Yes. I read several of your posts and they are very informative. Thank you for responding. In the past I didn’t use the MK for any other process than salt and albumen. These two just seem to need so much more density to get a good print. For my palladium I was also using PK. I have used Stouffer step wedges in the past and am not adverse to using them again. I was basically doing a film base fog test with a piece of pictorico. First instance where I could get the blank transparency film to disappear was my starting point for exposure. After successfully getting to that density, then I tried to print a Colorport 256 step image for the i1Pro. The highlights started fogging much earlier than I expected. I cut my time in half and tried again, still fogged. So I cut it in half again and still pretty fogged but my blacks also started to look weak. I am using one of the UV boxes that B&S sold from Edwards Engineered Products.
I used to be pretty indifferent to salt because the prints always looked super flat to me. Then I started making some wet collodion negatives and re-intensifying them to get more highlight density. (specifically developing them for salt) Using these negatives I was getting salt prints that I absolutely loved. Ironically I printed these collodion negatives in the sun light and they are still the best salt prints I have ever made. Trying to duplicate them in my UV box I haven’t been as happy. I can’t seem to get anywhere close to the results I get with collodion negatives with digital negatives. I used the 3880-PiezoDN-Master.quad to print the negative. I was just beginning the linearization process but stopped because I wasn’t happy with my results. Just for curiosity I took that same negative (just to rule out that I had done something stupid in printing it) and printed it with palladium and got a very nice linearization completed with it. I am gelatin sizing the paper and using ammonium chloride and a 15% solution of silver nitrate. I am pretty consistent with my processing. I only leave out gold toning when I am working out the kinks.
Any pointers you have I would gladly try.