Digital BW, The Print

I am obtaining smooth gorgeous prints with UT2 Inks on 1280 with 
Epson sliders out of Picture Window 3.5.  As a mater of fact a 
smoother tonal ramp than with the curves.  However my output from 
Photoshop 7.0 is awful no matter what.  I don't really care I just 
print from Picture Window.  It's just kind of a mystery to me.  All 
my settings are right.  Just kind of curious why the output would be 
so different.  My output from Photoshop with Paul's curves or the 
sliders is totally blotchy large areas of the tonal ramp are totally 
missing.  Most obvious is 95-100. Gorgeous, smooth as silk out of 
Picture Window.  Very strange.  Like to hear some opinions on this 
one.  I'm scratching my head.  I have been a user of Photoshop for 
over 10 years and Picture Window starting with version 3.0 for 2+ 
years.