My lith printing surprise (but I do have a question)

Hello everybody

I have recently gotten into lith-printing, very nice. So The other night I decided to see what would happen if I processed some Kodak Polymax RC paper, which, in normal developers would come out fogged beyond any usefulness.

I had no idea what would happen. To my utter amazement these papers came out looking very nice. The borders (which would be grey, grey, grey) are pure white and the images are a milky-coffee colour. I'm am very happy about this as I have lots of this paper I couldn't use otherwise (about 600 sheets in different sizes)

This lith developer (Rollei Vintage creative developer, but this could be true for other lith devs too, right?) also works well with some fogged AGFA MCP 312 too, more paper I don't have too toss.

NOW, my question is, simply, why does the paper work so well with lith developer?
Is there something that has a restraining action? I'll leave up to you fine folks to enlighten me.

I hope this is the right sub-forum, if not, I apologise.

thank you in advance
Ricus

It's the effects of a high level of bromide as a restrainer.

Ian

Try Sabatier effect with it. Could be very subtle and very nice.

When you get fine coffee or purplish colours like that, keep the finished print well away from light, even when fixed. And be sure to fix relatively lightly. This is the exception to the rule that you can't over-fix. You can with these kinds of light tones. The light sensitivity means the print will lose a lot of delicateness if kept in a lighted room. I have same Sabatier examples with purplish tones that I keep in a black photo paper bag and only bring out to show for a few minutes at a time.

This paper also gives surreal results with caffenol. There's a shot on my gallery somewhere, but it's awkward to find on my mobile.

Oh I see, thanks Ian. So it's the bromide level in the lith developer.

Would this be the same for all lith-developers and/or old fogged paper? Or was there something special about the Kodak Polymax? I know that unfogged MCP liths well (according to the internet) but I can't find anything on Polymax's (The resin coated not the Fine-art) lith abilties.

But like I said it's paper that would have been tossed anyway (or used for solargraphy or something...)

I still have to try some old Panalure in Lith (but doubt if it's going to work....)

Monito, I have tried it, wasn't too happy, but I'll give that another go, maybe the other images i printed didn't suit the technique.

Toffle. I have no idea how to work with or make caffenol, some thing I'll try also.

Sabatier was just an idea. Unless you are an afficionado of Sabatier effects or experienced, it's probably not worth pursuing much more than you have already.

Pretty quick and easy to test a paper for lith. Put a drop of sol B on a swatch, with the lights on. If the paper has developer incorporated, it will darken rapidly.

Old papers can be a real joy to lith. Feels like the practice of black magic, to take a paper that supposedly went bad in 1954 and get something out of it.