PaulG
17th June 2009, 12:36 PM
As will be apparent from my FADU album, I’ve taken the plunge and entered the world of lith printing
Firstly I have to say a big thank you to Dave Lingham for his helpful advice (and lith developer recipe). Secondly, compared to Dave and others, I am a total novice at this and any comments, views and experiences recounted should be seen from that perspective.
For those who don’t already know – it’s a printing process based on over-exposing paper and developing in a weak lith developer. Lith printing seems to have a reputation of being difficult and hard to control. I’m neither good nor experienced enough to comment in detail, but I’d say learning to make a basic print is not much harder than learning to make a conventional wet print. Refinement of technique, consistency etc are another story and only time will tell if I can achieve these.
Ok, so why try it? Well, partly because I can! I’ve only been taking photos seriously and working in a darkroom for about 2 years and I’m still very much at the experimental stage - so many choices of films, papers and chemicals. More seriously perhaps, because looking at other peoples’ images has shown what an interesting way of representing a subject lith can be.
It’s not prohibitively expensive, especially if you use a dual purpose paper such as Fomatone. I like this paper a lot for ‘regular’ printing and it seems to give good results with lith as well. One day the health and safety police will tell Foma to take out the cadmium and other goodies, but for now it all helps. More experienced hands will have had access to some classic papers that have now gone, but I have to make do with what’s around today. The dev (I use Fotospeed LD20) is a bit more expensive compared to regular paper developers, but is used in very dilute form (40 ml total in 1200 ml) and makes a fair volume of dev. The flipside of the dilute nature is that it exhausts much quicker, but can be replenished. Added to this is the mysteriously named ‘old brown’ – essentially oxidised developer. A slug of this helps to give some of the more interesting colours.
The only other item that I had to purchase on top of my normal darkroom kit was a tray heater. Higher temperatures speed up the process but also affect the colours that are produced. I’ve settled on 30 degrees for now and will see how that works out.
Print-making is a bit different to the normal process. Having exposed the paper, the print is ready to be pulled from the dev when you think it has reached the right point. The chemistry behind this is induction of a chain reaction, so once it starts to go the rate of appearance of blacks and shadow areas accelerates (so-called ‘infectious development’). I thought the problem here would be ‘overcooked’ prints. My initial experience was that I didn’t hold my nerve for long enough and pulled the print too early – something that I’m slowly learning to conquer. Contrast is controlled by balancing exposure and development times. Long exposures tend to reduce contrast as there is less separation between highlight and shadow tones, shorter exposures have more separation but usually need longer development times.
I’m learing what works for me by trial and error, but have managed to produce a few prints now that I’m quite pleased with. Options for toning are many and varied, with some quite spectacular results being attainable. That’s a whole new world in itself…
Some examples...
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1381
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1379
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1380
My apologies to all the lith practitioners who read this for my inaccuracies, misconceptions and all-round ignorance.
Firstly I have to say a big thank you to Dave Lingham for his helpful advice (and lith developer recipe). Secondly, compared to Dave and others, I am a total novice at this and any comments, views and experiences recounted should be seen from that perspective.
For those who don’t already know – it’s a printing process based on over-exposing paper and developing in a weak lith developer. Lith printing seems to have a reputation of being difficult and hard to control. I’m neither good nor experienced enough to comment in detail, but I’d say learning to make a basic print is not much harder than learning to make a conventional wet print. Refinement of technique, consistency etc are another story and only time will tell if I can achieve these.
Ok, so why try it? Well, partly because I can! I’ve only been taking photos seriously and working in a darkroom for about 2 years and I’m still very much at the experimental stage - so many choices of films, papers and chemicals. More seriously perhaps, because looking at other peoples’ images has shown what an interesting way of representing a subject lith can be.
It’s not prohibitively expensive, especially if you use a dual purpose paper such as Fomatone. I like this paper a lot for ‘regular’ printing and it seems to give good results with lith as well. One day the health and safety police will tell Foma to take out the cadmium and other goodies, but for now it all helps. More experienced hands will have had access to some classic papers that have now gone, but I have to make do with what’s around today. The dev (I use Fotospeed LD20) is a bit more expensive compared to regular paper developers, but is used in very dilute form (40 ml total in 1200 ml) and makes a fair volume of dev. The flipside of the dilute nature is that it exhausts much quicker, but can be replenished. Added to this is the mysteriously named ‘old brown’ – essentially oxidised developer. A slug of this helps to give some of the more interesting colours.
The only other item that I had to purchase on top of my normal darkroom kit was a tray heater. Higher temperatures speed up the process but also affect the colours that are produced. I’ve settled on 30 degrees for now and will see how that works out.
Print-making is a bit different to the normal process. Having exposed the paper, the print is ready to be pulled from the dev when you think it has reached the right point. The chemistry behind this is induction of a chain reaction, so once it starts to go the rate of appearance of blacks and shadow areas accelerates (so-called ‘infectious development’). I thought the problem here would be ‘overcooked’ prints. My initial experience was that I didn’t hold my nerve for long enough and pulled the print too early – something that I’m slowly learning to conquer. Contrast is controlled by balancing exposure and development times. Long exposures tend to reduce contrast as there is less separation between highlight and shadow tones, shorter exposures have more separation but usually need longer development times.
I’m learing what works for me by trial and error, but have managed to produce a few prints now that I’m quite pleased with. Options for toning are many and varied, with some quite spectacular results being attainable. That’s a whole new world in itself…
Some examples...
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1381
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1379
http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.org.uk/forum/picture.php?albumid=161&pictureid=1380
My apologies to all the lith practitioners who read this for my inaccuracies, misconceptions and all-round ignorance.