Digital BW, The Print

> but one wonders IF one really worked to calibrate the wet
> process, to match the paper and development to the negative, if
> it's analog
> con-tone advantage wouldn't win the day...

Well, I did have a VERY highly calibrated workflow, from meter to lense to
camera shutter/aperture to film to film development to
enlarging/lense/paper/development...etc, and you still can't do curves like
you can with digital.  You can move some things around in analog (and I
still do with film, so that part of the equation is still the same, such as
development compensation to expand my tonal range)...but nothing in the wet
darkroom beats tonal curves.

> Ultimately, it's the whole gestalt of the process that has one prefer one
> over another anyway, I suppose.

IMO, with digital printing...I get better tonality, and I get the prints
done a lot faster...so for me, and I thought I was pretty good in the
darkroom, I believe I get better images with digital printing than I ever
did in the darkroom.  Tough negatives are a LOT easier...and some that would
have been near impossible in a wet darkroom, are easy in digital land.

Regards,

Austin