White dots Lith Fomatone

[ericdan]

I Lith printed on Fomatone 131 with Moersch Easy Lith dilution:
A 20ml B 20ml Water 700ml
Ran two room light exposed sheets through to get the developer started.
Paper was 3 stops over exposed and snatched at around 8 minutes.
I don’t remember if the spots formed in the developer, stop or fix.
This was about the 5th or 6th print. Earlier ones came out with less tone but no dots. Any recommendations what I could do to avoid this?

 

[mooseontheloose]

Do you have better scans of the images? It's hard to tell what's going on when nothing is in focus. Also, I don't see any white spots in the second, less colourful print - is that one of the earlier ones? From what I can tell though, it doesn't look like the dreaded snowballs that seems to show up on Foma (although I think they have corrected this). If the spots are random from print to print, it could be contamination (on your part). I don't know what your routine is, but I used to get spots on my prints, it was very random. I realised it was because microscopic drops of (most likely) fix were falling onto the print from my nitrile gloves (which I had dried off, but I guess not enough). So I discarded the gloves after every print (and replaced with new ones) and have never had a problem since. However, as mentioned already, it's hard to tell from the images provided.

One thing I've noticed with Fujibro is that pepper fogging (black dots) appear after 5-6 prints, and that seems common with other papers as well, as mentioned both on this site and the lith Facebook group. Partly for that reason, I no longer "season" my developer, since it means that I have fewer prints that I can put through the developer before it becomes useless (and I like the more subdued tones of early prints rather than full on colour anyway). This never seemed to be an issue in the past with most papers/developers, but it appears to be more so now. Now I know that's not an issue you seem to be having, but I guess there's something to the "after 5 or 6 prints I get _______ issue" that seems more common than ever.

 

[ericdan]

I already touched up the spots so can’t send through another scan. I’ll try again today with fresh chemicals and starter from last times batch. I’ve never had spots like that on any other prints. I assume if this was fixer etc dripping I’d have that with normal non Lith prints as well. Never had such issues before.
I think not seasoning might be a good idea. That way I can get a few different versions of the print. I kind of prefer the orange brownish tones you get with Fomatone and really long developing.

 

[mooseontheloose]

Eric, I never ever had problems with fix on regular prints, it’s just that lith, for whatever reason, will show all your bad darkroom habits (or mine at least).

If you want more colour you could go with a weaker dilution or a hotter developer, although with temps being what they are right now, that shouldn’t be a problem (my tap water runs at 28C at the coldest setting). You can also play with the dilution ratios: I think slightly more A will give more colour (I usually go the opposite with slightly more B, for example 20A and 30B).

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

When I had white spots, more agitation always helped.

Wolfgang Moersch also indicates a shorter development time, depending on the cause of the problem:

https://www.moersch-photochemie.de/files/articles/LithPrintingTechniqueTroubleshooting.pdf

 

[ericdan]

the same thing happened today with the 7th or 8th print.
Interestingly this is when I start liking the colors the best, but then I get these spots.
Maybe I'll try adding more A as Rachel suggested

 

[RauschenOderKorn]

As it seems, you are reaching the end of the useful lifetime of the developer. If you want more colour, use more A - which will further reduce the lifetime of the developer solution:

https://www.moersch-photochemie.de/files/articles/Easylith Instructions 2 pages.pdf

 

[Dwayne Martin]

I’m having exactly the same problem with the little white dots/specs, each about the size of what you could make with a large ball point pen say. I was only getting them with foma 131 glossy, so I assumed I had a bad batch of paper. Now I started using 132 Matt and it’s happening with that paper also. It does not happen at all with 133 which is what I use the most. I started using the glossy paper for lith test prints to check exposure and season the developer. Now I have a pack of 25 sheets of Matt that get the white dots also. I have used the gloss side by side with the 133 in many different dilutions/exposure times, and dev times in both Moersch easy lith and liquid Arista, heated and room temp. and I get the dots every time only on 131 and 132 and not once on 133. I get probably 50 dots per print. Enough to discourage me from attempting to spot them.
Anyone know what might be going on here?

 

[Dwayne Martin]

Correction, I now am getting the dots with all 3 fomatone papers, 131,132,133…
What gives??
D