This has been a great thread and I'm happy to see so many salt printers. I've been making salt prints for a few years now and have given up film, ambrotypes, etc to shoot specifically for salt. I think they're the prettiest images. Just a few humble observations based on what I've read;
Ellie Young's book is a must have for anyone who wants to pursue this process.
I use Arches Platine paper only. I find that I don't have any staining problems that I do with other paper and I like the tone it produces.
I like to use a well washed (distilled water) foam brush to apply my silver nitrate, I use a coating rod for bigger prints.
I found that the tone of a print has to do with four things; salt type (sodium or ammonium), paper type, negative density and toner (whether you choose to tone or not).
My prints got A LOT better when I bought a densitometer. A density around 1.5-1.8 works best for me because it gives a nice deep chocolate brown/black tone. I make wet plate negatives so its easy for me to check how the density is coming along as I redevelop the negative.
Here's a photo I made a few weeks ago for a Christmas card. It took me about 20 hours to build and shoot the diorama. The the moon was printed on vellum paper and taped to a hole I cut out in the black paper background. The scene was a 4 minute exposure at f4 and the moon was 45 second exposure at f4.
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