It's a paper coating issue. I've had it happen with Fotokemika Emaks, Fotokemika Varycon, Foma 132, and Kentmere Kentona.

Lith has a tendency to reveal defects in the paper that simply doesn't show up with regular chemistry, for various reasons I am unfamiliar with. What's particularly difficult is that it isn't consistent from batch to batch, unless you use something like Ilford Warmtone, in which case it'll be consistently good without such artifacts.

Good luck in sorting it out!


Quote Originally Posted by f/stopblues View Post
I'm just checking in with my regularly scheduled lith issues

I'm getting these lighter toned streaks running up the portrait orientation of my Foma 111 16x20 paper. I used this paper before in 11x14 without this happening, although at that time I was using LD-20 developer and now I have the Moersch stuff.

I tried agitating the opposite direction of the streaks to no avail. My only suspicion is that they are some kind of mark showing up from when the paper was coated. I should mention that I've used this same package of paper for straight printing and there was no hint of streaks.

So, any ideas? Chalk it up to bad paper and call it a day? Or is there a wildcard I may be overlooking?

Technical details: Fomabrom 111, Moersch A+B 1+1+18 (yes, it's strong!)

Version 1 at +3 stops:


Version 2 at +2 1/2 stops: