New Arista II Lith Film

[Arthur Nichols]

Is anyone using the new lith film from Freestyle? If yes how does it compare to the old APHS? I have used some lith film from other suppliers and have not had good luck with it. So before I make another purchase that may or may not serve my needs I would like to get some feedback. I am mainly using it for various masking purposes and the pack that I just purchased (not from Freestyle) does not seem to have the flexibilty of contrast control that APHS had. It is either very contrasty or very flat. If anyone has experience with this new version please let me know.
Thanks
Art

[Drew Wiley]

I use it for highlight masking and consider it a distinct improvement over the previous version; less tendency to fog, good mechanical strength. I would never use it for
general contrast masking however; TMax or FP4 work much better for that kind of thing, provided you have the right kind of developers.

[Arthur Nichols]

I use regular film for unsharp masking and lith film for various shadow contrast increase masking, highlight masking and so on.

[Drew Wiley]

The Arista brand A/B lith developer works quite well with this film. It is relatively
ortho, being sensitive to both blue and green light, though not equally. Another
improvement over the older version is that it has a tiny bit of texture to it, so is
relatively immune to Newton's rings.

[Drew Wiley]

I should have qualified that ortho statement. I could check my notes, but as I recall
the batch I have is about three times more sensitive to blue than green. This would be important if you are exposing the film through a significant base stain due to pyrogal or pyrocat, or if you are using lith masks in conjunction with color sep negs.
I typically expose lith masks through a deep blue tricolor filter so I know exactly
which wavelength the lith film is responding to. This way the yellowish-green tint of
the pyro stain acts as its own cutoff filter. What I have not determined yet is how
consistent the spectral sensitivity of this film is from batch to batch, since I haven't
used up my first box of 8X10 yet. The "texture" I referred to was actually designed
to facilitate draw-down in vacuum easels.

[Jim Noel]

I use the film in camera as well as for enlarged negatives. I find the Arista II to be about 1/2 stop slower.