Re: Lith film

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Ryuji Suzuki wrote:

> I have personally used Arista lith films in camera and tried a few
> developers like technidol-like developer and XTOL like developer.
> Midtone rendition was beautiful but shadow was very rough even with
> very generous exposure. Some people might recall early generation
> tabular grain films. This might be useful for interpositive stage
> because it contributes to brilliant highlights. (Flashing the
> material before exposure might have helped the shadow rendition a bit
> but I didn't try it.)
>
> I saw you said you get density only a bit above 1. Lith films' Dmax
> are very dependant on developer composition. With standard print
> developer like Dektol, you should be able to go *well* beyond 2. Also
> lith films respond very well to selenium toning for further Dmax
> enhancement.

In the mid-90s I did extensive testing of lith film (APH and APHS from
Freestyle) for large negs because it was extremely cheap, while the
graphic arts films were increasingly scarce and expensive. It also came
in large sizes and rolls, while the graphic arts films became more & more
limited. I didn't want students to have to take out another loan to get
large negatives, and felt freer myself to experiment when cost wasn't a
factor.

The resultant file has gotten a bit silted over in time, but not worth
excavating now in any event, as I daresay the films are different. For
instance several discussions I had with Freestyle revealed that the
manufacturers changed at intervals, which is also relevant -- tho it
sounds like my findings still obtain:

You could get a range in steps (I used the stouffer 21-step) well past 2,
probably past 3, by balance of development and developer. My most
promising results used a glycin-based soft-working developer, formula for
which I can find if someone doesn't have it -- tho for what it's worth i
recently read (where? On this list? wherever) that glycin is the same as
metol so don't bother with it, tho I don't necessarily take that as
gospel.

In any event, my feeling at the time was that the lith wouldn't suit
platinum printers -- not the scale, which seemed to be adjustable, but the
grain, which was coarse... Don't know if you'd even call it grain, but it
just didn't have the extremely tight texture platinum printers seem to
prefer.

However, that changed I think when Dave Soemarko developed his LC (low
contrast) developers. His textures may have been better, even perfect.

> What is LC1 developer? Is the formula posted somewhere?

It's in Post-Factory #2, "Lith Film for continuous tone," along with
curves....& 4 pages of text. Tho some of the early articles have since
been posted by Ed Buffaloe on his unblinkingeye website, don't know if
that one or not.

However, for the record -- I found that the older, more "out of date" lith
film got, the easier it was to work with... assuming it wasn't fogged,
which did happen to an open package in about 10 years. Otherwise (my tests
showed) it flattened with age, made it easier to get long scale continuous
tone.

Judy
Received on Thu Dec 11 18:22:48 2003