Development Question

I primarily use replenished Xtol mostly due to the lower toxicity and how economical. It works nicely for my medium format films and generally they print well using a grade 2 filter.

My question comes as I begin to get more serious about palladium printing. I have made a series of exposures on 8x10 fp4 and am trying to work out the development so I can get the correct density range of around 2.0. It was an overcast day so the light was fairly flat so I metered at 160 to hopefully increase contrast. Developed in Xtol for 20min(my usual time is around 11min) I achieved a density range of approximately 1.4.

In an effort to see if the negative could indeed achieve the correct density range I developed one of the negatives in PQ universal 1+9 for 8 minutes. The negative ended up being very close to what I wanted but was slightly over developed with a density range of 2.2-2.4. It printed well but as expected was a little dense in the highlights.

I may have rambled a bit, but ultimately my question is would I be able to achieve the same density range using Xtol by just developing longer or would there be a point of diminishing returns where it wouldn’t get any more density?

The closest comparison I have is TMAX-100 that I develop in D-76. After 20 minutes in stock XTOL, if you only got 1.2 density range you probably would get 1.6 density range after 50 minutes. So I think you need more light, or you were wise to switch to paper developer in this scenario.

Yep, something like 20 minutes in stock xtol should get you close. And don't underexpose "to boost contrast" - you want pretty much all the shadow detail and highlight density you can get. Although 1/3 stop underexposure is of course virtually negligible in a real world setting...

And yes there's a "law of dimishing returns" but you should be able to easily get beyond 1.4 with xtol, so nowhere near that point yet.

Well I think the PQ will do for this set of negatives. But I’ll have to look at the way I am metering and make sure I’m giving the film plenty of exposure the next time I’m out.
I think I was wary of having printing times that were excessively long from an overly dense negative, but if I can’t make a suitable negative that doesn’t matter anyway.

Thanks for the advice.

FP4+ in Ilford PQ Universal is what I have used with great success for platinum/palladium printing (I use pt/pd at a 1:2 ratio and no contrast agent). Depending on the SBR, the phase of the moon, current weather conditions, and the process to be used for printing, I have used PQ from 1:19 to 1:9. Jobo Expert Drum (3005) on a motor base. For carbon printing, I use the same routine for developing the film, though usually at 1:9 and higher temp/time (DR of 2.8 to 3). I keep notes, but usually can't find them.