[alt-photo] Your Approach to Making Negs for Platinum Printing? Ideal Negative Contrast and Dmax?

[Francesco Fragomeni]

Hi all,

Some of you may have touched on this in conversations in the past but I've
tried searching archives and can't find specifically the discussion I'm
looking for. There is also a lot on the Internet which broadly discusses
making negatives for platinum but I haven't found any source for my specific
interests. I've always been a silver printer and am very acclimated to
making ideal negatives for how I print in silver gelatin. Now that I'm
venturing fairly aggressively into platinum, I'm very interested in hearing
how you all approach making your negatives for platinum. I'm speaking
specifically about in-camera negatives (no digital negs or other processes
here). Achieving the ideal contrast for platinum is what I'm interested in.
For silver, a negative with a contrast range of around 3.5 stops will print
well on a grade 2 filter or paper. There is also a ideal negative dmax that
some people use as a standard to shoot for but I'm not sure what that number
is. As I understand it, platinum calls for greater contrast to take
advantage of the longer tonal range of the platinum process. I've heard many
approaches for achieving this but I'd like to hear from those of you here.

Some specific questions I'm very interested in knowing answers to include;
is there an ideal contrast range that you are shooting for with your
platinum negs and is there an established ideal dmax for platinum negs?

Thanks in advance for the insight.

-Francesco