Lith: Wierd Toning Experience

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All

I tried lith printing this weekend. Had a lot of fun and great success. Used Fomatone 131 FB Glossy paper, Fotospeed lith developer diluted 1:19, and got 9 8x10s printed in the session. Peachy/Brown results - really interesting. Development times were about 5-6 minutes for the first 6 prints, then things got slower and by the time I did the 9th print it took 16 minutes. 3 of the prints are very good and I set those aside. I then took a few of the less good ones and tried some toning.

In both Selenium and Sepia the highlights disapeared nearly completely! This of course was not what I was expecting from reading Rudman's book. The shadows also were significantly lightened, but they do still exist. The selenium was 1:10. The bleach for the toner was 1:19.

Thoughts? The only thing I can think of is that I was reading Rudman's book (first one - "Master Photographer's Printing Course") and it said that toning can "sometimes reveal a base fog that wasn't evident before" (I'm paraphrasing). It is conceivable that the longer development times could induce such a fog. Also, my method for finding the snatch point was that once I saw the image coming I physically moved the development tray itself to a table under my safelight where I also have the water bath for the prints already done. The idea in doing so was to have reference prints right next to the one I'm developing so that I get a more accurate snatch point. Please note the safelight is Red and it is still probably 3-4 feet away from the tray.

Anyone have any ideas...have you seen or heard about this before?

If I can't figure it out it isn't too big of a problem...I love the way the prints look without toning...but toning could even perhaps make them better.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

That happened to me once too. Don't know what to tell you... I'm eagerly awaiting an answer for your question too. My paper was the 131, though, the matte version of Fomatone MG Classic.

- Thomas

 

[mrtoml]

I have selenium and occasionally sepia toned fomatone 131 glossy lith prints, but this did not happen to me. And I was using fotospeed lith developer as well.

 

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mrtoml: 3 Questions:
a) What was your fotospeed dilution?
b) How long was your development time?
c) How close was the development tray to the safelight?

I am going under the assumpion that the issue is the "base fog" that Tim Rudman briefly mentions in his book. I don't know what else the problem could be.

Jas

 

[mrtoml]

mrtoml: 3 Questions:
a) What was your fotospeed dilution?
b) How long was your development time?
c) How close was the development tray to the safelight?

I am going under the assumpion that the issue is the "base fog" that Tim Rudman briefly mentions in his book. I don't know what else the problem could be.

Jas

a) I usually use 25A/25B/950 water, 500ml old brown at 25 celcius
b) around 6 minutes
c) 5 feet

I use a darkroom torch to judge the snatch point. I have never had a fogging issue with this paper - it's quite slow.

An example of a toned print is here:
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[tim rudman]

Hello Mark
Can you tell us if this was one of the early prints of the session or a late one when the dev was exhausting?

I routinely Se tone Fomatone MG as it gives such a choice of colour options which increase the impression of depth in the image. I don't care a lot for the strong maroon or salmon colour for most images as it is so visually 'flattening'.

A little lightening in the highlights is common with Se in lith, but not to a serious extent in my experience.

I have on a few occasions seen serious tone loss but rarely. I am pretty sure in each case it was due to exhausted and highly diluted dev or very early snatch point with ultra fine silver grains. These are very vulnerable to chemical attack.

We do also occasionally see disastrous Se induced loss of tone sometimes on workshops when we do the bleach and lith redev technique and the second snatch was also very early, and this is for the same reason.

This is not the same as the fogging issue, where the toner may tone unoticed fog to a colour, making it more obvious and resistant to bleach removal.

Incidentally, your practice of moving the dev dish alongside your finished prints may help you try and match the emerging blacks I suppose, but do remember that the prints change dramatically in the fix when viewed under safe light, so you are not comparing like with like.

Best wishes
Tim

 

[Wolfgang Moersch]

All

I The bleach for the toner was 1:19.

For both toners?
If you bleach before Se, a lightening is explicable. Because Se-Toners contain thiosulfate, therefore you will get a "reducer" like "Farmer".
Without prior bleach the shadows must get more dense, the lights may lose colour (with Fomatone).

Sepia toner: I agree with Tim, exhausted and highly diluted developers cannot build high silver-density, particularly not with warmtone papers.
Bleach and sepia toner can bring back the lights in original colour with bromide papers. With Fomatone there is not much silver in the lights. It is only little silver with connected dye. If you bleach the silver, the dye cannot come back, the density decreases.

 

[tim rudman]

Yes, I agree with Wolfgang. Don't use a bleach prior to selenium.
I meant but forgot to say that I rarely use sepia toner with lith and especially the very finely divided silver ultra warm tone type. They don't redevelop well.
Tim

 

[mrtoml]

Hello Mark
Can you tell us if this was one of the early prints of the session or a late one when the dev was exhausting?

I routinely Se tone Fomatone MG as it gives such a choice of colour options which increase the impression of depth in the image. I don't care a lot for the strong maroon or salmon colour for most images as it is so visually 'flattening'.

Dear Tim

I cannot recall and don't have my notes to hand, but I basically mix up fresh developer every 4 or 5 prints and pour 500 ml of OB into it (or 500ml of the old current working developer). I find that this gives pretty consistent results with the Fomatone (apart from maybe the very 1st print which is slightly less pink). I also notice that I get a marked shift on drying from peach/naples yellow to salmon pink. I dry using an FB print dryer which I suppose may affect my results.

I agree that the pink is often overwhelming and have been trying to tame it by using Wolfgang's SE5, but haven't quite got it to my tastes yet - it's early days (only 2 sessions so far).

I also don't bleach before Se and bleach very lightly with sepia. I agree that sepia doesn't give me reults that I am desperate for. Se improves the blacks a lot and gives a nice brown if left.

Best
Mark

 

[thomsonrc]

Hello Mark


I routinely Se tone Fomatone MG as it gives such a choice of colour options which increase the impression of depth in the image. I don't care a lot for the strong maroon or salmon colour for most images as it is so visually 'flattening'.

Best wishes
Tim

Tim, what dilution do you find best to get this choice of colour options? Apart from the maroon and salmon what else can you get with Fomatone?

Cheers

Ritchie

 

[hansformat]

First off, i just want to thank everyone for chiming in. The people on this forum are a really sharp and helpful group.

Second, let me clarify my original post.

I did not bleach before selenium. The sepia and selenium tonings were on two completely separate prints.

Print 1: Bleach then sepia (standard practice for sepia toning).
Print 2: Selenium 1:10.

There is no combining of bleach, sepia, and selenium. Two completely separate cases.

In both cases, the highlights are shot. In the sepia case they are completely gone - total white (actually whiteish as the paper is cream based). In the selenium case there is a bit of detail in the whites...much less than before toning. The shadow areas are still present but lighter also in both prints.

As to practice, these prints are roughly mid session. Dev times are probably 6-9 minutes. They are not print #8 or #9 in the session (final prints), where according to my notes the times were approx 11 minutes and 16 minutes.

Tim I understand your point about the fix changing the print and not comparing like vs. like. That point was well made in your book as well. But without a torch safelight I was having difficulty getting the right snatch and by using this technique i narrowed it down pretty well. I only use it to judge the density of the blacks...nothing more. Basically I have 2 prints in the water on top that are "too little" dev and "too much dev" (or one print that is "just right") and I judge the emerging print (shadows only) accordingly.

Wolfgang I am not sure I understand your post, but you seem to imply that since FomaTone is warmtone there isn't enough silver with dilute developer to tone a lith print. The dilution I am using is 1:19 which seems to be about the middle dilution that people use and therefore it shouldn't have this extreme a reaction should it?

I am mystified by this result in the toning, but to reiterate the prints themselves pre-toning came out really nice (3 good ones out of 9 - not a bad ratio at all in my view). I was just experimenting with some of the lesser prints, had this result and reached out for input.

My wife has a very good photographic eye, and she believes the print itself may be the issue. It is highly contrasty (foreground daughter on beach with very light sand and water behind it) and therefore I should try something less contrasty before drawing any conclusions about toning. She may have a point - I started at f8 for 45 seconds and ended up at f5.6 for 100 seconds - with a 70 second dodge on my daughters face. So I am hoping to get back in the darkroom in the next two weeks to try another.


Jason.

 

[tim rudman]

You may be right Jason, less contrast would be better. You need sufficient silver in the tones you wish to tone. I rarely print Lith to high contrast and generally go for a long tonality in the lighter values and these tone beautifully in Se
Tim

 

[tim rudman]

Tim, what dilution do you find best to get this choice of colour options? Apart from the maroon and salmon what else can you get with Fomatone?

Cheers

Ritchie

The colours vary with the degree of over-exposure and with the snatch point.

Prints snatched late, with relatively colder tones, tone in Se to more restrained colours. Highly coloured originals with heavy over exposure and early snatch go through a series of colour changes beginning in the shadow tones,

The darker tones initially cool off to cold black and the greys above them shift to a bluish grey, leaving the upper tones an altered version of the original salmon, red or maroon.
As toning continues the blacks will at some point start turning brown and the blue grey moves up into mid tones leaving a light magenta-ish (?) hue in the upper tones when dry (they all change on drying).
This gives an attractive tri-tone, useful for separating planes within the image and giving depth.

As toning proceeds, the blacks move to a more gingery brown if the print was very warm to begin, and the blue grey moves on up to the light tones, giving a duo-tone effect.

I commonly combine this with gold.

If you have a super-warm fomatone Lith print and want to cool the blacks and boost Dmax (v high dilutions give extended highlight tonality but warm and weaker Dmax) you would best use very dilute Se as the blacks can go brown quickly with these prints.
If you have my last book, World of Lith Printing, have a look at Wolfgang's portfolio there and the Guitar image. It is an excellent example with an expanded caption explaining.
Tim

 

[thomsonrc]

Thanks Tim, I have all your books (which have helped me more than anyone else's) but I don't think that they mention Fomatone in any detail - so thanks for this information. I have tried gold toning, but I couldn't get what I wanted. I think I may have underexposed and then left them too long before snatching them as they were too 'heavy'. I will definitely try to get the tri tone and duotone effects you describe.

Thanks

Ritchie

 

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I have a possibility to explain this problem I had with toning a lith print. Nothing for sure but worth asking a question about.

Usually I fix my prints in Ilford Rapid Fix at the recommended 1:4 dilution. The photo shop was out of Ilford, so I bought Zonal Pro Rapid Fix. I used a 1:4 dilution and did all my processing (one session with the lith prints, one session with conventional prints).

Yesterday, I read the Zonal Pro label and surprisingly for papers it recommends 1:9 dilution, not 1:4. So...is it possible that the overly strong fix somehow made the lith print untonable?

Before you answer I also did the following:
1. I toned some other prints (printed conventionally on Ilford MG IV) in selenium. These had also been processed at the too strong dilution of Zonal Pro Fixer. They toned fine - perfect.
2. I did hypo test one of the Ilford prints, and it tested perfectly clear - no stain at all.

Further, I don't understand Zonal's instructions. They recommend 1:4 for film (as does Ilford), but 1:9 for paper. I thought the whole idea of rapid fix was "film strength for paper"?

Jason.

 

[Travis Nunn]

I've used the Zonal Pro Fix for a few years now and I've not experienced the problems you've described in toning my lith prints (or any other prints for that matter). I used the 1:9 dilution, as instructed, though.

I don't know how the doubly strong fix dilution would affect the prints, so I don't know if my post is much help at all...