Palladium coating trouble shooting

[cperez]

OK. Now that I'm beyond my initial challenge, what coating techniques most influence DMax?

What influence does the moisture content of the paper have on DMax?

If my work area is running between 55% and 70% humidity, do I need to "humidify" the paper?

If I wanted to increase the resolution of an image by including a very small amount of Platinum, can I take a 5ml bottle of 20% Pt and dilute it to 10% Pt and achieve the desired effect? Or do I need to stick with 20% salt solutions of metal?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I'll just answer the humidity question -
if your humidity is already in the 55-70% range, there is nothing additional you need to do to humidify the paper, as long as you are storing your paper in those conditions between printing sessions.

If your paper is too dry, the emulsion will become very slow, you will lose dmax, and you will likely have flocculation in the borders and in continuous tone areas. When printing, if you see significant flocculation in the border areas outside your negative before development, this is a sign that your paper may be too dry. Either that or your lights are running too hot and they are cooking the paper.