Bleaching for a lith effect.

["Robert Gary Hall" <gary_hall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

By way of experimentation...

In the never-ending search for lith nirvana, I bought some RC paper from
E-Bay (please don't laugh.) It's called Vespa and said to be manufactured in
the UK.

Has any one seen this paper and/or used it?

Anyway, I bleached it back in stock bleach from a $3 sepia pack from Kodak
and tried the old redev in Kodak lith developer.

The image I used was from a friend who wanted a portrait of her husband on
the golf course in infrared. No, I don't know why.

The results were quite interesting, and it redeveloped rather quickly. I saw
an initial color shift towards purple in the blackest parts of the image and
in the mid tones a warm brown. Then I left it in to see what would happen
and it seemed to return to it's previous black and white state. So I tried
it a few more times (on the same image) with more or less the same results.
It lost a little in the highlights the first time through and it only took a
minute or so to do the color/lith shift. The color had a lithy quality to it
and instead of a smooth transition in the horizon which was there before, it
was quite grainy, for lack of  a better word.

Here's a link to the sample image. The highlights are blown a bit from the
repeated bleaching, but it shows what I'm talking about. I imagine I'll get
better images as I practice a bit.

http://www.xmission.com/~ghall/images/bleach.jpg

By the way, the paper is pretty good on it's own and at $20 U.S. for a
hundred sheets of 8x10 was a pretty good deal.

If anyone has had good luck with any other bleaching I'd be happy to hear
about it. And, by the way, I tried it on the Sterling RC paper with a more
subdued effect. I'd like to try the cupric acid that Dr. Rudman suggested in
his book.

---
R. Gary Hall

http://www.RobertHallPhotography.com

Infrared and Lith Prints




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