ABSTRACT
Salted paper, although a silver nitrate process similar to black and white paper, is not an enlarger printing process because it is too slow to expose under the low-wattage of an enlarger. It is a contact printing process, where the negative is exposed in direct contact with the sensitive emulsion. This means the final image is the same size as the negative. Back in the early days of photography before digital, it took some forethought to get the negative contrasty enough to match salted paper's extended exposure scale. Negatives of normal density that would print well in most processes would print dull, low-contrast salted paper prints. A negative could be overdeveloped to stretch the contrast to fit salt, but then it would be too contrasty to use for other processes. Addressing contrast through the digital negative is the first and best line of defense to printing high quality salted paper prints.
