For those who haven’t seen the palladium printing process end-to-end, I thought I’d share a moment from the process to let you see the magic happen. It’s a much faster process than silver printing, in the development stage. The image, when exposed but not yet developed, is a “ghost” image. You can generally see the form, but not the fine details, nor the overall tonality. Depending on the overall image tonality, you may see very little at all inside the exposed borders of your print. This is why it is a good idea to coat outside the borders of your image (but not too much- every drop of emulsion costs money!) – you can judge proper exposure by looking at your borders if you’re not used to printing.

Then, pour on the developer, and WHOOSH! Magic!

And the finished print:

This was from a 35mm infrared shot, scanned and enlarged on Pictorico transparency media.

If you’re curious what a digital negative even is, or what it looks like, here’s the negative for that shot: