Lith Printing

[brian jefferis]

I was leafing through Gene Nocon's "Photographic Printing" one day and came acro ss a section on lith printing. The images produced in this process are beautifu l. I noticed that all the major mail-order companies only carry Sterling Lith D W and Kodak is the only maker it seems of lith developer. My question is twofol d then: First, does anyone out there have experience with lith printing and cou ld they tell me a little about it? Second, is Sterling the only maker of lith p aper?

[Brian Ellis]

There are two excellent sources for information on lith printing, both by the same person. The book "The Photographer's Master Printing Course" by Tim Rudman has an excellent discussion of lith printing. Also, Tim Rudman wrote two articles in two recent issues of "Photo Techniques" magazine that go into even more detail than the book. I've done some lith printing. As far as I know, the Sterling paper is the only lith paper that is readily available in the United States and I think Kodak Kodalith developer is the only readily available developer. The book and articles mention other papers and developers, as I recall, and perhaps one of the major mail order places like B&H could order them for you. I like the process but it is extremely time consuming. My developing times routinely ran fifteen to twenty minutes per print, most of it spent in the dark to avoid safelight fog with those kind of times. The other problem is that the developer exhausts rapidly and gets noticeably weaker from print to print. Therefore it is very difficult to predict a correct developing time from one print to the next.

[Stpephen Willlard]

I have not done any of this type printing before, but I the think Brian short coming of lith printing coulde be solved a drum processor. I have a Jobo CPP-2 that I know would do the trick.

First, once you exposed the paper you can place in the light tight drum and all remaining processing can then be done in daylight. Second, Jobo drums use very low volumes of chemicals and are intended as a one shot use to be discarded. Thus, each time you develop you are using fresh chemistry instead of used partially depleted recycled chemistry. This would allow you to enjoy repeatable developments times each time you process a print because you will have the same strength of chemistry from batch to batch.

[Stuart Goldstein]

In an infrared discussion group, Time said that he has written a book about lith printing that should be available in the US by late spring. The book is currently available in Europe and from the author.