Making a realistic old school high contrast Litho

[crabbyphoto]

The older gang will understand what I am trying to achieve if they worked in the darkroom and used orth-litho film to make high contrast B&W line art or continuous tone images.

I have looked for years to find a method that makes high contrast people images with detail... At least better detail than using the threshold adjustment in Photoshop.

Does anyone know a secret? technique? or action? to make a good detailed high contrast B&W?

I know there out there

Thanks folks.

[lkroll]

Fotomatic's Techni-X filter (from the maker's of Cybia's filters) will make your day. It's free too.

http://www.cybia.co.uk/fotomatic.html

[crabbyphoto]

Thanks a ton it is probably exactly what I am looking for. I never like the threshold look and try to alter.

HOWEVER that Fotomatic's filter is only for PC's and I am exclusive Mac.

Thanks....

Anyone else got any ideas????

[gholmes1936]

Is this more or less what you are looking for? I used a plugin, OnOne PhotoTool 2 Professional Edition. Then used the Ortho tool. I think one can get a demo version to try.

[crabbyphoto]

I own the OneOne Suite 5 - I guess I missed it I will check that out thanks Gunner!
Although your pic example is not what I need I need a continuous tone image only blacks and white with no greys and lots of detail. Those who have worked in a darkroom will know the difference in this look and the digital look such as Threshold.

I will give my OnOne a try though and see if I can simulate it.... I love that software.

Thanks again

[gholmes1936]

I did work in darkrooms from 1969 to 1998. did all my own processing and printing, for the Air Force, The State, and The University of Texas. Not to mention I had my own home lab at one time. I was never pleased with the results that I got using litho (ortho) film as a continuous tone medium tho.. Maybe I expected to much. I even tried developing in D72 once or twice. As you may know D72 was for developing prints.

[crabbyphoto]

I used Ortho Litho film too but I got great effects I wish I could get now, I transferred to the litho film from b&w and color film and slides. Many times I had to re-photograph via contact print, also used 35mm ortho litho to make slide titles and masking. I will have to dig some out to show you.
I developed in Kodak Litho Developer A&B a two part liquid from powder. There was also a high speed recording film I did develop in D76 for grainy effects.

All of this just proves we are old ;-).

I started in the bathtub in the 10th grade through high school, three community colleges both as student then instructor and also for the U of Md teaching fire photography techniques.

IF all the new folks actually understood the where all the analogies and metaphors the Knoll brothers started out in the very beginning when making photoshop act like real cameras and wet darkrooms they would be amazed. I am sure your like me so glad to know both film and digital. It makes it all that more exciting. I found one technique on another site that works pretty and I will share it as soon as I get it ready.

EVERYONE I am still looking for the best treatment I can do!

Jim

[gholmes1936]

The Air Force had the liquid A & B litho developer, so didn't have to mix it up. Also made title slide and then used a liquid color agent to make them less boring. Also made a mask using text then putting a scene behind it for something a little different also.

[Joeven]

I don't know anything about Litho but Alien Skin's Exposure has a Litho preset using the red and green channels. Have you ever tried Exposure?

Joe

[sharynideas]

I don't know for sure what you are trying to do, but have you tried the stamp filter? or a gradient map adjustment layer with just black and white on the gradient? Could you post a picture of what you are shooting for?

[kiska]

Dunno if this is what you want.
I used Topaz Adjust>Exposure Color Stretch. They have free demos AND are Mac friendly.

http://www.topazlabs.com/products.html

[crabbyphoto]

Kisia thats sort of close....

I own an love every product Topaz makes!

Thanks a lot for your imput!

[crabbyphoto]

Originally Posted by sharynideas

I don't know for sure what you are trying to do, but have you tried the stamp filter? or a gradient map adjustment layer with just black and white on the gradient? Could you post a picture of what you are shooting for?

Thanks yes I have but I just dont get the "control" I need for the projects I do.

I do however make tons of brushes!

Thanks Again

[crabbyphoto]

Originally Posted by Joeven

I don't know anything about Litho but Alien Skin's Exposure has a Litho preset using the red and green channels. Have you ever tried Exposure?

Joe

Joe I have Exposure too, I will need to look into it and see if it works for what I need. I made my own action but I need to refine it. When its done I will share.

[crabbyphoto]

Originally Posted by gholmes1936

The Air Force had the liquid A & B litho developer, so didn't have to mix it up. Also made title slide and then used a liquid color agent to make them less boring. Also made a mask using text then putting a scene behind it for something a little different also.

I bet you used rub on lettering and photographed it too. Hey wanna buy a Bowens Illumitran in perfect condition with all the accessories?

Gunner its refreshing to talk to some one that knows the "wet" world.
I also colored my litho made slides some with dyes and some with pieces of gel material... Seems we have a lot in common.

Here are the only lithos I could find without a lot of time digging.

http://web.me.com/crabtreephoto/Orth...rthoLitho.html

Jimmy

P.S. Its nice to post on a forum where people actually know things - so many forums are full of people with a new camera and have achieved pro status in a month and know absolutely nothing.

[gholmes1936]

Yes, rub on lettering, or the white plastic ones laid on glass that was about 12 inches away from a blue or red velvet background drape for briefing slides.

[csuebele]

I was hooked on litho film! Used to do a process of sandwiching a pos & neg to get a line effect much like find lines in ps. Did posterization then transferred that to color key material. Took hours to do and it lost it's interest after seeing how easy you could do things like it in ps. Also used bathroom glass as a sort of halftone screen. Got interesting results with that. Here's some that I did. The one of the shark I used the color key material. The others, I spiced up in ps, but the original b&w images are from litho film.

[crabbyphoto]

You probably loved Pete Turner and Jay Maisel they were like the innovating for behind using litho masking and double exposure, sandwiching and masking transparencies and negs.... I remember too making two lithos and then printing them out of register to make line art. yes I totally love litho and have yet to be able to reproduce the exact thing in PS and I have been using it since vers.1.0 and I have every plugin imaginable and still can't reproduce the effect to my liking .... Find Edges helps and there are a few others that come close - but IMHO Threshold is terrible.

[csuebele]

Most likely one of the reasons litho has that look is due to film grain, both in the original and the litho film itsself.

[kiska]

I'm not fond of thresh either but if you stack and mask a "regular", light and dark and paint in/out different areas, it helps. Here's another try.

[crabbyphoto]

Thanks a lot. Lots of good ideas!

[crabbyphoto]

Originally Posted by csuebele

Most likely one of the reasons litho has that look is due to film grain, both in the original and the litho film itsself.

No. Properly exposed "old school" ortho litho film for the most part had no grain in it at all unless it was deliberately done for a reason. The ortho-litho film was it took a normal color or black and white neg. or slide, and transformed it into a positive film that was then printed or used for reproduction purposes. The film sheet had clear areas that were dark on the negative that created clear areas which printed solid black, and solid blacks which printed solid white. The original purpose of this film was intended for use in graphic art projects - newspaper and printed materials and graphics for silk screen printing. It "just found its place in the hands" of photographers and darkroom techs for special effects.

[csuebele]

Originally Posted by crabbyphoto

No. Properly exposed "old school" ortho litho film for the most part had no grain in it at all unless it was deliberately done for a reason. The ortho-litho film was it took a normal color or black and white neg. or slide, and transformed it into a positive film that was then printed or used for reproduction purposes. The film sheet had clear areas that were dark on the negative that created clear areas which printed solid black, and solid blacks which printed solid white. The original purpose of this film was intended for use in graphic art projects - newspaper and printed materials and graphics for silk screen printing. It "just found its place in the hands" of photographers and darkroom techs for special effects.

Yes, for the most part, properly exposed litho film had very little detectable grain, but it did have grain which affected how the image developed out. In most cases this is not noticeable, but if you had a large areas of transitional gray, it would be more noticeable, as the litho film would build up a slight density in the developer first then towards the end of the process the full dark black would come in radiating out from the grain. Large light areas in the original negative could also have an impact on light spilling into the darker areas. Of course, you could also use Kodak's LPD4 to make direct positives rather than making an intermediate negative with a litho film like Kodak Kodalith Ortho Type 3.

[crabbyphoto]

Yea Chuck I get ya - how old are you - I can tell you and Gunner didn't get on the bus yesterday!. I did not realize you were familiar. But for those who never had the good fortune to use the stuff - I find its the simplest was to describe graphic arts films..
AS for me for a small lab that just used the technique for EFX I didn't like to keep too many different exotic chemicals and films on hand as you know mixed kodalith developer had a short shelf life.. I usually kept Kodalith A&B Developer and standard ortho litho film I kept quite a lot of it from 35mm to 11X14, making everything from titles to screen printing positives. I wold buy it when I saw a good deal and keep it in the freezer ;-). Bought a lot of off brand stuff from FreeStyle Photographic and I see they are narrowing down their stock in these products as well - kinda sad.
I did on occassion use the reversable stuff usually in chemistry for some effects. I also used texture screens of all kinds including homemade. Shot in medium format. This would do cool things to those "grey areas" you mentioned. I also kept a 100foot roll of High Speed Recording film for cassette reloading. It made cool grainy prints too but I usually like pushed tri-X just as well. Did you ever develop a roll of B&W in wrong temperatures to get reticulation effects? Also did a lot of cross processing and doubles and sandwiches. I printed Cibachrome also. Did a lot of hand coloring and toning too.

Folks who only grew up in the digital world, "know not where they came" :-). Most every Craig's or Kubota effects emulate these old 70' and 80's effects whether darkroom, in camera or filtering. Now it just a push button knowing absolutely nothing about the actual process. What is done in one keystroke took us an afternoon to pull off.... Thats okay but I appreciate where it all came from. Its always humorous to me (in a good way) how so many of the techniques and effects so very popular in the 70 & 80's discussed at length on the pages of PHOTOgraphic magazine are so popular again now... Dig out some old LP album covers or the Rolling Stone and check the radical photography of the era.

I taught college level film photography and film and video production for about 20 years and forget there are more old timers around besides me - who embrace both sides of photography wet and pixels - its refreshing to find you guys!

Still searching for my perfect litho PS technique.

[crabbyphoto]

Chuck.... Love your splash page.

[kiska]

http://www.atomiccupcake.com/item.php?id=000386

[crabbyphoto]

Interesting. Have you tried any of these actions?

[lkroll]

I borrowed this capture from the stock exchange. One thing that is extremely important in old photography is the consideration of grain. Also, like to highkey/contrast an image prior to the conversion too. I like using blends of a cool GIMP GEGL feature called C2G for the natural grain look. I did add some tone color to the grey as well.

[Joeven]

You might want to try this. I saw it on another site.

De-sat your background layer.
Create 3 empty layers.
On the background layer select Color Range-Highlights.
Fill the selection with white on your top layer and de-select.
On the background layer select the Shadows from the Color Range.
Fill the selection with black on the layer beneath the highlights layer and de-select.
On the layer above the background fill with 50% Grey.
That’s it. Don’t know if that’s what you’re looking for but that’s the way it was explained on the other site.

Joe

[crabbyphoto]

Lyle, cool image and your right old images many times have a considerable amount of grain. However this is nothing like I am looking for

Joeven I am going to try your steps but i can see some corrections to it that might make it better . Thanks.