Adding Na2 to Stock Palladium Solution

I had been printing Pd and developing in potassium oxalate without using a restrainer with good results.
Have just seen the advantage to adding some Na2. With the Na2 I see perfectly pure paper white in the highlights. The difference is small, on Fabriano Artistico I see LAB L of 96 without the Na2 and 97 with. But given the effort put into the printing I'd like to get out if it all the range possible.
Seems that Arentz, Reeder, and Nelson, who all suggest printing with restrainer, are on to something.
So I'm now re-calibrating my digital negatives to print with Na2 added at the Pd2S level.
Since I'm printing with digital negatives and not using the Na2 for contrast control it seems that the simplest thing would be to add the Na2 to the Pd stock solution. This would save the effort and variability resulting to adding it separately to the sensitizer for each print.
Has anyone experience trying this?

Harlan Chapman said:

Has anyone experience trying this?

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IMO, this would be bad practice. What if you screw the dilution up? Or need a different contrast later?

Don Bryant

Hey Harlan, how ya doing?

When I replaced my UV bulbs a few months ago and recalibrated all my curves ( kallitype not pd ) I did a similar thing. I upped my restrainer in the developer as it seemed to give me better whites and easier clearing. I did pay a modest price in increased exposure time and I am a bit concerned about maintaining a consistent level of restrainer in the developer as I reuse it. But so far so good.

Go for it Harlan. I know you're not the kind of guy who would screw up the dilution. That said, I can get paper white in my digital negs without it, so I generally don't use it.

Hello Kerik,
I'd really like not to use the restrainer. But I just can't seem to get the paper white without it. Can you see improvements I could make in my workflow for developing and clearing that might help?:
Using oxalic soaked Fabriano Artistico per your prep, fresh ferric oxalate, using safelight for the first 30 seconds in the potassium oxalate and 5 minutes total, directly into 4% citric acid for 5 minutes (use this one-shot), quick water rinse, then two 5 minute clearing baths of sulfite/edta.
I hope you are doing well and shooting happily!
-Harlan

Harlan,

This shouldn't be a clearing issue. If you coat a small piece of paper and develop and clear as normal, do you end up with the coated area back to paper white? If it's slightly gray, that's fog. If it's slightly yellow, that's poor clearing. If you consistently get fog, go ahead and add the Na2 and don't fret. If you get paper white you should be able to accomplish this with your digital negs. I do this with QTR by fiddling with black boost and gamma.

I'm doing pretty well, but still on the slow road to healing. This weekend I made my first plates in several months, so that's a good sign.

I agree with Kerik. Add a bit of Na2 to the palladium mix if you like and don't worry about it. However, in my opinion Na2 is not necessary if, 1) your clearing practices are sound, and 2) your Ferric Oxalate solution is fresh.

Sandy