How To Create A Lith Print

Part of the joy of Digital Photography is the way that your images can be manipulated after the event and the ease with which you can incorporate software like Photoshop into your workflow.  I enjoy making images that look nice even if it is clear that they have been ‘altered.’  The other great thing about this manipulation is that you can create images that look like they have been taken with special equipment.  Today I’m going to show you how to make you images look like a lith print.

Original lith prints are overexposed black and white photos that are subjected to a specific developing process that creates a certain, specific, look to them.  For more information there is a great resource at Lithprint.com. This look can be replicated within Photoshop quite easily and I shall explain how here.

First you need a photo.  It needs to be a photo that will look good in black and white.  To change your photo to black and white (if it is not already) in Photoshop press Ctrl+Shift+U.  I have chosen the photo below:

Now you need to give the photograph a hue.  To do this you need to ensure that the mode is set to RGB and not grayscale (Check in the Image -> Mode menu item) then you should open a new adjustment layer.  This is done either through the menu at Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Hue/Saturation or by selecting Hue Saturation from the New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layer Palette (The circle which is half black and half white).  On the pop up box that appears you will need to tick the Colorize box and then alter the Hue and Saturation sliders until you are happy with the colour of your photo.  For the photo here the hue has been set to 52 and the saturation 25.

Once you are happy with the hue you will need to add grain to the picture.  The easiest way to do this is through the Film Grain filter. First duplicate the layer you have been working on and then apply the film grain filter to the copied layer. For the below picture I used a grain of 6, highlight of 11 and Intensity of 6. At first this looks quite strong but this layer now needs to be set to an Overlay blending method (the choices for this method are at the top of the Layer Palette). This should reduce the grain effect somewhat. You can apply the Gaussian blur filter if it still looks too sharp.

You now have two images blended so the best way to correct the image is to open another adjustment layer but this time select Brightness/Contrast.  You should aim for a fairly contrast heavy photo but ensure that the brightness is set so you can still see the detail.  In order to bring out the branch detail in this photo I set the Contrast at 42 and the Brightness at 61.

You are left with a photograph that looks a bit more like an antique Lith Print.  The best part about the whole process is that it is non destructive.  By using adjustment layers you can turn each one on or off to see what cause it has on the overall effect.  Alternatively there are filters that will achieve this effect for you.  A free lithograph filter can be found in set 1 at Xero-Plugins.