Yesterday I tried a new set of 2nd pass liths, now with some more help of Wolfgang Moersch, as posted on the lith group on Facebook. Check out the group if you haven’t already; it’s a great source of information!
Papers used:
* Ilford MGW.1K, fiber based warmtone paper
* Ilford MG ART 300 paper
Chemistry used:
* 1st pass standard bw-developer Agfa Neutol WA 1+7
* 2nd pass Moersch Easylith developer 1+1+100
* Sepia Bleach home-made: 100 gr Potassium FerriCyanide & 100 gr Potassium Bromide to 1 litre of water
* Amaloco S10 stopping bath 1+19
* Amaloco X89 fixing bath 1+4
* Kodak Hypo Clearing 1+4 going from stock
Other variables:
* Temperature of lith developer +/- 40 degrees Celsius
* No MG filters used when exposing the paper
* Overexposed the prints with approx. 1/2 a stop
* Bleaching time approx. for all prints: 10 minutes (my goal was to bleach fully which didn’t work out)
I think I feel more disappointed than last time. At least then I found the ART 300 paper to really shine and present me with a glimpse of what it has to offer. This time it really didn’t pan out, perhaps because I expected too much. I felt I was on the right track before only to feel as if I’ve bumped into a wall now.
The first thing that didn’t go as planned was the bleaching. I bleached each print for 10 minutes, with the goal of bleaching the paper back to complete white. I used the non-diluted version this time to achieve this (faster). Maybe the bleach is too old (made in March 2012)? Maybe I should’ve left them in the bleach for like, half an hour or so? Maybe…well..I don’t know.
The second thing that didn’t work out as expected was the dilution. According to the notes of Moersch I was to dilute the standard dilution I would normally use by 10-30 % and use a warm developer at around 40 degrees Celsius. This dilution would keep the blacks from going too fast without giving the highlights the time to catch up.
Normally I use a dilution of 1+1+20, so this time I went for 1+1+100, no Old Brown (with that high a dilution the developer was prone to age fast anyway). When redeveloping the first print even after 10 minutes I couldn’t note a difference. The notes mentioned a redevelop-time between 1 and 5 minutes. Clearly I wasn’t going to make that. I decided to add 5ml A and 5ml B while the print was still in there, resulting in a dilution of 1+1+50. Of course this resulted in an unevenness, a little bit more density but the highlights remained miles behind. You can notice this unevenness by its more neutral grey colour in some parts of the image, for example in the highlights in the upper-mid section.
The one thing I did go after and managed to achieve was more colour and a more lith-like effect. Only the whites are lagging behind which is not to my liking.
Ilford MGW.1K
24s exposure time | filter 3 (per accident as I forgot to pull it out of the enlarger from the previous print)
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
10 minutes Sepia Bleach Undiluted
2nd pass Easylith 1+1+100 | 18 minutes | +/- 40 degrees Celsius
With the second print I wanted to get a more evenness throughout the image so decided to keep everything else the same and try again.
Ilford MGW.1K
24s exposure time | No filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
10 minutes Sepia Bleach Undiluted
2nd pass Easylith 1+1+50 | 23 minutes | +/- 40 degrees Celsius
You can see a far more dark print this time but still the detail and everything in the highlights are not to my liking. By keeping it in there so long I also lost the mysterious lighting in the image itself which is why I love it. Sigh..I only made 2 prints on MGW.1K paper to try and time was ticking so I went on to the two bleached ART 300 sheets. I decided to add some more lith developer to the bath to perhaps change it for the better, again 5ml A and 5ml B extra.
Ilford ART 300
24s exposure time | No filter
Agfa Neutol WA normal bw developing | 1:30 minutes | 20 degrees Celsius
10 minutes Sepia Bleach Undiluted
2nd pass Easylith 1+1+35 | 24:30 minutes | +/- 40 degrees Celsius
Despite it has more colour it’s way too dark losing every delicate look and feel that this image has to offer, without getting true detail in the highlights. I don’t really know where to take it from here. I have Lith Omega on the way and I’ll try this paper souping it only in lith A, and then developing in Omega to see what that’ll give me. I suppose I overexposed this paper as the print I liked from the other day only had 12 seconds. So with its 24 seconds this time it’s 1 stop over-exposure, not 1/2. I’m guessing that also has a huge impact, perhaps better said, I’m hoping that has a HUGE impact and next time it will be perfect 🙂
Having received the ART 300 30×40 / 30 sheets paper today I would really love to see this going somewhere decent!
I was too tired and disappointed to redevelop print no.4 so I kept it in bleached condition. This is how it looks after my 10-minute bleach:
I’ll have a swing it at it next time. If, in the meantime, anyone can tell me how to get prints fully bleached I would be very grateful 😉
For the rest I’ll have to pinpoint the direction I will be heading next. I’m not sure but guiding lights, although sometimes hiding behind a corner, are never really that far away.
