Digital lith printing
Lith printing is a darkroom technique in which an over-exposed print is developed in dilute lithographic developer, producing distinctive high-contrast images with pronounced grain, rich blacks and often warm, subtly coloured highlights. I’ve been drawn to the look of lith prints for many years, inspired by the gritty portraits of Anton Corbijn and the masterful printing work of Tim Rudman and Wolfgang Moersch. It’s been a while since I made a lith print in the darkroom. On and off since then, I’ve played with various Photoshop recipes to reproduce the look, but never been really happy with the results. The best that Photoshop can do is to apply curves to approximate the contrast and colour of a lith print, and superimpose noise to add grain in the right part of the tonal range. I have thought for a while that a better approach would be to digitally simulate the lith development process, so that the distinctive features of a lith print arise naturally from the simulation rather than being added afterwards as separate visual effects. In particular, the aim should be to reproduce the local, self-reinforcing nature of infectious development, allowing grain, contrast, colour and edge effects to emerge from the interaction between neighbouring areas of the image. ...