If you look through my images carefully, there are a number that look impossibly gritty or a bit more colorful than a BW photo ought to be. Most of those are lith prints. A lith print is made using a traditional silver paper. Warm tone papers like Fomatone work best, but some really old papers like Kodak Polycontrast can give suprising results. Lith printing takes a very strong developer meant to only develop to extreme high contrast (like black or white) This is (or was) commonly used in the graphic arts industry. The trick is to use it at high dilutions like 1:1:50. If helps if you save your old developer from the last session and add it in place of about 1/3 of the water. The negative is a regular continuous tone neg. You tend to expose it about 4X what you would for a regular print. Don't use any contrast filters...there is no need. The development proceeds very slowly....five minutes is common.
Contrast contol is done through exposure and development. You control how dark you want your highlights through exposure....more exposure, more highlight density. The low end is controlled by development. The blacks tend to emerge very suddenly and grow quickly. When you like the color, pull it and get it into stop quickly. There isn't much more to it. The great things about it is the incredible range of colors and looks available through paper selection and toning. Awesome stuff
Contrast contol is done through exposure and development. You control how dark you want your highlights through exposure....more exposure, more highlight density. The low end is controlled by development. The blacks tend to emerge very suddenly and grow quickly. When you like the color, pull it and get it into stop quickly. There isn't much more to it. The great things about it is the incredible range of colors and looks available through paper selection and toning. Awesome stuff
RSS Feed
