Physical Split Printing and Toning

Introduction

I have long been a fan of split filter printing where you expose the paper with a low contrast (soft) filter and then a high contrast (hard) filter. The balance of exposure times give the degree of contrast one wants. I find it a more intuitive and easier system than hunting for the right filter value. It also allows more dodging and burning control. 

Recently I have been exploring toning and there is a split idea here too. Toning with two different toners to change the warmth and character of the image. 

Thirdly a few months ago I stumbled upon a technique I called Lith-Lith where I developed a Ortho Litho film with lith developer aiming to get a higher contrast image. This failed, however I did get a sepia colored transparency that I mounted in front of some aluminum foil to produce a spectacular result. 

This led me to think about how to combine these techniques. I had run out of my original Orth Litho film from Photowarehouse in the US and with no prospects for travel to the US soon I ordered some Wephota FO5 film. What little information indicates it is very high contrast being a technical line film. This might be a challenge but I see as an opportunity for this project. The film is very slow like paper and orthochromatic so can be used safely under a red safelight. I feels exactly like the Photowarehouse paper I am accustomed to in that it is very thin and has the texture and color under the safelight. 

Blog cover page image

Concept

The basic idea is to make a very low contrast print on photo paper which I call the image substrate. Then make the same print on the Ortho Litho film which should be high contrast by nature of the film (the surface image). Next place the film over the print and with good registration you have a single split contrast image. Now I can tone each one independently and hopefully achieve very different kinds of toned image results.

Conceptual Diagram

The Experiments

I selected my image and set the easel up for an 8x10 print as the litho film I have is 8x10. This meant the easel aperture is 7 1/2x 9 1/2 to allow for 1/4 inch borders.

I started out with some Foma Fomatone MG classic paper only because I had a few sheets left so not a bad choice for some experiments. I made my usual soft contrast (#00 filter) test strip and settled on f5.6 at 16 seconds exposure. I next made a full size 8x10 print.   

Next I dialed in the litho film using a test strip. I was worried it would be extremely high contrast but it is surprisingly tame. While I was at it I tested to see if my red headlight should cause troubles. The headlight is bright and makes working in the darkroom much easier. I have had one experience with orthochromatic film where it got fogged by my safelight. So I exposed a strip of the film to the headlight for 2 minutes then developed and fixed it and it showed clear so not trouble. 

I then exposed a full sheet of the Wephota film at f8 at 8 seconds with no filter. Because I wanted the contrast high I pulled it from the developer at 1 minute instead the usual 3 minutes. This gives only the shadows a chance to develop well. When exposing this film I placed a sheet of black paper behind it. My easel is white and it is possible that light passing through the film could reflect back creating halos. The film has a red anti-halation dye on the back but it seemed prudent to take extra precautions. The red dye washes out in the developer, stop, and fixer and so adds a red tint to these solutions. I left this same black paper in place when exposing the photo paper so they are at the same focal point. 

Wephota ortho litho image

Next I attempted to lay the film over the still wet paper image. The problem is FB paper expands a lot when wet particularly in one direction. The wet paper was 1/4 inch longer in the long dimension. I then decided to dry and flatten the print but still the print was 1/8 inch longer fully dried. Cleary this is a fail.  More thinking and the answer is to try RC paper. Because it is plastic coated it should be more dimensionally stable.

Update: In later thinking I reasoned Ilford MG Art 300 paper may be well behaved in these conditions. It is not wood fiber based but cotton rag so may be more stable. I made some measurements on a print on this paper when wet and it only expanded this image by about 1/8th inch while wet and shrank to original dimensions when dry. I will make a proper print later. 

I break out the Kentmere VC Select paper and run a soft filter test print. Develop, fix, wash and dry. The registration is perfect. Great news. I lose some toning flexibility with RC paper but that is a lesser problem than registration.

The best exposure for the paper was on the low end of the exposure at f11 at 16 seconds so I made 2 prints one at 16 seconds and another 1/4 stop lighter at 13 seconds. 

Kentmere VC Select paper soft image (16 seconds)

Image 1: Ortho litho image on top of paper image

 The finished image is interesting to look at. First the film has a high gloss. Next the whites look almost silver in a pleasant way. It looks very unique compared to conventional prints. Update: I have considered why the print has a metallic appearance. The RC paper I use is the satin textured  surface. I believe light bouncing off this interacts with the glossy film to create this effect. 

Registration is important but straightforward as I could use the edges and corners as a guide under light magnification. I used scotch (sello) tape on the top and bottom edges to keep them in alignment.

Split Toning

Next I want to explore this as a means to split toning. Since I can reuse the transparency portion I will start with toning the paper image. Typically you want the shadows to remain black so the contrast remains high. This is why selenium is often used in split toning to keep the shadows dark. The paper is much cheaper than the film as well. 

I started out with my test print on the Kentmere VC Select paper. I cut strips from it and then treated them to different toning regimes. 1) Straight Moersch MT4 1+100 toning for 10 minutes. (Rightmost strip), 2) bleach with potassium ferricyanide 1+10 5 minutes. Tone with MT4 1+100 6 minutes. (Second from right) The left half of the image is the natural tone of the paper in Moersch ECO 4812 developer. The bottom strip is my print target exposure time (16 seconds as I exposed  the entire image at 8 seconds before my usual test strip sequence). 

Test toning. Left to right: Natural, Bleach  + MT4, MT4 alone

Here is where the paper's silver halide content (and developer) interacts with toning. The bleach+toner version is distinctly greenish yellow. This something I have not seen with Ilford MG Art 300 paper. While toning however I noticed the tone may be closer to neutral browns with less toning time. The toner alone has a slight magenta cast to it. 

In the next image I took the same ortho litho/paper sandwich of Image 1 above and slid the two toned test strips underneath the ortho litho film to get the aggregate effect of toning and the ortho litho film overlay. Unfortunately the most indicative sections are lower sections of the test strip and these don't give a full range contrast. The registration is not perfect but this will be easier when I move to a full sheet of toned paper. Still one is beginning to get the idea that the concept is coming to completion. 

Toned test strips under ortho litho film 

Now it is time to make some toned full sheets. I made 4 additional prints.

2x 16 second exposure (nominal)

1x 13 second exposure (-1/4 stop of nominal)

1x 18 second exposure (+1/4 stop of nominal) 

I then made the following tonings

1. Nominal Exposure. Bleach 1+10 for 5 minutes then MT4 tone for 4 minutes (2 minutes less than test strip above)
2. Nominal exposure. MT4 tone 10 minutes.
3. Nominal +1/4 exposure. Bleach 1+10 15 minutes. Sun tone. 

I performed the usual wash and hypo clearing steps on all of these. I then slid the dried print behind the litho film, registered it then scanned it. The results are below. The technique works quite well. 

Tone 1 (Bleach + MT4)

Tone 2 (MT4 only)

I made a composite image in Photoshop to aid comparison. 

Composite of all images (left to right Tone 1, Normal Developer, Tone 2)

I was able to achieve different tones while retaining deep black in all cases. Alternatively I could tone the ortho litho film differently as well. The ability to treat each layer differently means there should be better control over the exposure and toning as they are completely decoupled for each layer. 

It should also be possible to invert the order and have the film contain the low contrast part of the image and the paper hold the high contrast portion. This would require a continuous tone ortho litho film, regular photographic film, or a low contrast developer applied to the technical film. The paper would then be exposed with only the hard filter. There may be some advantages to this.

There are a lot of variables to try here. For instance the ortho litho image contrast might do with some boosting. This is apparent if you refer to the ortho litho scan above. There is still density in many of the mid-tones of the image. This has the effect of not only darkening these areas but also attenuating the paper tones so they are more muted. I would consider overexposing the ortho litho film then developing by inspection and pulling it from the developer early just as the blacks develop but before the mid-tones come in. One could also selenium tone the ortho litho film to bring up the Dmax of the shadows.

The negative I chose may not be the best for this process. It is a pretty high contrast negative so the paper layer does not contain only the highlight tones of the image. It also appears softer in the lower quarter and could do with some additional burn of 1/2 to 1 stop there.   

I have some more updated results here...