'm really wondering now is how little can I develop my film to achive maximum density while still having some sort of image to work with in the lith process?

Obviously some testing is necessary. But can anyone suggest a starting point?

Also, I suppose with that narrow exposure lattitude that anything past about 3 stops under is not worth it right? So should my brackets be in the range of 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2, 2 1/2 UNDER exposed?

Another thing I'm beginning to realize is that I may be over complicating things with my lith mixture. I'm concidering using simply high diluted ammounts of A and B without my usual additives of Sodium Sulfite and Potassium Bromide. Or should I leave these additives as the film may be quite fast and may need the Bromide?

I have also realized that I NEED some old brown in my solution, especially since its being made fresh and being used only once before dumping. However, I do not have any on hand. Does anyone know of any ways to quickly make some old brown?

Lastly, I have also been concidering using a bit more Lith A then Lith B. As quoted from a PDF on moersch's site additional lith A will appear "harder, more colorful, grainer, slower, shorter working life." These are all characteristics I am seeking, and the two downsides do not matter to me in my process. I dont mind the speed, infact, slower might be easier to control. Additionally, shorter working life has no effect on my process as its being dumped after 1 run anyway. How much more lith A then Lith B is ok?

Thanks again!

Hello nbrancaccio,

I can only make a few comments, as most of this is outside my experience or knowledge.

For a halide solvent in the first developer you can use plain hypo (sodium thiosuphate) @ 8-10g/litre, or preferably sodium thiocyanate @ 2g/litre. I don’t know how they will act with your developer. I use D-19 because it is available and inexpensive for me. There are a number of other first developers listed on the net. Dektol works. The amount of added solvent may differ for different developers. You don’t list a re-exposure or fixing step in your process. While theoretically the second development goes to completion, in fact some halide will never become developable and will remain. In your case, as I understand it, there will be substantial halide, since you will be stopping development when the proper “lith” effect appears. This may reduce the problem of muddy highlights.

As to exposure, the less you expose/first develop, the more halide will remain to muddy the highlights.

However, all you need initially is a sufficiently dense (second exposed) image on the film when you use your lith developer to see if you get a lith effect.

The speed of the film may be quite different on second development than first due to the difference in grain size. Also, you are not just overexposing the image 2-3 stops as in paper lith, you are completely exposing the image (that is latent, not printed out) although this is never 100% efficient. I have no idea whether infectious development and the colourful silver grains will be produced in these conditions.

I am quite curious.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Clarence

Hey thanks again for the reply!

Firstly, yeah sorry I forgot to mention the re-exposure. In my process, every step after bleach is completed in trays in daylight.

And yeah I actually do have a normal reversal first developer that I am using (I mixed it myself.) I do not know the exact name for it as I got the formula from my film teacher, but I can tell you the chemicals (off the top of my head)

Metol
Hydroquinone
Sodium Carbonate
Sodium Thiosulfate

And 1 other chemical that I cannot remember right now. Sorry for the not so technical reply. But yeah I suppose if it was necessary, I could always add the thiosulfate to my lith developer if I insisted on using lith for a first developer.

I believe for the time being I will play with using lith only in the redevelopement stage. I guess what I am trying to get at by under exposing and under developing in the redeveloper is the following: I'm hoping to have a theoretically dense latent image if it were to be developed to completion. In other words, an Image that if processed normally, would be far too dense. That way I can partially redevelop it to gain a lith effect.

You bring up a good point that I hadn't thought of yet though: the complication of the re exposure. I dont quite know what that will add. And yeah I'm definatly not sure about the color. Even though one great advantage to lith printing is the color, I am more looking for the tonal qualities of lith rather then color qualities. I won't mind if i cannot get colorful images.

Anyway I'm going to go back now and reread your previous post. I'm not as chemically savey as you and may not have completely understood you post.

Thanks again!

If you can do this, it sounds like it would be a fantastic effect. If you can get it to work, post some frame grabs!

Ok well as promised, here are the results of my testing today.

Firstly though, let me say that I have terrible means of getting film scanned into the computer. I merely have a flatbed scanner with a lightup negative and slide film scanner. Additionally this attachment is meant for 35mm, so at 16mm the resolution of the scan is a bit low. Regardless, I think that these scans should atleast tell a little bit about whats going on.

All 5 strips were scanned in the same run for uniformity. Very minimal photoshop ajustments were made. Only levels to get it in the ball pack, and hue saturation to get the greenish tint out that slides seem to have when scanned. I shifted the color more towards what it appears like when projected.

Here is what I did:

Shot a scene. 1 long strip at the proper exposure for the film (100 iso) and 1 long strip at 1 stop under exposed. (meter @ 200 iso)

From there I developed as usual, except In first developer, I under developed a bit. Instead of 5 minutes, I developed halfway ( 2:30 ) , and then transfered into the water (which took about 30 seconds) So first development time I suppose is approximately 3 minutes.

From there I bleached as usual for 4 minutes, washed for 4, and then transfered both strips to clearing for 4 minutes. It was then that I realized clearing is essentially a Sodium sulfite solution! So i proceeded to was the film for about 15 minutes before taking it into the lith. (Sodium Sulfite inhibits pepper fog, but too much ruins the lith effect of infexious developement)

Now for the complex part.

I took my -1 stop test strip and cut it up into many little strips, for which I tested many variables with. It was not until the end of testing that I found the properly exposed strip to actually look far better. Sorry.

Anyway, Inital testing was done in the following formula:

3000ml Water
100ml Lith A
100ml Lith B
100ml Old Brown
25ml 10% sodium sulfite solution
50ml 10% Potassium Bromide Solution

I began testing, and found that even with such a high dilution, it was, or atleast seemed to be VERY VERY FAST! I put through 3 strips, of which I have scans:

1st Strip, redeveloped in the above formula with constant agitation for 15 SECONDS!


2nd Strip Redeveloped in the above formula with constrant agitation for 30 seconds:


3rd Strip Redeveloped in the above formula with constant agaitation for 4 minutes:


Now obviously things were working far too fast, though I was atleast sucessful in that It seemed to be lithing.

From there, I added 7000 more ml of water to the above solution to really dilute things down. I also added 25ml of more Sodium Sulfite solution (to make a total of 50ml) as well as 50 more ml of potassium bromide solution (to make a total of 100ml)

I then developed this strip:

4th strip Redeveloped with the additional dilution and additives with constant agitation for 2 minutes:


I found judging the density of the strips to be quite difficult because of both their very small size, and because the actual brightness at which they are projected cannot be seen. The best I could do was hold it up to the white light in the darkroom and look. Thus, this strip looks still a bit too dark, but during the process it looked fine to me. This here is what I used to develop my final lenghty strip of both the -1 exposure and neutral exposure, with which, I found the neutral exposure to when projected look better.

The Final strip -1 is exactly the same as the 4th strip, so I have only supplied the properly exposed strip to post the final results.





I am still definatly not satisfied with the results. I do like how the sky is perfect white, while the tree renders for the most part a graphic black, however the midtones are not lithy enough and split enough for my taste. I need as many suggestions as possible with where to go next. I'll be thinking about it some more tonight, and will be doing some more testing tomorrow.

I will also be switching to a 200 speed tri x reversal film instead of the 100 speed I was using in this test. I am making this switch as the tri x has a wider exposure lattitude, which may prove to lith better. the 100 speed was too narrow in my opinion.

Anyway I'll stop rambaling. Thanks for your time and help everyone. Please, suggest things haha!

Thanks!
-Nick

Any thoughts anyone?

I would also like to add that I'm concidering attempting some redevelopement techniques maybe even after the redevelopement stage. As in the "redevelopement games" that tim rudman talks about in his book, in which you take a conventionally printing image, bleach it either completely or partially away, and then redevelop it in lith developer for a lith effect with intially conventionally printed means.

I realize this type of effect isn't as nice of a quality as real lith, however, I am having a bit of trouble with this process. Maybe a technique like that would do the trick. Hum...

Anyone have any cents, or possibly 2 cents to offer?

Thanks!

In lith printing one soon finds that emulsions are not all equal. Some lith brilliantly, some very little. I have no experience of trying to get film emulsions to give the sort of results I like with prints, and I don't know how varied film emulsions are in this particular respect.

I have used lith developer at full strength with film in order to get the graphic high contrast results that it was intended for, but this is essentially reducing all tones to either black or white. You can do this with papers too but you can (with suitable papers) also get very soft subtle and colourful effects and developer dilution is a key factor in determining this. The other is the snatch point - the later the snatch, the colder toned and more graphic is the result. The earlier the snatch, the warmer and softer it is. The balance of the two is key.

How reproducable this is with film emulsion I don't know, but as I posted earlier I would suggest that the redevelopment would be the best way to go because a) you can see what is happening (to some degree) and b) quite a few 'non lithable' papers do work on redevelopment.

My earlier suggestion of over-exposing was clearly wrong [as tactfully and delicately suggested by Clarence CRhymer ;-) ] as I was still thinking in print mode rather than reversal film.

I would suggest that you try a formaldehye / para formaldehyde based lith developer as they often seem to work particularly well with lith printing on paper.

Higher dilutions (much) would be good too. The first dilution you mentioned above is quite strong for the effects I go for with paper and the stronger it is, the more graphic and cold the results are likely to be - and of course the faster it is and that means harder to judge or control the snatch point.

You are looking for significant under development in order to get the super fine grain in the high values that gives the effect - although it would likely be reversed in your case to shadows.

I would leave out added sulphite unless you know you need it. It isn't always necessary. Significant pepper fogging is mostly a thing of the past with the demise of Sterling. Only seen occasionally and in very mild form now unless heavily provoked. Sulphite can be a 2-edged sword and just too much can suppress your infectious development.

Likewise, I would leave out the extra bromide until or unless you find you need it. It is a restrainer and can be very useful to inhibit fog but also to give more graphic results (which you already have in abundance) by holding back (in prints) light tone development by the time the blacks burst through at snatch point. Try without it. In theory it might help (but I don't know in practice).

Finally, you can always try redevelopment a second time round. Sometimes that gives 'better' (i.e. different) results, sometimes worse.
You are in unchartered waters for me here ;-)

Tim

Thank you so much for such an in depth reply Tim! That was very helpful!

Unfortunatly I'll have to stick with ID-13 for now as I am going on vacation soon, and wont have a chance to special order some paraformeldahyde from B&H.

So my next plan of action after reading you post many times through is this:

No Sulfite or Bromide additive. Much higher dilutions. Stick with lith in redeveloper.

What type of dilution would you say I should shoot for now? I suppose I was at about 1+15 before, but then with the addition of old brown 1+1 with developer. Should I go to something like 1+30?

Also should I keep the old brown?

Again thank you so much for your response. For one, I had no idea the bromide additive gave a more graphic look, I was always under the impression that it simply extended developement, and thus gave a softer look. So wow just that was a huge help right there!

as a post note, You mentioned you've used lith at fill strength with film for its intended purposes. This also interests me. Are you talking regular film, or lith film intended for lith developer?

Thanks!

Try being bolder with diluion. If you were at 1+ 15 try 1+60, - or 1+100 if your dev times aren't already too long. Its like many things in pint making, you don't know how far you can go until you've gone too far - then pull back. otherwise you never know ;-)
I only discovered some of the softer extended highlight tones and different colours when I pushed dilutions to give me 25 - 30 min print development times to see how far I could go and what would happen. I don't know how far you can push it with film emulsion but if it isn't written up, there is only one way to find out ;-)

Re Lith for high contrast; I used it mainly with line or lith film, but you can use with regular film. I haven't but I have seen results of those who have (don't ask me which films are best)

Tim

Wow! This is a very interesting idea - to use lith developer for second development. Unfortunately, the images shared by OP are no longer accessible. Has anyone tried it in recent times and have any interesting experience to share?