Lith Printing Homebrew Developers

cmichael · Feb 20, 2007

For the past several weekends, I have been having an absolute blast lith printing with the Kodak D-9 developer formula. I really like this developer with Forte PWT and Kentmere Fineprint WT. I ordered Kentona and Fotospeed Lith paper for this weekends adventure. Since I will be testing these new (to me) papers this weekend, I figured I should try another developer at the same time. (I might as well agitate two trays for 10 minutes instead of just one.) I really wanted to try the LD20 developer from Freestyle, but I could not justify spending $30 for 500ml of developer that I could probably make for a buck at home. Which finally leads me to my questions:

1) Im thinking of trying the Kodak D-85 formula (or similar) next. D-85 contains paraformaldehyde and D-9 does not. Do the developers containing formaldehyde produce significantly different results than the non-formaldehyde developers like D-9?

2) I do not have paraformaldehyde and plan on using acetone instead. (using a ratio of 2.2ml acetone ~ 1g paraformaldehyde) Does this substitution have an effect on the lith print? To the best of my knowledge, this substitution was in reference to film development.

3) I do have formalin (37% formaldehyde). Could formalin be substituted for paraformaldehyde? If so, at what ratio? I would like to steer clear of formaldehyde in open trays for health reasons, so I would prefer to use acetone in the long term. However, I would not mind comparing acetone vs. formaldehyde to observe any differences.

4) Other than D-85, are there any other homebrew developers worth trying? I am in the experimental stage right now and I am just looking for something that provides a stark contrast to what I am now getting with D-9. I recently obtained Tim Rudmans book on lith printing and there seems to be substantial differences in results with various developers.

5) Any hints in terms of chemistry tweaks? Reduce potassium bromide, add a pinch of sodium sulfite, etc?

Sorry for the lengthy post. I have searched quite a bit for this information, but most of the responses I have seen were just speculations.

kunihiko · Feb 20, 2007

How about Ryuji Suzuki's Burning Lithprint Developer.

hydroquinone 3.0g
sodium sulfite 3.0g
potassium bromide 2.0g
trisodium phosphate 10g

Lith print developers can be that simple.

Mine is
hydroquinone 1.5g
sodium sulfite 2.5g
potassium bromide 0.75g
potassium carbonate 60g
It works fine for me, tray life is short, though.

karavelov · Feb 21, 2007

Right on your questions:
1) D-85 is fine. paraformaldehyde developers give me more colorful result but more the development is slower (my experience)
2) Do not waste your time acetone substitution. This substitution is just theoretical speculation. In practice it does not work. I have tried and I have not found substitution ratio with which the developer works. The same A with paraformadehyde B works.
3) try with formalin, the B part is basically formalin. Acetone is also nasty.

Kobin · Feb 21, 2007

kunihiko said:
How about Ryuji Suzuki's Burning Lithprint Developer.

hydroquinone 3.0g
sodium sulfite 3.0g
potassium bromide 2.0g
trisodium phosphate 10g

Lith print developers can be that simple.

Mine is
hydroquinone 1.5g
sodium sulfite 2.5g
potassium bromide 0.75g
potassium carbonate 60g
It works fine for me, tray life is short, though.

Into how much water, kunihiko? Thanks.
K.

cmichael · Feb 21, 2007

Thank you for sharing your formula kunihiko, I will give your potassium carbonate formula a try.

Karavelov, thank you for your information regarding the use of acetone as a paraformaldehyde substitute.

I did some digging and this site discusses making formalin from paraformaldehyde for use in biology. It looks like formalin can be made with paraformaldehyde and a few drops of sodium hydroxide solution. The site says a 4% paraformaldehyde = 10% formalin. So, a 37% solution of formalin should approximately be a 14.8% solution of paraformaldehyde. D-85 calls for 37.5g paraformaldehyde /L. I will try using 253ml of 37% formalin as a substitute. One other side note is that formalin usually contain methanol to prevent the precipitation of paraformaldehyde. I would assume that the addition of methanol would have a negligible effect in this formula.

kunihiko · Feb 21, 2007

Kobin said:
Into how much water, kunihiko? Thanks.
K.

Sorry, I forgot to say, It's to make 1 Litter of working solution.

Far as Ryuji told me and I experienced,
less sodium sulfite - more lith effect, shorter tray life.
less pottasium bromide - more lith effect but risk of fogging.

Adding a pinch of sodium sulfite per say 2 or 3 prints keeps solution life longer.

I'm still on the way of experiencing with this type of simple lith developers, so I would love to hear from other's experience.

Thanks.

cmichael · Feb 21, 2007

D-85 mixed with formalin

Well, I was going to wait until this weekend but curiosity got the best of me. I mixed up a small batch of D-85 with formalin in lieu of paraformaldehyde. I used the ratio listed in my previous post. The substitution seems to work just fine. I just lith printed a few scraps of RC paper and plan to do further testing this weekend with FB papers.

From my brief testing, I observed the following:

- The D-85 gave higher contrast than D-9. I had to bump up my exposure time about 25-50% to get roughly the same contrast.

- D-85 development times were a little longer. I used 4 parts A + 1 part B + 45 parts water initially and development times went up by about 20% with each subsequent print. It seems like activity fades very quickly with this dilution. I doubled the amount of A&B (making 8+2+45) and it seemed a little more stable but I only ran a few prints at the higher dilution. With D-9, I could use the same development times and the results were consistent. If memory serves me correctly, I did not need to increase development times for well over an hour.

- I only tried two RC papers, Fomaspeed Varient III and Forte WT. Tones seemed somewhat colder with D-85 and the Foma has a slight greenish cast. I need to test more papers, but for these two, I prefer D-9.

I will likely try an alternate formaldehyde based formula. I was a little disappointed in D-85. Thank you for the tips kunihiko, I should try D-9 with less KBr I wish I did not have a day job so I could play with this more. Thank you all for your comments. I hope that others will chime in with their findings. Information on this topic seems a little scarce.

nworth · Feb 22, 2007

Agfa 70, a traditional AB lith devloper, is listed in the APUG Formulas section.

dancqu · Feb 23, 2007

kunihiko said:
Far as Ryuji told me and I experienced,
less sodium sulfite - more lith effect, shorter tray life.
less pottasium bromide - more lith effect but risk of fogging.
Adding a pinch of sodium sulfite per say 2 or 3 prints keeps
solution life longer.

My experience with lith was with a carbonated, little sulfited,
hydroquinone mix with no bromide and used one-shot. None
of three papers I tested showed any fog. Same no-fog
reports from at least a couple of other APUG-ers.
Quicker too without bromide.

I'd like to use a Lith developer for contrast control
but do not want colored prints. Is it possible to
produce B&W prints? Dan

kunihiko · Feb 23, 2007

What I do to get a black lith print is make a lith print, bleach it, then re-develop with standard developer.

dancqu · Feb 23, 2007

kunihiko said:
What I do to get a black lith print is make a lith print,
bleach it, then re-develop with standard developer.

That proves it. I don't think of everything! That tip
may well save some of my very low and very high
contrast negatives.

If a print is slated for bleach and B&W re-develop are
exposure and first develop adjustments needed? Dan

kunihiko · Feb 23, 2007

There could be some fault in my workflow though, it tends to lose delicate highest lights in the bleach/re-develop stage. So, I make highlight in the original print little bit denser than I would like to have. Then, if needed, I could adjust highlights with slight bleaching.

Ryuji · Mar 2, 2007

The reason why most lith developers contain formaldehyde or paraformaldehyde is to preserve the developer a bit better, so that the tray life can be extended. However, in the condition commonly used among lith printers, the concentration of these chemicals is too low to be useful. Therefore, I have been suggesting to drop them in developers that are prepared specifically for lith printing.

This is the rationale behind my Burning Lithprinting Developer (which Kunihiko kindly posted). Also, making developer for lith printing eliminates the need for "old brown" tricks.

Dead Link Removed

In the formula, I used trisodium phosphate but it can be substituted with potassium carbonate, sodium carbonate, or combination of either of these and sodium hydroxide. The point is to maintain good working pH and there is no other intension with the phosphate.

cmichael · Mar 3, 2007

Thank you for posting this information Ryuji. I mixed up a batch of Kunihikos lith developer last weekend and enjoyed working with it. I found this developer to be very active compared to others that I have tried. Development times were around 3 minutes. I only used this for one session thus far, but I found his developer to be more linear in development than D-9 or D-85. This made the snatch point less critical at these short times. I will try your formula next with carbonate in lieu of trisodium phosphate and a target pH of 11.

dancqu · Mar 3, 2007

cmichael said:
I will try ... with carbonate ... and a target pH of 11.

I experimented with a 50 - 50 blend of carbonate
and bicarbonate; ph likely 10 to 10.5. Slow but more
control. Some papers with carbonate or blend will
not need the bromide.

Working with one-shot chemistry makes it easy to test
a variety of soups. To test with small volumes pre-wet
the paper. After, pour in the developer. A quarter liter
will do for an 8x10. I test 5x7. Dan

Mark Layne · Mar 4, 2007

karavelov said:
Right on your questions:
1) D-85 is fine. paraformaldehyde developers give me more colorful result but more the development is slower (my experience)
2) Do not waste your time acetone substitution. This substitution is just theoretical speculation. In practice it does not work. I have tried and I have not found substitution ratio with which the developer works. The same A with paraformadehyde B works.
3) try with formalin, the B part is basically formalin. Acetone is also nasty.

I have found that paraformaldehyde developers give more colourful results.
If someone has come up with a formula which will give colour without formaldehyde it would be interesting.
My understanding is that formaldehyde IS a reducing agent in the correct formulation
Mark

tezzasmall · Jun 7, 2020

I'm just resurrecting this set of posts about Lith developer, as I know there have been a few questions of late about this subject on this forum.

The main post for me is #2, where two very easy lith formulas are given, and where the last ingredient in each formula i.e.trisodium phosphate in formula 1, and potassium carbonate in formula 2, can be substituted with sodium carbonate, which is the much easier found, washing soda.

I have also been following a site where a guy is producing a lith developer that works with modern, up until now, just about unlithable papers, like Ilford's new version V paper:

https://grainy.vision/

But trying out the two formulas in post #2 is definitely something I'm going to try in the near future, as I have all the items to hand.

Terry S

grainyvision · Aug 20, 2020

tezzasmall said:
I'm just resurrecting this set of posts about Lith developer, as I know there have been a few questions of late about this subject on this forum.

The main post for me is #2, where two very easy lith formulas are given, and where the last ingredient in each formula i.e.trisodium phosphate in formula 1, and potassium carbonate in formula 2, can be substituted with sodium carbonate, which is the much easier found, washing soda.

I have also been following a site where a guy is producing a lith developer that works with modern, up until now, just about unlithable papers, like Ilford's new version V paper:

https://grainy.vision/

But trying out the two formulas in post #2 is definitely something I'm going to try in the near future, as I have all the items to hand.

Terry S

happened upon this thread in an unrelated search. I'm the author of grainy.vision so feel free to ask me any questions. My latest creation ModernLithEZ is probably the closest I expect to get to commercial lith developer results without a dedicated team of researchers or something, and it of course works on many modern papers like all of my ModernLith formulations

grainyvision · Oct 31, 2021

Figured I'd update this thread since my previous formulas were kind of cringe about how much complexity I needlessly added. Anyway, here is a paste of my post on BasicLith:

BasicLith, also known as GVLith #6, is a formula which I created which will from the basis of a series of densitometry measurements in lith printing developer formulations. However, it is likely useful to the general public as well. I specifically designed it for this aim:

Work well with Ilford MGV RC and Fomatone RC papers
Simple to mix with minimal safety concerns, no heating required of flammable solvents
Avoid DMSO because the smell is annoying
A shelf life of at least 1 month (unknown if this developer meets this, but its simple enough to mix that it’s not a problem if not) and tray life of at least 1 hour
As minimal as possible while accomplishing the above goals

Tray life is not great, expect 1-2 hours typically. To make this formula more controllable for vintage lithable papers, add 0.3-2g of bromide per 10ml of developer parts. This developer may produce fog, pepper fog, or uneven development when heated, and is also much less stable. It is fast enough that heating should not be required. Induction period time with Ilford MGV RC at 74F and 10+10+400 is about 50s, with infectious development starting around 4m30s.

Formula
Part A:

Distilled water, room temperature 40ml
Sodium Metabisulfite 6.6g (note: small amount of SO2 gas released. Don't hold your head over the beaker)
Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda) 0.7g (add this as soon as the metabisulfite is mostly dissolved. It will bubble quite a bit)
Propylene Glycol 40ml (warmed using a water bath preferably, but not a requirement)
Hydroquinone 11.1g
Top the solution to 100ml using propylene glycol.
Water is avoided for longer shelf life and because glycol is a better solvent for hydroquinone. It is ok if the solution has some very small particles or a tiny amount of "fiber" looking crystals floating around. It should be mostly transparent though and slightly yellow. The remainder will dissolve upon standing for a few hours.

Part B:

70ml water
Potassium Carbonate 13g
Sodium Hydroxide 7.3g (note: make sure your crystals do not appear "wet" or clumpy, this amount is quite precise)
Potassium Bromide 2.7g
(Optional) PEG-3350, MiraLAX 0.2g
Top to 100ml with water
Note: Solution will heat up considerably when adding the carbonate and hydroxide and will be very caustic. Use care and appropriate gloves when handling

Usage
Use 10-40ml of each part for 1L of working solution developer, preferably at room temperature. I have only tested equal amounts of each part at a time.

Not an absolute requirement, but I highly recommend making a 1% solution of PEG-3350. PEG-3350 is also called polyethylene glycol of molecular weight 3,350. It is a surprisingly easy to find chemical. It is sold in most countries as a laxative. In the US it is sold under the brand name MiraLax. Use 1-7ml of this 1% solution per 10ml of developer parts for increased contrast and "linearity" of infectious development if not included in part B of the developer. This will increase the linearity of shadow development of the lith developer and gives a general increase in contrast. Certain negatives call for more and some for less, so it may be preferable to keep this as a separate solution for more control.

Posted with pictures etc at: https://grainy.vision/blog/basiclith

gorbas · Oct 31, 2021

Thank you for all your effort Ashley! I watched your video on YT, it was very informative! Well done!

mshchem · Oct 31, 2021

earlz said:
Figured I'd update this thread since my previous formulas were kind of cringe about how much complexity I needlessly added. Anyway, here is a paste of my post on BasicLith:

BasicLith, also known as GVLith #6, is a formula which I created which will from the basis of a series of densitometry measurements in lith printing developer formulations. However, it is likely useful to the general public as well. I specifically designed it for this aim:

Work well with Ilford MGV RC and Fomatone RC papers

Simple to mix with minimal safety concerns, no heating required of flammable solvents

Avoid DMSO because the smell is annoying

A shelf life of at least 1 month (unknown if this developer meets this, but its simple enough to mix that it’s not a problem if not) and tray life of at least 1 hour

As minimal as possible while accomplishing the above goals

Tray life is not great, expect 1-2 hours typically. To make this formula more controllable for vintage lithable papers, add 0.3-2g of bromide per 10ml of developer parts. This developer may produce fog, pepper fog, or uneven development when heated, and is also much less stable. It is fast enough that heating should not be required. Induction period time with Ilford MGV RC at 74F and 10+10+400 is about 50s, with infectious development starting around 4m30s.

Formula
Part A:

Distilled water, room temperature 40ml

Sodium Metabisulfite 6.6g (note: small amount of SO2 gas released. Don't hold your head over the beaker)

Sodium Bicarbonate (baking soda) 0.7g (add this as soon as the metabisulfite is mostly dissolved. It will bubble quite a bit)

Propylene Glycol 40ml (warmed using a water bath preferably, but not a requirement)

Hydroquinone 11.1g

Top the solution to 100ml using propylene glycol.

Water is avoided for longer shelf life and because glycol is a better solvent for hydroquinone. It is ok if the solution has some very small particles or a tiny amount of "fiber" looking crystals floating around. It should be mostly transparent though and slightly yellow. The remainder will dissolve upon standing for a few hours.

Part B:

70ml water

Potassium Carbonate 13g

Sodium Hydroxide 7.3g (note: make sure your crystals do not appear "wet" or clumpy, this amount is quite precise)

Potassium Bromide 2.7g

(Optional) PEG-3350, MiraLAX 0.2g

Top to 100ml with water

Note: Solution will heat up considerably when adding the carbonate and hydroxide and will be very caustic. Use care and appropriate gloves when handling

Usage
Use 10-40ml of each part for 1L of working solution developer, preferably at room temperature. I have only tested equal amounts of each part at a time.

Not an absolute requirement, but I highly recommend making a 1% solution of PEG-3350. PEG-3350 is also called polyethylene glycol of molecular weight 3,350. It is a surprisingly easy to find chemical. It is sold in most countries as a laxative. In the US it is sold under the brand name MiraLax. Use 1-7ml of this 1% solution per 10ml of developer parts for increased contrast and "linearity" of infectious development if not included in part B of the developer. This will increase the linearity of shadow development of the lith developer and gives a general increase in contrast. Certain negatives call for more and some for less, so it may be preferable to keep this as a separate solution for more control.

Posted with pictures etc at: https://grainy.vision/blog/basiclith

Thanks for the update. I watched your YouTube video the other day, Well Done!

Cor · Dec 28, 2021

Recently stumbled over this post when I was searching for an alternative for D-85 without the formaldehyde. First: thanks for all the hard and thorough work, Ashley!. I did some initial experiments with BasicLith:

Mixed the formula in 4 times more volume of water, since I was low on glycol, and it is a pilot anyway.
Exchanged the Sodium Bicarbonate for the Potassium version and the Potassium Carbonate for the Sodium version, since that is what I have available (even corrected for the Molecular Weight, probably overkill).
Settled for single shot developing, tray life seems limited: first wet the paper in water, than add a minimal volume of developer in a flat bottom tray.
Used 10+10+130 ml (so 2.5+2.5+130 ml original formulated) on a 18*24 cm sized print
papers tested Kentmere Kentona and Agfa Record Rapid, both very expired, and will give middle gray out of the box in a regular developer.
Both papers needs massive amounts of light (from a 35mm negative to 18*24: f5.6, 55 seconds)
Snatch Point: 10-13 minutes.
Very clean/white borders, obtained colours comparable with D-85.
Less of the infectious/creeping up effect from the shadows compared to D-85 (did limited printing though)

All in all an interesting addition to my repertoire, but for the 30*40 cm Kentona I still have, I will probably stick to D-85 and a shaking platform, a known set for me. making 10-20 prints with single shot developer and rocking 10-13 minutes per print gets a bit tedious. OTOH BasicLith is very handy when I want to print 1 or 2 images as lith prints.

thanks again, Ashley !

best,

Cor

grainyvision · Dec 28, 2021

Cor said:
Recently stumbled over this post when I was searching for an alternative for D-85 without the formaldehyde. First: thanks for all the hard and thorough work, Ashley!. I did some initial experiments with BasicLith:

Mixed the formula in 4 times more volume of water, since I was low on glycol, and it is a pilot anyway.

Exchanged the Sodium Bicarbonate for the Potassium version and the Potassium Carbonate for the Sodium version, since that is what I have available (even corrected for the Molecular Weight, probably overkill).

Settled for single shot developing, tray life seems limited: first wet the paper in water, than add a minimal volume of developer in a flat bottom tray.

Used 10+10+130 ml (so 2.5+2.5+130 ml original formulated) on a 18*24 cm sized print

papers tested Kentmere Kentona and Agfa Record Rapid, both very expired, and will give middle gray out of the box in a regular developer.

Both papers needs massive amounts of light (from a 35mm negative to 18*24: f5.6, 55 seconds)

Snatch Point: 10-13 minutes.

Very clean/white borders, obtained colours comparable with D-85.

Less of the infectious/creeping up effect from the shadows compared to D-85 (did limited printing though)

All in all an interesting addition to my repertoire, but for the 30*40 cm Kentona I still have, I will probably stick to D-85 and a shaking platform, a known set for me. making 10-20 prints with single shot developer and rocking 10-13 minutes per print gets a bit tedious. OTOH BasicLith is very handy when I want to print 1 or 2 images as lith prints.

thanks again, Ashley !

best,

Cor

The formula I made is formulated specifically to work well with modern "unlithable" papers. For old "lithable" papers, I'd suggest lowering pH by including less alkali, or adding a very small amount of citric acid, and adding extra bromide. I do not have many old papers which work well with lith so unfortunately I've not figured out a perfect way to adjust BasicLith for vintage papers as of yet. Also did you use PEG-3350? Lack of this may also contribute to low contrast in the shadows, but also slows down development. 10-13m for a vintage paper in this seems very slow to me. Typically vintage papers had issues with developing too fast in my limited experience. Also sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, even adjusted for molecular weight are not perfectly compatible alkalis. Potassium carbonate is capable of higher pH. In this case with the very long snatch point, you might try adding a very small addition of sodium hydroxide to compensate for this.

Cor · Dec 29, 2021

Thanks for the feedback, Ashley.

I did try a "modern" paper: Ilford RC MGIV, that did not work nicely, in line with what you report on your site, I guess.

The pH of the developer is ~11.5 (measured with pH sticks), I have found the Sodium Bicarbonate, so next time I will mix with that one.

I tried PEG 4.000 did not see an direct effect on Kentona, perhaps it does not work on old papers, en only one observation is not enough.

I have good contrast in the shadows, but I do not see the "creeping up" from the shadows plus the grainy nature of the shadows I see with D-85. Granted, it takes a few prints in D-85 to get it "seasoned" (plus starting the session with an old piece of exposed RC paper and develop it fully).
What I very much like about Basiclith is the clean borders with these papers, even with D-85 fog creeps in easily, especially the Record Rapid is prone to it. If this comes at the cost of massive exposure and long developing times: so be it (it is still shorter than with D-85, were my snatch point is between 10 en 30 minutes, but I have this laboratory rocker platform, which makes it easy, I also have 3000 ml of D-85 to start with )

Would adding Sodium Hydroxide make the pH even higher, and according to your statement make the developer slower (seem counter intuitive).

best,

Cor

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