Problem with some of my Platinum Palladium prints today

[Jim Noel]

In his posts on this thread Vaughn has given some very good advice, especially concerning what to do after attending a workshop. Workshops are intended to give newcomers to a particular process a place to begin, not a place to end. Water quality, relative humidity, temperature, UV source, and many other things alter final prints.
Also I would add that "Haste makes waste". An old adage yes, but a most valid one. At one point the originator of this thread indicated having four prints in various stages of exposure and processing simultaneously. One at a time from beginning to wash helps to assure more consistent work. I had a student whom I frequently caught with 3 or 4 prints in developer trays in the school darkroom. His printing, in fact his photography in general, showed little or no progress from his first class to his last. This began over 10 years ago, and his printing skills still show little if any improvement.
Slow down, think, keep notes and your problems will become fewer.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

In his posts on this thread Vaughn has given some very good advice, especially concerning what to do after attending a workshop. Workshops are intended to give newcomers to a particular process a place to begin, not a place to end. Water quality, relative humidity, temperature, UV source, and many other things alter final prints.
Also I would add that "Haste makes waste". An old adage yes, but a most valid one. At one point the originator of this thread indicated having four prints in various stages of exposure and processing simultaneously. One at a time from beginning to wash helps to assure more consistent work. I had a student whom I frequently caught with 3 or 4 prints in developer trays in the school darkroom. His printing, in fact his photography in general, showed little or no progress from his first class to his last. This began over 10 years ago, and his printing skills still show little if any improvement.
Slow down, think, keep notes and your problems will become fewer.

Jim, very sound advice. You want to get it right. Follow procedures and take notes.

[lab black]

In response to your inquiry regarding Patrick Alt's suggestions in his Pt/Pd video, where he recommends metering shadows so that they are placed on zone IV, rather than zone III and processing film to N+1 rather than N, both techniques depend on the specific conditions that the photographer encounters. While open to interpretation, zone placement of shadows has been discussed at length by Bruce Barnbaum in his online, You Tube video, "Placing Shadows on Zone 1V,"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlnt5yFArWo

The successful practitioner of Pt/Pd print-making benefits from a firm understanding of negative development and negative density and how that impacts print quality. Rather than uniformly developing to N+1 for Pt/Pd negatives, Dick Arentz's book provides a wealth of useful information regarding negative density values. Dick and Patrick incorporate(d) divergent methodologies in their approaches to Pt/Pd print making and perhaps, after studying both disciplines, you can interpolate helpful techniques which best serve your specific needs. In addition, in the second edition of Dick's book, Platinum & Palladium Printing, Stan Klimek provides in depth details of paper humidification prior to printing which you may find to be of interest. Certainly, there are alternating views regarding this subject. Given the complexity of Pt/Pd printing, both Jim Noel and Vaughn offer sage advice to concentrate on methodically changing one variable at a time.