Lith Printing: Fixer kills highlights/too much contrast

I think I was not giving enough exposure. I added a bunch of extra time which tamed the contrast to an extent, but still didn't give the results I've seen so many times with other photos.

Ole said:

I have used MACO Lith RC-F and some other MACO papers, several different Forte papers, several from Kentmere, just about everything from Bergger, as well as Varycon/EFKE PE RC.

Most of them have given warm highlishts and midtones, none of them have come out of the fix as pure black and white.

Here's a sample - on Fortezo Museum, MACO developer:

Click to expand...

Bosaiya,
My example is a case of using lith printing to reduce contrast. The scene had extremely high contrast, and even divided D-23 wasn't enough to bring it down to a printable range. With lith printing and a bit of extra burning, I got this result. Exposure times were from 30 to 240 seconds, "normal" exposure for that negative (at the same enlargement, aperture and paper) would have been below 10 seconds.

Ole said:

Bosaiya,
My example is a case of using lith printing to reduce contrast. The scene had extremely high contrast, and even divided D-23 wasn't enough to bring it down to a printable range. With lith printing and a bit of extra burning, I got this result. Exposure times were from 30 to 240 seconds, "normal" exposure for that negative (at the same enlargement, aperture and paper) would have been below 10 seconds.

Click to expand...

Ole,

To reduce contrast when do you pull the neg from the developer? I've got a print I'm trying to do right now that is too contrasty if I let the blacks appear in the developer and pull it when it looks right. I'm using Cachet RF with Maco SuperLith. Also, I would swear that the fixer does bleach the highlights especially when super-fresh. I'm using TF-4 and the fixer turns purple which is disconcerting. Does more exposure or less increase contrast? Or does it have nothing to do with it?

I also got a mottled-looking series of brown spots/white spots in light areas when toned in Bergger Selenium. That could be due to incomplete washing before toning I guess.

Any help much appreciated,

Will

Sorry, I put the wrong URL in the link to the samples.

The scans are at: Dead Link Removed

Will S said:

To reduce contrast when do you pull the neg from the developer? I've got a print I'm trying to do right now that is too contrasty if I let the blacks appear in the developer and pull it when it looks right. I'm using Cachet RF with Maco SuperLith.
Also, I would swear that the fixer does bleach the highlights especially when super-fresh. I'm using TF-4 and the fixer turns purple which is disconcerting. Does more exposure or less increase contrast? Or does it have nothing to do with it?

Click to expand...

In my (admittedly limited) experience, more exposure means the highlights and midtones come in earlier, so you can pull the print before the blacks take over. More developing gives more blacks, so a super-over-exposed print can have soft midtones and no blacks at all, or stay in a second too long and go all black.

If your fixer goes purple my guess is that it's carryover from an indicator stop bath

Any rapid fixer will bleach the highlights a little, even TF-4 (and OF-1 too). I use plain old-fashioned acid fix, sodium thiosulfate and sodium bisulfite only. Since you need an acid stop bath with lith prints, I see no advantage to an alkaline fix. Saving a few minutes in the fixing and washing doesn't seem so important with 5 minute exposures and developing times up to twenty minutes

I really doubt that the fix is killing your prints, that is unless you have some contamination that's turning it into farmer's reducer. I use rapid fix at film strength and have no problem with bleaching. I'm going to venture a guess that what you are seeing is what Tim Rudman refers to in his book as "fix up".

Lith printing is very paper specific and some of the papers listed by Mr Rudman no longer work the way they did when that book was published. The Kentmere/Luminos papers were amazing before they removed the cadmium.

Another thing to consider is the contrast and density of your negative. I like contrasty negs for lith printing but if your negative is too dense you will get into reciprocity failure with the paper. Try a fast paper like Oriental VC.

Just an update: Over the weekend I decided to try it again using a different negative - this time a portrait. It turned out beautifully, just like in the books and photos I've seen. Creamy light tones and wonderful darks with transitions smooth as butter. It exceeded all of my expectations, a rhinestone collar that was completely washed out in traditional printing even with much burning showed up wonderfully; I was able to get the black hair completely black and the white skin perfectly white with slow transitions in the shadows. What a thrill!

So that's nice. The problem is I have shot a sum total of FIVE portraits and really don't like doing them at all. I guess it really comes down to subject as well as technique. That's a bit of a disappointment as it renders almost the entire body of my work unsuitable. I'll still play around with it, and maybe I'll grow to like the high-contrast look that I'm getting with my normal shots, I'll just fondly look at all of the nice landscapes and portraits done lith-style with a pang of melancholy.