Digital BW, The Print

Paul,

>The Hawk Mountain version is said to be 310 v. 300 gsm for the
>thicker Entrada

I just looked at the Hawk Mtn website and it lists Condor BW at 300.


>Eclipse used to flake badly.  I'm afraid Entrada is plagued with 
>the same problem.  I have not used enough Condor BW to know.

I've used one box of Condor BW at this point and found the flaking to
be controllable by a firm wipe with a soft cloth (old T-shirt)
followed by a shot of compressed air (I do this procedure with all
cotton papers).

With PR on the other hand I find myself discarding 15 to 20% of prints
_after_ the same procedure.  I have quite a few prints with large
areas of black and all it takes is one little flake to ruin it.  It's
maddening.  

So far Condor has been very satisfactory.  The only prints I've lost
were quickie test prints that I didn't bother to wipe.  It's really
nice stuff, only for some images the cold highlights are just too
harsh, and that's where I like Merlin Smooth.  It's warmer paper color
softens the highlights, and its ink color is quite cool.  I find it's
Dmax to be fine in many cases - it just depends on the image (I love
Dmax as much as anyone, but I've found that many images can be very
powerful without PhotoRag).  PR is now on "last resort" status for me
- only if nothing else will do.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm