Digital BW, The Print

Hey Everyone;

I have been printing with MIS VM inks, the Epson 1280 and Paul's curves
on a Mac for many months. What I have found in my inkjet printing and
how it differs from traditional B&W darkroom printing has been a VERY
interesting education. What I have found is that my success with inkjet
printing is very image dependent.

Higher contrast images with lots of detail, such as architectural photos
or still lifes, print quite problem free without much work. The
resulting prints have a better tonal range and better detail then my
silver prints! 

Lower contrast images with very smooth tonal gradations and large
patches of midtones such as portraits and nudes are where my inkjet
prints run in to problems. Often, the tonal gradations are not printing
smooth and sometimes look a bit and funky and digital, not photographic.

I am scanning from very well exposed medium format B&W negatives in 16
bit, making slight curve adjustments, and down sampeling to 8 bits for
printing. I am using an Agfa T2500 . I think my workflow is sound.

Does anyone who is using a professional RIP find that they can get
better tonal transitions than with the Epson driver and Paul's curves? I
know that if I wanted to go to a professional RIP I would have to switch
over to the MIS  FS inks.

Any insight would be much appreciated!

-Jeff