A Castle in the Clouds

...have you tried brayering Versamark ink directly on the female half of the embossing folder? This will add your ink to your image as it's being textured. Dump your powder on the textured image, shake off, and heat. You're powder-embossing the flat (not raised) parts of the image, but it's going to give you the same contrast as hand-inking all the raised parts (in a fraction of the time). Wash the folder with soap and water for easy clean-up.