Re: Is anyone using Dave Soemarko's LC-1 to develop lith film?

Charles,

The mottling problem could be because of too little developer used (so the
solution got exhausted fast) or too much developer (so proper agitation is
difficult). You could try using the amount that when you lift up a side of
the tray, almost half of the sheet would be "uncovered." The recommendated
agitation by Kodak is lifting left, front, right, and then front again
although for 5x7 tray you could go left, front, right, back.

The bromide drag is a separate problem which cannot be solved by the
developer alone. Judy described brush agitation in the Journal which you can
consider using if you are using manual agitation. With drum, some method of
disturbing the flow of the developer is needed. Cor Bruekel devised some
method of adding a strip in the drum. It is hard to describe by words (maybe
Cor could help?) but basically you want to cause turbulance in the drum
instead of nice flowing which would cause the drag.

Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: "ryberg" <cryberg@comcast.net>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 6:41 PM
Subject: Re: Is anyone using Dave Soemarko's LC-1 to develop lith film?

> For those (most, probably) who don't know it, LC-1 was formulated to coax
> more-or-less normal scale out of high contrast lith film. It is mixed as
A
> (developer) and B (Sodium Bisulfite, which slows the action down).
Starting
> point is 2:2:6 A:B:water.
>
> Mr. Soemarko says to increase B to decrease contrast, keeping the total at
> 10. Thus 2:3:5 should give less contrast. He also says to increase A if
> the negative shows mottling.
>
> My first attempts were in a 5x7 tray, developing a single 4x5 sheet. At
> 2:2:6 I got too much contrast and a little mottling. Increasing B gave
some
> decrease in contrast but much increase in mottling. After lots of combos,
> ending with 3:7:0 which gave me a nice tonality but impossible mottling, I
> gave up for the day.
>
> Then I pulled out my old motor base and drum. Yes, I know, continuous
> agitation will work against me here. But back at the starting 2:2:6 I got
> no mottling and too much contrast. Further attempts got closer and closer
> till I got to 1:2:7. I thought I had it nailed, but when I scanned the
> negative I found drag marks (bromide drag?) in some of the dense parts of
> the negative just below a lighter area. Am I right to assume I need more
> developer? If so, something like 2:5:3? Or??
> Thanks Charles Portland OR
>
>
Received on Thu Jan 8 10:42:40 2004