So I love lith printing, but the constantly shrinking availability of lith capable papers has really been bumming me out. I've been chasing methods of lith printing on Ilford RC papers specifically, since they are generally the hardest ones to tame but also clearly will be available for a very long time to come. From early on I was able to get the paper to lith with careful developer formulation, but it always had quite severe problems that made it impractical for realistic usage. The primary problems being too much paper grain and uneven development. I was doing some research one night and decided to try adding a small amount of Glycin to the developer. This completely opened up the highlights and midtones compared to an HQ only developer with these difficult papers, imparted a lot of new color, and finally mostly solved the uneven development problem (along with carefully random agitation of course).
I wrote a blog post about the developer formula that you can see here: https://grainy.vision/blog/exa6-magic-lith-reference .. However, I'll also copy-paste the post to here for easier reading. You can see higher resolution images and such at my blog though.
EXA6 "Color Magic Lith v1" Reference
December 15, 2019
This is finally what I’d consider a “successful” developer. It’s definitely still capable of plenty of tweaking, but finally, this is a good base to build on. It exhibits the following properties:
EXA6 Formula
These are annoying at best. The HQ-TEA must be heated to at least 160F, with 180F making things a lot easier. I use a hot plate and glassware to accomplish this. I’ve heard of people microwaving TEA, but this seems overly dangerous to me. If the TEA is hot enough, the HQ will appear to melt into the solution and become a slime before dissolving. Note that the volume will inflate considerably, so to make a 20% solution, I’d recommend something like 400ml TEA + 100g of HQ and then after it is dissolved top up the solution to 500ml with more TEA. This solution is extremely resistant to oxidation and only needs to be kept in a closed bottle with no other special precautions. It will appear a pale reddish orange when completely mixed.
The TEA-Glycin mixture is more stubborn to mix. According to other people online, glycin is capable of going to at least a 10% solution in TEA. However, I could not achieve this. I highly recommend investing in a magnetic stirrer unless you really want an arm workout. In my testing a 6% solution took around 50 minutes of stirring to fully dissolve while heated at 200F. I think heating is not as necessary here, but the very long stirring time is. This mixture will be a slightly darker brown color compared to HQ-TEA. It should also keep in theory almost indefinitely with no special precautions other than to keep water out of it. The glycin I used was fairly fresh and a light tan color, unknown what the result of fresher or older glycin is.
Ingredient Considerations
Finally, I’ll describe the results of the different papers tested. Some slight modifications to the formula were made as these tests were done, but nothing exactly groundbreaking. A portfolio of scans from this process is below if you just want to skip to see the results for yourself.
Note that all tests here were scanned and then carefully color corrected to best match the appearance of the print in daylight conditions.
(see attachments)
Conclusion
This developer should prove to be a very promising and useful tool available to expert lith developers. The glycin requirement of the developer is really the most difficult part, as it is only available from one manufacturer, keeps poorly as a powder, and does not mix very easily into TEA. Otherwise all chemicals used are stable and often stocked by people capable of mixing their own developers. I intend to eventually test using metol instead of glycin, but do not expect much success since metol is a much more active developing agent and doesn’t have glycin’s reputation for “glowing” highlights and midtone separation. This developer and minor modifications to it will continue to be used for my personal lith printing with occasional updates on especially nice prints made in it… but for now, this idea is “complete” and requires no further discussion. I’d definitely appreciate any reports of other people trying this process out, especially with papers not listed here or even old expired papers I don’t have easy access to. I’ll do a “guest” post featuring other people’s images (with permission) of this process if I can collect some examples of it being used outside of myself. I’m also interested in a way of using the HQ-TEA and Glycin-TEA mixtures in other developer formulas beyond lith printing. I also do plan on trying some other lith printing formula ideas, but for now this satisfies me. I will put up some more experiment reports later on with the result of this developer with various papers and various toning techniques.
I wrote a blog post about the developer formula that you can see here: https://grainy.vision/blog/exa6-magic-lith-reference .. However, I'll also copy-paste the post to here for easier reading. You can see higher resolution images and such at my blog though.
EXA6 "Color Magic Lith v1" Reference
December 15, 2019
This is finally what I’d consider a “successful” developer. It’s definitely still capable of plenty of tweaking, but finally, this is a good base to build on. It exhibits the following properties:
- Will create traditional looking lith prints on most papers, including otherwise unlithable RC papers. Successful tests so far include Ilford MGV RC, Ilford Cooltone RC, Ilford Cooltone FB , Kodabrome II F3 RC, Fomatone 133. Unsuccessful tests include Adox MC112. Recommended especially for Ilford papers
- Produces a relatively fine-grain lith print with some papers which are normally quite grainy (though others may exhibit additional grain and perform like a coldtone paper with less coloration)
- Exhibits a rich split tone spectrum of color on at least some papers. For MGV for instance, it yields subtle golden extreme highlights, delicate peachy highlights/high midtones, olive green midtones, and somewhat cool shadows.
- Follows the 2nd golden rule of a lith developer, though not the first. Grain size and color is difficult to adjust through dilution, but the 2nd rule for more exposure = less contrast holds up. It is possible to get deep blacks with anywhere from 1-5 stops of over exposure from a base print while the highlights can be controlled completely by exposure rather than by development time.
- Different development times (and thus contrast levels) appears to be somewhat capable of modifying color/grain size, with more color being introduced with longer development times
- Workable tray life, extremely shelf stable. The tray life with this developer isn’t exactly great, but in my testing it only starts to really fall off after 1 hour, which is plenty workable for several prints. The shelf-stability of the solutions should be years due to the developing agents being kept in a solution without water
EXA6 Formula
- 15ml HQ-TEA 20%
- 10ml Glycin-TEA 6%
- 15ml Sodium Sulfite 10%
- 50ml Benzotriazine 1%
- 1ml Potassium Bromide 10%
- Top to 2L with water
- 20ml Potassium Carbonate 30% — add just before ready to begin printing
- This developer can be used as a standard lith developer with some additional cautions especially with difficult papers.
- Agitation should be very random and inconsistent. ie, swirl the print, rock the tray, etc.. basically ensure everything gets an even amount of developer. Using a larger amount of developer than needed and a larger tray also helps. With some papers it is nearly impossible to get 100% even development, but there are some formula modifications to improve this, and it of course helps to choose a negative to print where this unevenness doesn’t matter too much.
- As this developer is used a red film will appear in the solution. This typically becomes apparent after 2 or 3 prints. The red film is oxidized hydroquinone. It won’t hurt anything but should serve as an indicator of the developers state. When this film is rather obvious and thick on the solution, it may be time to replace the developer. Additional sulfite can be added to remove this film and potentially even revive the developer, but sulfite seems to react non-intuitively here and it seems if there is no red film coming up at all, the developer probably has too much sulfite and won’t give proper infectious development.
- In order to mix the formula, it is easiest to use a small (100ml) graduate to measure out the TEA mixtures and then add the sulfite and other components (excluding carbonate) on top of that. Then instead of just dumping it into a tray of water, fill the small graduate from the sink with water and dump it into a larger graduate (1L) for measuring the final developer solution, effectively rinsing the TEA from the small graduate several times in order to get it all out. The carbonate should be added at the very end after dilution. If added early it can quickly kill the developer.
- With difficult papers the times can be quite slow. Induction times of 5m with room temp developer is pretty normal for Ilford MGV. To speed things up the developer can be heated, but this will reduce the tray life of the solution
- With MGV (and probably most others) you will first see the border of the print as is typical in lith printing. Afterwards the blacks will slowly start to become visible. Finally midtones and highlights begin to come up across the print, with blacks appearing to stall. Suddenly, the blacks go infectious and a deep black tending to have more infectious development at edges. In most cases the blacks will begin to really come in just as the highlights are almost completely developed. The print may have uneven blacks, but you can keep it in the developer for quite a long time before midtones and highlights get any darker than at this point.
These are annoying at best. The HQ-TEA must be heated to at least 160F, with 180F making things a lot easier. I use a hot plate and glassware to accomplish this. I’ve heard of people microwaving TEA, but this seems overly dangerous to me. If the TEA is hot enough, the HQ will appear to melt into the solution and become a slime before dissolving. Note that the volume will inflate considerably, so to make a 20% solution, I’d recommend something like 400ml TEA + 100g of HQ and then after it is dissolved top up the solution to 500ml with more TEA. This solution is extremely resistant to oxidation and only needs to be kept in a closed bottle with no other special precautions. It will appear a pale reddish orange when completely mixed.
The TEA-Glycin mixture is more stubborn to mix. According to other people online, glycin is capable of going to at least a 10% solution in TEA. However, I could not achieve this. I highly recommend investing in a magnetic stirrer unless you really want an arm workout. In my testing a 6% solution took around 50 minutes of stirring to fully dissolve while heated at 200F. I think heating is not as necessary here, but the very long stirring time is. This mixture will be a slightly darker brown color compared to HQ-TEA. It should also keep in theory almost indefinitely with no special precautions other than to keep water out of it. The glycin I used was fairly fresh and a light tan color, unknown what the result of fresher or older glycin is.
Ingredient Considerations
- A high amount of HQ is required. I wouldn’t recommend decreasing the amount of HQ used here, but increasing it might give interesting results. Without a fairly large surplus of HQ, infectious development just will not happen with difficult papers. It might give good results on true lithable papers though.
- Glycin behaves quite peculiar in this formula. Glycin is reported to be super-additive with HQ, but I do not see that effect really here and it seems to behave in a completely different way. It is a bit of a mystery the exact effect behind it, but end result of glycin addition is a decrease in grain, better separation of midtones (without which tends to go to black too quickly), significantly more even development of highlights and midtones, and a ~20-50% increase in overall development speed. Glycin is technically optional, but controlling this developer without it on difficult papers is otherwise impossible as midtones will quickly go to black and uneven development will be very obvious with the center being significantly less developed than the edges.
- A rather low amount of sulfite should be used to get good infectious blacks. With too much sulfite, the blacks will merely be a dark grey rather than colder black. More sulfite can be added per print as the sulfite is used up, but this is very hard to judge with any real consistency. Additional sulfite will cause infectious blacks to come up slower. Too little sulfite though and the developer dies before the first print is done. I’d recommend at least 5ml of 10% solution and no more than 25ml. Normally formaldehyde would be used instead of actual sulfite. However, formaldehyde also tends to harden emulsions and thus I suspect it will not produce a universal lith developer. This is my hunch, but I don’t expect to ever work with it personally. It’s also carcinogenic and not a chemical I’d like to design a developer around because of that.
- A high amount of benzotriazole should be used. The benzotriazole effectively will decrease the speed of development in every way except for after infectious development occurs. By using a high amount, it is capable of making highlights and midtones develop significantly slower than blacks. Some particularly stubborn papers may benefit from increasing this to up to 100ml, though this will also greatly increase development time and probably will give some differences in contrast. Note that benzotriazole content of the developer will decrease with each print. This shouldn’t matter too much over the short working life unless attempting to replenish the developer.
- A low amount of bromide should be used. Bromide especially slows down infectious development with difficult papers and thus should be used quite sparingly. It can be increased if your goal is to not have true cold blacks, but otherwise I see no reason to modify the current minimal amount. Many documents say that some halide of some sort is necessary for infectious development to take place, but I’d consider this really to be an optional ingredient since the paper contains bromide anyway. The developer will naturally produce slightly warmer and greener blacks as more paper is developed either way due to bromide released from the paper.
- Potassium Carbonate. This can almost surely be substituted with Sodium Carbonate but potassium is just what I had on hand. The carbonate is used to get the pH to around 10.5. A higher pH (ie, more carbonate) can be used for faster development times and overall colder tones, but this may need to be balanced with more benzotriazole otherwise highlights and midtones may develop too quickly. More carbonate also will reduce the tray life of the developer. Less could probably be used as well, but the pH should always be kept above 10 for infectious development to happen properly. Less carbonate will also cause development times to increase significantly.
- Dilution has not been experimented with much, but I expect this formula is already close to the maximum dilution for good blacks.
Finally, I’ll describe the results of the different papers tested. Some slight modifications to the formula were made as these tests were done, but nothing exactly groundbreaking. A portfolio of scans from this process is below if you just want to skip to see the results for yourself.
- Ilford MGV RC — This is the paper was used primarily to guide this developer formula and so is the most well suited for this. This provides a full spectrum of colors going from golden to peach to olive to cool blacks. This paper is “difficult” in terms of uneven development, but easily possible with enough persistence in perfecting a good and random agitation technique. The development process can be a bit weird coming from traditional lith printing. At room temp, the initial blacks come up around 5 minutes., then the blacks seem to stall while the highlights and midtones fill in, about 8-12 minutes depending on exposure. Finally right as the midtones really start to look right the blacks take off and the highlight and midtone development seems to stall. Total snatch time typically from 15-25 minutes, can be sped up with heated developer. Note that the glossy finish can sometimes exhibit weird grainy line effects due to the way the glossy coating is put onto the paper. Pearl does not exhibit this effect. Color stays pretty much the same between dry and wet.
- Ilford Cooltone RC — This paper is workable, but not exactly exciting. Blacks are more sluggish than MGV and overall will not develop to as dark. Color spectrum is from lilac to cool greys and blacks. Contrast is typically less intense than MGV. Color will become even more subtle when dry.
- Ilford Cooltone FB — This behaves completely different from the RC version. Blacks are significantly more intense, and the color spectrum resembles that of MGV (peach, olive, cool black), but a bit more subtle and with overall more interesting shadow gradation.
- Kodabrome II F3 — This is a lith printable paper that I often use with normal lith printing. It does work here, but is definitely not anything exciting. Normally the color spectrum is peach highlights and cool shadows. However, in this developer it doesn’t produce great blacks and the color spectrum changes to lilac highlights, somewhat golden midtones, and somewhat cool shadows. It also is normally a fairly fine grain paper, but in this process becomes rather grainy. Color will become somewhat more subtle and golden when dry
- Adox MC112 FB — This paper was the first failure in this. I believe more benzotriazole could potentially solve it, but haven’t had time to test it. With this highlights and midtones will develop only somewhat slower than the blacks. The blacks will also spread across the image from the edges, making it very difficult to get good shadow gradation. Color spectrum was yellow to mostly neutral and cool. The results here are quite striking, but not something I’d say can be used for all or even most subjects because of how unevenly it develops.
- Fomatone 133 FB — This paper gave rather striking results. This test isn’t exactly reliable. The developer was nearly dead because a kid’s nosebleed interrupted a session forcing me to leave the developer after 1 print for 30 minutes. It developed a lot slower, but gave great results when it finally got to where I wanted. Blacks were somewhat cool and not greatly intense, but the shadows were a beautiful deep brown, and with peach highlights and sepia-ish midtones. In normal lith printing I’ve only gotten peach and olive colors, as well as having weird problems with blacks “spreading” from the edges and darkening highlights. In this process the paper worked perfectly though similar to MGV.
Note that all tests here were scanned and then carefully color corrected to best match the appearance of the print in daylight conditions.
(see attachments)
Conclusion
This developer should prove to be a very promising and useful tool available to expert lith developers. The glycin requirement of the developer is really the most difficult part, as it is only available from one manufacturer, keeps poorly as a powder, and does not mix very easily into TEA. Otherwise all chemicals used are stable and often stocked by people capable of mixing their own developers. I intend to eventually test using metol instead of glycin, but do not expect much success since metol is a much more active developing agent and doesn’t have glycin’s reputation for “glowing” highlights and midtone separation. This developer and minor modifications to it will continue to be used for my personal lith printing with occasional updates on especially nice prints made in it… but for now, this idea is “complete” and requires no further discussion. I’d definitely appreciate any reports of other people trying this process out, especially with papers not listed here or even old expired papers I don’t have easy access to. I’ll do a “guest” post featuring other people’s images (with permission) of this process if I can collect some examples of it being used outside of myself. I’m also interested in a way of using the HQ-TEA and Glycin-TEA mixtures in other developer formulas beyond lith printing. I also do plan on trying some other lith printing formula ideas, but for now this satisfies me. I will put up some more experiment reports later on with the result of this developer with various papers and various toning techniques.
henidone (15g:0.15g per liter) (note that it says other secondary developing agents can be used, but that phenidone is the best)
