Developing Lith Negs with Dilutions of PQ etc.,

[Grafist@aol.com]

Hi List Folk,  Gordon has brought up the issue of using altered developers. 
Judy has mentioned diluted developers. My own current experience is with 
making enlarged negatives from color transparencies which are inherently 
contrasty.  I have used weak dilutions of 25ml concentrate PQ to 2 Litres of 
Water.(The normal dilution is 100ml PQ to 1 Litre Water) Obviously, this 
dilution is exhausted very quickly and has to be replaced after two or three 
10" X 8", but I can be sure that each result is repeatable and all I need to 
do is to gradate exposure times to achieve a variety of densities in the 
negative. The above dilution is approx 72 -1 instead of 9 - 1. I have used 
less dilutions which produce increased contrast. The object, though, is to 
reduce contrast when working with Lith film and color trannies. I have found 
this method is very useful when making negs  10" X 8" and larger for Direct 
Carbon printing.
                  Hope this might be useful to someone.
                     John Grocott- Photographist