Hi Leezy, You asked for it, so here it is: Lith Printing 101! A bit long but thorough...
Lith printing is a process which allows you to produce wonderful color shades on chlorobromide-silver emulsion B&W fiber-based paper (e.g. Forte PolyWarmtone) using highly diluted Lithographic developer.. With this process, and depending on the type of paper you use (Forte vs Luminos vs Foma), the shadows will print in dark earth tones and the mid-tones will print in peach or olive-green shades. The effect will be somewhat similar to split toning. Further tones can be achieved with selenium or gold toning and/or with advanced chemistry kits. 1. THE PROCESS The paper is overexposed by several stops under the enlarger and then processed for a period of between 8 to 20 minutes - with constant agitation - in highly dilute Lith developer (Kodalith A+B will do, but there are some more sophisticated developer available) which has been contaminated with some oxidized Lith developer saved from the previous session. The image does not start to form on the paper until something like 5 minutes in the developer. (You really need to have a CD player in your darkroom because this can be awfully boring...) The image then builds up very gradually until a rather special reaction begins to occur in the shadow areas, spreading slowly then rapidly to the mid-tone and eventually the highlights. The art is to anticipate when the reaction will be just enough for your print to be a gallery print but not so much that it turns into a garbage print... You usually only have a few seconds to make that choice. The trick is that the contrast of the print will markedly increase (or sometimes diminish) when the print moves from the developer tray and sits in the fix bath for a few seconds... Then and only then can you tell if you've got a good print or a bad print. The other trick is that the developer oxidizes rapidly both because it is in the open and because it is used to process prints. Which means that the second print you process in the tray will not look like the first one... So you always have to be on the lookout for what is happening in the developer tray. Another peculiarity of this process is that exposure time controls the contrast of your print and processing time controls the lightness or darkness of the print. So you don't use any filtration in the enlarger to control contrast. The longer you expose under the enlarger, the less contrasty your print will be and vice-versa. This means that you can achieve contrast grades far in excess of Grade 5. Sometimes this will allow you to turn an apparently unprintable negative into a beautiful print! Weird... but you get accustomed to it. 2. EXAMPLES OF LITH PRINTING You've seen examples of what can be done with this process on my exhibition site at: http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=74646304624 and on Erich's Fotair site at: http://www.fotair.de/ You obviously want also to see our own Robert Mann's outstanding pinhole work at: http://www.thencamenow.com/ I also recommend checking the beautiful prints at the Moersch Photochemie's site: http://www.moersch-photochemie.de/html_english/index_english.htm For more detailed information, check SilverPrint's web site: What is Lith Printing? http://www.silverprint.co.uk/whatis.html This shows significant extracts from Tim Rudman's key book "The Master Photographer's Lith Printing Course". This is the bible for anybody involved in this process. 3. SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS Please take note that this process is not cheap. Chlorobromide-silver paper is expensive and some of the fine Lith developers need to be imported from Europe at significant cost. One Canadian firm distributes the excellent Moersch Developer (Eight Elm Photo at http://www.eightelmphoto.com/ and they would likely be very happy to ship in the US). Please take note that Lith Printing is an addictive process. Once you begin, you won't be able to turn back to traditional B&W printing. If you go this route, please warn your spouse of the dangers that you will frequently erupt from the darkroom screaming and cursing the world and occasionally come out in a state of pure ecstasy from seeing what you can do to an otherwise unprintable negative. Hope this answers your questions and it this will entice you into this marvelous darkroom process... -:)) Cheers, Guy
