Digital BW, The Print

Hello Shilesh and Johnny,

Thanks for sharing your experiences. In an earlier post I wrote about
my quest for a perfect coating for matte papers and found myself
growing fonder of the uncoated matte print. Is there such a thing as a
coating that boosts dmax to 2.2 and leaves alone the beautiful tactile
feel?

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Johnny Eades"
<jeades1@s...> wrote:
> ... I hedge because I have some images which need to be 
> printed on glossy in order to gain the richness in the lower Zones 
> (I-III). I have some images which when printed on Matte paper seem 
> to have a veil of light gray over the shadow areas (I-III) that seem
> to diminish the richness of detail that is evident there.

I agree with Johnny that there are prints you must must make with a
paper with very high dmax, those with important shadow details. But
those that are higher key with soft features actually benefit from
softer shadows as as attempt to map a black point to zero may make
make the subject too harsh.

> ... a trick from my darkroom days of rubbing some oil from my nose 
> into one of the areas I needed to increase the richness  there... 
> That improved the richness of the shadows, but went right through 
> the paper and enabled light to shine through from behind

Why didn't I think of this before  :)  I actually tried Dorland Wax
Medium for a while and gave up. It's just too much work.

I found that matte papers of the ultrasmooth sort gives as high a dmax
with a much more luxurious feel than glossy when coated with my
favorite water-based polymer coating mediums.

> ... There is always learning to be done in Photography, which is 
> what keeps it from become stale. I find myself changing my opinions 
> quite often and do not care to become stagnated simply because of my
> own unwillingness to make changes in workflow or technique.

I couldn't agree more.

Best regards,
--nick