Digital BW, The Print

A few years ago when I decided to forgo building yet another darkroom in 
another house - it may have had something to do with a divorce 
threat:-). I was disappointed that I could not exactly reproduce the 
look of my silver prints fiber based gloss photographic paper.

Over the past year I have learmed to appreciate what my 1280 and VM inks 
can do on Photo Rag. I just got a set of UT carts so I'm looking forward 
to that. No it will never reproduce the same images as Brillance or 
Seagull, but I've learned to look beyond that to look even more to the 
image. The highlights on this paper with the VM ink are subtle and 
delicate. The highlights on Seagull can hit you in the head. There is a 
difference and after a time I've have come to appriciate the strengths 
of digital prints on matt paper.

It's not better, but it's not inferior. It's a different medium. I have 
almost come to the conclusion that we are some how chasing the Holy 
Grail trying to do the same exact thing we did the the darkroom with 
paper and ink. I have - after lots of practice - some very nice images 
on Photo Rag. In fact I have some of the same negatives printed on Photo 
Rag that are better than I could ever get them in the wet darkroom on 
Seagull.  Of course some images will require to high dynamic range (high 
Dmax) that can't be achieved on matt paper. But all in all I am quite 
pleased with what I am now seeing coming out of my printer.

So pleased that I will give the paper companies a few more years to 
figure out this bronzing problem. After they do I will add glossy papers 
to my stock but I sure won't stop printing on matt paper.

Truman