<< The lith film I got from Freestyle is ortho stuff and needs a red
safelight, an OC will fog it. I tried several variations of developer
since I was trying to reduce the contrast for a special application. What
I found is that the contrast is pretty much a characteristic of the film.
Dektol worked as well as anything else. >>
I have been using Freestyle Lith film for years with very good results.
Under normal darkroom working conditions I found no fog with less than a
minute of safelight exposure. Beyond that I tested that there was a very
minimal fog. In fact for several years I would fog the film to a slightly
detectable level above film base before exposure to help with the contrast.
When I am in a hurry I use Dektol but I have had excellent result with
HC-110. I have used various dilutions and times depending on what I am
playing with at the time. But basically the dilutions, times and
temperatures given for Tri-X are a good starting point.
For a while I experimented with added a few drops of fixer to Dektol to play
with contrast. Some of the results looked promising. It cut the D-max but
did extend the range of tones.
Also I had very good luck with using the Freestyle film making enlarged
negatives from negatives using reversal chemistry. The act of reversing
decreases contrast quite a bit.
On a similar note I have had a good amount of luck making color seperation
positives from transparencies using reversal chemistry.
Bernie
Bernard Boudreau