Ortho Litho film is a specialist film intended for use in lithographic and graphic art applications. Specifically, it is extremely low speed, extremely high contrast, and not sensitized to the color red and thus can be handled under a red safelight. These properties make it quite difficult to use for standard pictorial purposes, but with specialized developing processes, it is possible to “tame” this extremely wild film and produce very interesting and unique results. Almost all results here are using Arista Ortho Litho film custom cut into 120 format. I have also done some limited testing with Kodalith, Ultrafine ortho litho, and some other brand of ortho litho that I can’t find right now. The only real difference is that kodalith is slightly faster (maybe 1/2 stop) than all other brands and both kodalith and ultrafine has a different base material which is less transparent.

This document will be split into two sections. High speed and low speed processing. High speed is of course easier to shoot, but a bit harder to process and typically more grain. Low speed can achieve better control over contrast levels, has better over exposure latitude, and with fine to impossibly fine grain. Note I do not cover extremely high contrast development. I use this film high contrast sometimes for masking in the darkroom and Dektol at paper dilutions works well enough for this use, but if you truly need 100% black/white then you should use Lith A&B developer at proper dilutions etc.

Development By Inspection

Ortho Litho films can be safely developed by inspection with red safelight. In my tests with Arista Ortho Litho, the safelight needs to be rather dim, not shining directly on the film, and exposure should still be minimized, especially when using high speed processing methods. If you are using development by inspection, you should test your safelights using both high speed and low speed processing methods for the film. As long as it doesn’t fog within 10 minutes for either, you should be ok. Make sure to keep the development trays covered when not actively inspecting, and to minimize the time that you keep the film out. I use the red LED bulbs from “Ultra Bright LEDs”. I normally have an amber and red bulb with the red bulb strictly illuminating by reflection, and the amber bulb shining directly over my trays. I simply turn off the amber bulb when working with ortho litho film and have measured a safety margin of at least 20 minutes for low speed processing and 10 minutes for high speed.

Before developing solely by inspection, I also recommend testing out the process with a few sheets (even if “shot” by using an enlarger) so that you can know what to expect. Dim safelights can be quite misleading to how much density you actually have on the film.

High Speed Processing

The biggest problem preventing a truly higher film speed with ortho litho is that shadow detail drops very quickly from low density values to completely clear (dmin). By solving this problem, it’s possible to push the film’s speed quite significantly while maintaining reasonable contrast levels.

The best way I found to do this is to flash the film. This has the effect of bringing up the shadow values beyond the dmin threshold level so that some amount of detail will develop. The most common and arguably easiest way to do this is to put the film under an enlarger with no negative and expose it for a very small amount, such as f/22 for 2s. There is another method though.. but it’s not exactly… well, I’ve never seen anyone ever try it before, but , there is also a method of doing chemical flashing.

Flashing with light

This method is simple if you have a darkroom and are dealing with film sizes that your enlarger can accommodate. Despite popular belief and anecdotes, there is no difference between flashing before exposure and flashing after exposure. There are also some people who flash in-camera, by using some kind of diffuse material over the lens such as a simple tissue or something more elegant and pointing their camera to the sky with a very short exposure time. I recommend using an enlarger if possible for consistency, but either method can work well if you’re careful to calibrate it.

The basic process for enlarger flashing is to first figure out what works for your enlarger. Set your enlarger to a specific height. I recommend putting your enlarger to a level that you can cover the largest film size you intend to ever use, such as 8x10 or 11x14 (keep in mind you can use this for internegatives also!). Cut a test strip and simply put the film under the enlarger and do a test strip like you would with paper, doing masked 1s exposures at f/22 or something else rather dim. Put a small mark with a marker or something on each block exposed. Keep one exposure block completely unexposed and mark it, to act as a reference for dmin. Afterwards you can process the film in a standard paper developer like Dektol. Make sure to develop for quite a bit longer than normally, maybe 3-5m with Dektol. Stop and fix as usual and then inspect. Look for when the film just barely gets more grey, it may be quite subtle. Count the marks up and write down the exposure level, lens used, and height of the enlarger. You can now use this setting for all flashing needs with that film type! When I use this method, I simply flash the film just before developing.

Chemical Flashing (ie, PFS-4)

The enlarger method is great and fairly simple, but I had a big problem with it. It’s simply impossible to reliably and consistently expose large strips of film. This isn’t much problem for traditional sheet film sizes, but for 35mm or 120 formats it’s quite impractical. Using this film at high speeds with smaller formats is ideal for my style so that I can reliably go hand-held on a bright sunny day.

Through an absolutely incredible number of experiments and wasting probably 30 rolls of custom cut 120 film, I found a reliable, shelf-stable, and easy to acquire chemical mixture that will function in a way very similar to flashing. I named this solution PFS-4 “post flashing solution version 4”. The formula for this is extremely simple:

375ml hot (~40C) water
75ml of TEA (triethanolamine)
50g potassium bromide
2ml of 1% potassium iodide solution (optional, seems to make fogging slightly less likely)
Top up to 500ml with water

For yellow technical grade TEA: Dilute to 1+30 for use. Process for 2-3m for Arista Ortho Litho.

For clear photographic grade TEA: Dilute 1+15 for use. Process for 3-5m for Arista Ortho Litho at 70F with VIGOROUS agitation (especially in tank development). For tray development do NOT stack multiple sheets and ensure the film is emulsion side up. It also seems to be quite temperature sensitive. Rinse film well before to remove anti-halation layer, and rinse film well afterwards to avoid residual TEA causing pH changes in the developer.

If you show this to any film chemist, they’d say that this should effectively do nothing. There’s absolutely no literature to back up how this solution works. I don’t know how it works, I just stumbled upon it by accident. However, the results speak for themselves.

Left, water bath control processed film. Right, prototype PFS-3 processed film

In this image are two strips of Arista Ortho Litho film shot and processed in the same development tank, and the top image being shot at ISO 0.8. The left was left in a “control” water bath for 4 minutes after rinsing. The right was put into an early version of PFS-4. (probably ~1:10 dilution, 4 minutes, and without iodide) instead of the water bath and then put into the development tank with the control strip of film. Both were then rinsed well and processed in a custom “D-23LC” very low contrast developer. As you can see, even when the film is completely clear on the left strip, there is a clearly recognizable grey card on the right strip. I haven’t done enough testing to say for sure, but I believe this process actually is more effective than normal light exposure style flashing at increasing the speed of the film.

Important note! Agitation must be vigorous and continual. Without agitation the film will quickly develop uneven fogging. In tank development it may even be necessary to leave one reel out of the tank to increase the amount of agitation you can do.

This method works well for Arista Ortho Litho, but has somewhat different results for Kodalith. Kodalith is naturally about 2 stops faster than Arista, and with PFS-4 only gains about 0.5-1 stop of speed. However, PFS-4 in this case will actually make the tonality of Kodalith smoother, with a less steep gradation from shadows to highlights. Kodalith is also naturally lower contrast than non-flashed Ortho Litho. With this in mind, I’d consider flashing to be optional for Kodalith film.

This has been tested with 4 brands of Ortho Litho film and has been confirmed to work. However, this will NOT work on “normal” materials. Tests include HP5+, Kodak positive microfilm, and Ilford MGIV RC paper. On HP5+ and the positive microfilm there was absolutely no difference between control tests. On the paper there was actually a speed decrease with some highlights failing to develop and weakened blacks.

Developers

Now, finally, lets move on to developers for high speed processing. Developer choice can give significantly different results with this film, so careful choice is required. I recommend trying a few different ones and then sticking with the one you like until you figure out exactly how you like it. For high speed processing with flashing, a low but not “very low” contrast developer should be used if speed and normal contrast is the priority. Very low developers often used for low speed processing of this film will actually leave you with flat, under developed, and very low contrast images.

Dektol

Dektol is actually a borderline decent high speed developer even without flashing. It can achieve ISO 6 with 1+30 by some reports, though I think ISO 3 is safer for that. With flashing it is quite a bit faster, but also more temperamental. With flashing I recommend 1+20, 2m development time to get mostly normal contrast values. ISO 20 works well here, but even up to ISO 32 it still has quite a bit of detail. It produces probably the finest grain for high speed developer choices and gives a really striking tonation. The biggest problem with Dektol is that it will produce fog somewhat quickly if used with PFS-4, and so should not be used for “pushing” (ie, shooting at slower speeds and developing for longer to bring up contrast and shadow density). If you are developing by inspection in a tray this may not be a problem, but for tank development it’s very difficult to not have fogging problems. The short development time also makes it difficult to keep consistent. This is an ideal developer choice if doing sheet film in trays by inspection and want to get it processed quickly. 500ml of Dektol 1+20 will exhaust after 2 4x5 sheets and can be replenished to an extent by adding ~1ml of stock per 100ml of working solution.. but for critical work I’d recommend remixing for each film. PFS-4 also degrades some with time, it begins to change at 4 4x5 sheets for 500ml. I’d recommend remixing it completely rather than trying to replenish.

DD-X

Mamiya 645 1000s, Arista Ortho Litho@12 ISO, PFS-4, DD-X 1+9

DD-X 1+9 ~6m can be really nice, but it behaves quite weirdly when used with PFS-4 flashing. It has poor over exposure latitude, being very likely to clip highlights. It can really extract a ton of shadow detail, but this may require pushing (ie, extending development time) to bring them into a printable density, which further compromises over exposure latitude. Unlike most processes, exposure guidance for contrast levels is somewhat the opposite as expected. If you want more contrast, over expose. For less, under expose it. For example, you can compare that above image with the one below.

Mamiya 645 1000s, Arista Ortho Litho@~32 ISO, PFS-4, DD-X 1+9

DD-X is also extremely fine grained, though seems to be less sharp as a result, unlike Dektol where all of the detail seems to still be there. Overall the results are nice, but I wouldn’t exactly recommend DD-X for this. It’s too easy to make exposure mistakes and lose a lot of highlight detail. It’s possible to reduce development time to reign in the highlights, but this makes the subtle shadows even more difficult than they are here to scan and basically impossible to print. Basically it has great mid tones but produces too long range of negatives where highlights and shadows are very far from each other. Maybe in some future process testing though it might make a great first developer for B/W slides though.

D-76

Mamiya 645 1000s, Arista Ortho Litho@20 ISO, PFS-4, D-76 1+3

D-76 1+3, 7m is currently my favorite for tank processing. It’s a great all around developer in this process producing shorter scale negatives that can be easily printed, normal but still.. “unusual” contrast and tonality, and gives a sharp but only somewhat fine grained image, with grain being easily resolved in 6x4.5 format with enlargement, maybe comparable to something like HP5+ in D-76 1+1. It’s fairly safe to expose between 6 ISO and 32 ISO. Definitely more exposure latitude than any other developer here. Unlike Dektol, this developer could be used for pushing fairly easily. It takes quite a bit more development before PFS-4 fogging will show up and even when it appears it stays fairly subdued. I’ve processed this film in sheet film tests at up to 10m with good results. This may be a good option if you really need all of the speed you can get and don’t mind the extra contrast. In my test I produced the negative under an enlarger, but at a semi-calibrated speed of 50 ISO. At this fast of a speed and normal development, film defects (tiny microscopic scratches, dust specks before exposure, etc) can really begin to become obvious due to lack of density, so pushing is recommended if using a speed faster than 25 ISO.

Low Speed Processing

Low speed processing is using the film without flashing or attempts to “speed boost” the film. In order to achieve reasonable contrast levels and shadow detail, the aim here is to shoot it at very slow speeds and massively under develop it to retain highlight detail. This typically results in quite colorful negatives, extremely fine grain, and much more “normal” looking contrast and tonality.

PMK Pyro

Yaschica Mat 124G, Arista Ortho Litho, PMK 1+1+100 6m30s, 0.8 ISO

This was one of the first developers I used with this film. It can be quite finicky and I highly recommend doing some test runs first rather than blindly following this.. but the results can be really nice. I found the best method was to expose the film at 0.8 ISO or slower. 1.5 ISO can work, but will be missing some shadow detail. The best developing process seems to be dilution at 1+1+100 and 6m30s with agitation every 30s. Contrast can be reduced further by agitating just every 1m, but this is likely to lead to uneven development and fog. Contrast can easily be controlled by shooting at a lower speed. With this developer, you can really get a mind blowing amount of over exposure latitude. It can go very low contrast, but you don’t really start losing details until you’re at whatever the speed for f/3.6, 30s in bright sunlight is. That’s right, you can stop down in daylight and shoot multi-second exposures with this very easily, with no ND filters. PMK naturally tans any film you use it with, but with this film can be especially colorful. This may make printing in the darkroom slightly more difficult, but I haven’t had any problems. Depending on exposure levels the color of the density can range from Orange, Olive green, Blue, and finally to 100% black. It seems that the tanning process actually increases perceived grain slightly with this film, but it is a very smooth and unobtrusive grain while detail remains sharp. There will also be some edge effects. Less agitation will increase the edge effects but sometimes it can actually be a bit much with some subjects.

Diana F (original), Arista Ortho Litho, ISO ~25, PMK 1+1+100 stand developed

Also, for fun I tried this with stand development and got… weird results. I don’t recommend it unless you want a very experimental look.. However, it was interesting that the results weren’t terrible for the high speed used.

POTA

This is a developer that must be mixed from scratch. The recipe is:

800ml of 120F water
1.5g Phenidone
30g Sodium Sulfite
fill to 1L with cold water

This developer is a real pain. Neither chemical will dissolve quickly, it must be used basically as soon as it cools down as it only keeps for ~4 hours or so, and it doesn’t actually work well with Arista Ortho Litho. This has been documented extensively as being the best developer for Kodalith film. It was historically invented and used for recording nuclear bomb blasts because it was noted to be capable of recording up to 12 stops of dynamic range on kodalith film. I haven’t personally tried this with Kodalith, so I won’t comment on that, but it definitely does not produce these results with Arista Ortho Litho. Regardless, it can be a really interesting combo to try if you don’t care about darkroom printing the results. The negatives are extremely fine grained, extremely long scale, very poor exposure latitude, and high contrast. If I ever use this again, I would probably limit myself to shooting only sheet film and using development by inspection to counter the exposure latitude problem. The process I tested was 7-9m (didn’t keep great notes, so no specific number) with normal agitation per minute.

Yashica Mat 124G, Arista Ortho Litho, ISO 3, POTA

Also, couldn’t resist adding one more interesting picture from this. The mid tones present are incredibly smooth, but the highlights and shadows are 100% white and 100% black. Would probably be beautiful in a positive process and projected, but very difficult to scan even using my DSLR scanning method and absolutely impossible to print even at grade 00.

DD-X

Yashica Mat 124G, Arista Ortho Litho, 1.5 ISO, DD-X 1+19 9m30s

This is one of the easier to use and stable developers for use in low speed processing, but I never took it “into the field” with important pictures, so I’d recommend testing first. Dilute to 1+19 and process for 9m30s and agitate per minute. (note: a second reference in my notes says only 6m… 9m30s sounds right though). This produces good results at a “high” speed of 1.5 ISO with completely normal contrast. However, it has practically no under exposure latitude and decent over exposure latitude. This tends to have much lower contrast with more exposure and higher contrast with less, resulting in higher contrast shadows and lower contrast highlights.

D-23LC

This is a very simple custom developer I created based on D-23. It is not just a dilution of D-23, but rather changes the ratios of things a bit. Recipe:

1000ml of water
1.5g metol
12g sodium sulfite

This developer will keep for a few days and should be used one-shot. Develop using the stand method for 35m. I wouldn’t necessarily say this developer is worth the hassle of a custom mixed developer, but I do believe it could be used for unique results similar to POTA, but with better exposure latitude and somewhat lower contrast. The real shining quality of this developer is that it produces completely invisible grain. I enlarged this to ~16x20 print size, and then used a 5x grain magnifier and could see no grain, just perfect square edges. My 40MP DSLR scans at 100% crop shows no grain:

Yaschica Mat 124G, Arista Ortho Litho, 3 ISO, D-23LC stand, 100% crop

The contrast of this developer is rather weird and definitely gives experimental results, but I think there is some potential in refining it some (maybe with some bromide). Note that this developer will produce unprintable negatives due to being extremely long range.

Lith Printing

Kodabrome paper (later lith developed) being exposed with a lith printed Arista Ortho Litho internegative made from slide film

This is definitely not something you can do in a camera, but it is possible to use lith printing (ie, very dilute lith developer) with Arista Ortho Litho. This is especially interesting to use for internegatives, and I’m also working on potentially using it for ambrotype-ish prints. If you have a need for internegatives, want very fine contrast control, and don’t mind a ton of grain then I’d say try it. It works very well for lith printing, though can be pretty slow at low temperatures. I recommend working at 90F+ if possible just to save your sanity.

Summary and Future Directions

If you want to experiment with Ortho Litho style films, choose either the high speed or low speed path and get to it! For high speed I recommend DD-X 1+9 as a starting point, and for low speed PMK 1+1+100. If you’re lost at where to start just run some tests. The Arista Ortho Litho film at least is literally the cheapest 4x5 film you can buy.

This concludes around 9 months of research with this film, and though I still take a few rolls and shoot at least 1 when I go on a trip, I’m taking a break from research on this film. I do want to refine PFS-4 to be less likely to fog the film, and in general figure out how it works, but I don’t intend to be too active in that direction. As I find out more I’ll update this blog post though.

Also, there’s been a lot of failures. My main goal in the beginning was to get the usable speed up to 12 ISO. This would mean it’d be pretty easy to go handheld with. With that goal I tried so many different things. One fork in the road led me to using Sodium Dithionite (active ingredient in Iron Out) which “ruined” some actual pictures I cared about because I didn’t account for non-homogenous powders and how ridiculously unstable dithionite is. After a lot of testing with trying to preserve dithionite in solution, I concluded that it’s just not the proper chemical. I read a ton of papers and patents trying to figure out ways of boosting speed and the TEA component came about from articles on using TEA to hypersensitize film, though that is before exposure not after. The bromide component came because the mixture originally contained dithionite and I needed to be capable of slowing down the fogging process so that it could be done at a controlled level… Basically a huge number of variables that led to me stumbling upon the solution for high speed processing. Even months after discovering it, I still do research occasionally late at night when I’m bored trying to find any mechanism that would explain it, but nothing yet.

For future directions, I will most likely not be cutting more Arista Ortho Litho in 120 format anytime soon, which means I’ll use it significantly less after I shoot the last roll I have on my shelf. I do 4x5 every now and then, but a lot more rarely than 120. I’d like to move beyond Arista’s film and fine tune things for some of the other films available, even if a bit more “normal” and less interesting, like the 100ft roll of kodalith in my cabinet and Ultrafine ortho litho 35mm. These allow me to take this to small formats where grain size is a bit more obvious and lenses are a bit faster. I also want to do research on some completely different film types including FPP’s direct positive film, ECP-2 print film, and others. I also will make a separate blog post about Ilford’s new Ortho film coming out in 120 and 35mm. I’m really hoping it can keep some of the unique magic for me that Ortho Litho films give, but reliably at 80 ISO without a need for flashing.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a gallery of my favorite ortho litho pictures that don’t really fit into this blog post elsewhere: