Back in the day, when I was in high school photo classes, I tried exposing litho film with a B&W film enlarger, which yielded a positive on the film. And I developed the film in paper developer, which gave a low contrast result. Has anyone ever done this before? Litho film is very high contrast, so Im surprised it turned out this way.
Yes, by selecting specific development, a high-contrast film can produce continuous tone. Also, under the right circumstances, high contrast Lith. developer can produce continuous tone prints ("Lith Printing").
I do this regularly to make large negatives for alternate process images. I first make the continuous tone positive, then contact print the positive to another sheet of lith film and develop this to make a negative (more contrasty) suited to the alternate process I intend to use.