[Alt-photo] Re: lith printing anomaly

[Kevin Morris]

Hi Christina,

What makes this hard to track down is how random is appears to be. I've seen
similar spots on film occasionally and the closest we can figure is that
they are a small cluster of silver in the emulsion that didn't smooth out
properly during the coating process. But, that only happens on one sheet in
maybe 800-1000 sheets of 8x10 film and that is only one spot (silver
cluster). I've never seen it with paper, Ilford or Arista.

One question though. Are these prints being contact printed, maybe with a
vacuum board?

Sincerely,

Kevin Morris
Stouffer Industries

-----Original Message-----
From: alt-photo-process-list-bounces at lists.altphotolist.org
[mailto:alt-photo-process-list-bounces at lists.altphotolist.org] On Behalf Of
Christina Anderson
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 9:59 AM
To: alt-photo-process-list at lists.altphotolist.org
Subject: [Alt-photo] Re: lith printing anomaly

Hi Ryuji!
The negative prints normally.
The agitation technique was to pick up a corner of the tray and set it down
and do it frequently and in an irregular way to avoid the wave effect that
sometimes happens with lith. Lith development times were 10-20 minutes.
The top print was 16x20 the bottom print was 8x10.
Spots are in lights and darks.
Second image is a woman standing with blonde hair.

This phenomenon happened with a number of students during the lab but not
all. On a number of papers. And the second day it also occurred. The second
day the student said the first two prints were fine, the third spotted. 

It is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. The only consistency is the
Fotospeed Lith developer and perhaps the papers are all Arista and
Ilford....there was one print from expired paper like Bergger that worked
fine but so did all the papers at some point!
Chris

Christina Z. Anderson
http://christinaZanderson.com/

On Oct 14, 2013, at 12:45 AM, Ryuji Suzuki wrote:

> I might be asking the obvious, but
> 
> 1. does the neg print normally on the same paper stock when developed in a
regular print developer?
> 
> 2. what was the agitation technique?
> 
> 3. what's the dimension of the print (or better yet the approximate
diameter range of the white spots?)
> 
> 4. do you see any sign of the spots in the dark area?
> 
> Although irrelevant to your problem, I'm curious. What is the second image
(below)?
> 
> --
> Ryuji Suzuki
> "Don't play what's there, play what's not there." (Miles Davis)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Christina Anderson wrote:
>> Dear All,
>> I posted a couple images on my website of a lith phenomenon I have never
seen before. Anyone else experience this and figure it out?
>> 
>> Fotospeed Lith Developer
>> Papers are Arista, Ilford MGIV, Ilford Warmtone, the middle one not
suitable at all for lith but the students used it.
>> 
>> Tim Rudman thinks it could be erratic local development in the first
stage with cause unknown.  He has not seen it much and suggests a controlled
test of it.
>> 
>> This is the benefit of teaching. I never get bored seeing student work
because after thousands and thousands of images to grade no two are alike.
And I never get bored of teaching because there is always something to learn
and something to stump you. But the poor students were pretty disappointed..
>> 
>> I hope lith is not another process to go by the wayside like Polaroid,
Infrared, etc :( The former great papers are just not there anymore.
>> Chris
>> 
>> 
>> http://christinaanderson.visualserver.com/Text_page.cfm?pID=1953
>> 
>> 
>> Christina Z. Anderson
>> http://christinaZanderson.com/
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Alt-photo-process-list | altphotolist.org
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