After etching, the steel will be very dark and usually two tone if all went well. The hardened steel will be black and the unhardened steel above dark gray. But this is just residue from the etching. That will scrub away with a little light rubbing or even rinsing. You probably will need to polish the blade then, to some degree at least, with something.
You could try flitz metal polish, auto buffing compound, loose abrasives or even 1200 or 1500 grit sandpaper. This will start to really show what's there and what isn't.
A good quick easy thing to clearly see what's there is to etch heavily, like 30-45 seconds completely immersed in the ferric chloride, not just wiped on then spray it with windex and scrub it with baking soda or comet cleaner on a cotton pad. This will scrub away the black and dark gray residue and leave everything a more uniform dull gray color, but at this point the hamon line should be easily visible. Then you can try your various polishings from there to highlight and accent the line and any other activity.
One other thing to mention....it is imperative that your blade is completely free of any oils or contaminates of any kind. These will mess with your etch. You also want to make sure that all the scale/decarb from heat treating is ground away and a good even finish is on your blade.
In your original pic, there are some shiny spots that look like either scale or decarb left from heat treating or else something that you cleaned the blade prior to etching with that didn't get completely removed.