Digital BW, The Print

During the workflow for VM printing, it's wrong to use curves to 
adjust the tonal range of the image, then apply the PR tone curve? 
The right way would be to apply a PR tone curve, then using that 
curve make adjustments there? (I apologize as I can be thick-headed 
sometimes<g>) The past few images I've been trying it the latter and 
I'm not quite there yet, but I'm closer than I ever was.


I had another question not regarding the VM curves, but my 1280 
printer. It gives out a high pitch squeal as it's printing. I'm kind 
of thinking it's something to do with the rod that the heads slide 
on. My question was what would be a good lubricant to use on the rod 
(no pun intended) to see if that does fix it? I appreciate any help 
about these questions. Thank you all so much.

matt