Sterling Lith paper

[Clive Warren <Clive.Warren@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well have to say I'm hooked on lith printing - it will be a regular part of
darkroom practice from now on.

If anyone decides to try out Sterling Lith paper for printing their IR work
it is worth the effort, however it is an effort :-)

At the weekend I printed up the following IR shot taken using Konica - here
it is a straight print in normal chemistry:

http://wkweb5.cableinet.co.uk/cocam/Hound.jpg

I chose this neg. as it is a real challenge to print anyway - the grass
requires a lot of burning in and the hound has to be dodged. The print at
the URL is straight with no dodging or burning.  Currently exposing for 4
minutes on lith paper using Novalith developer - it still needs another
stop to get the grass and leaves in the background.  If I find a scanner
big enough then will put the print up on the website.


Using the Sterling paper for the first time I found it almost impossible to
tell which side has the emulsion.  It is an eggshell finish on the emulsion
side and is very (VERY) similar to the surface texture of the back.  I
hesitate to lick my fingers in the darkroom, however this was the only way
to tell the emulsion side, and even then the difference between sides is
very slight.

One strategy I tried was to print my test strips in ordinary developer
(that looks good also on this paper) and from that ascertain the emulsion
side of the paper in the packet.  Well that would be great, however the
paper in the packet was not packed all facing the same way &%$*(*(*&!!!!

Looking at the packet the sealing flap had been taped shut - my guess is
that the seller had repackaged a smaller quantity of paper from a large
stock.  I will be contacting them today......

I left one sheet in the developer for 35 minutes to see if at least an
image would appear on the reverse side - it did.  After 25 minutes it was
painfully obvious that it was the wrong way up.  However it does have
amazing pepper fogging and streaking :-)

Anyone have similar experiences and any tips?

Guess I will have to read Tim's book again to determine which chemicals to
buy for the pepper fogging problem as I had some in the two successful
prints at a dev. time of about 10 minutes.

Locally there are not too many darkroom chemical stockists - the only
serious one is KJP who also own Calumet in the USA.

Asked for some Pot Ferri in Jessops (UK photo chain store) on Saturday (KJP
is closed on Saturdays) and was offered some Sepia toner without the bleach
Hmmmm....


Does anyone have any tips for drying the Sterling paper?  hung up a couple
of sheets back to back and they curled horribly :-(





All the best,

              Clive   http://clive.bel-epa.com


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