Digital BW, The Print

John, Your observations are in accord with mine, and you've expanded
on them usefully. 

I think we've discovered that QTR and BO each serve certain purposes
better than the other. In particular, the quest for sense-of-sharpness
in certain images favors Black Only.

Also, I concluded after the recent Black-Only print exchange that BO
loses detail in the dots (while sometimes  looking especially 
"sharp") in small prints, but it is less distinctive and loses less
detail in larger prints because of the diminished importance of the
dots as size increases. 

You mentioned sharpening. I found CS2's "more sharpen" crudely useful,
but it added subtle jaggies. Extra USM did what extra USM does:
halos...but it didn't add sharpness. Modest "smart sharpen" in shadows
moved QTR into BO sharpness territory. Problem with all of this is
it's subjective, requires a lot of experimentation/proofing. If the
image is worth it, I suppose. But I want to come up with something
more predictable/reliable.



  "John Moody" <moodymz3@y...> wrote:
> 
> The BO is sharper than QTR, more so near graphics like lettering,
less so
> where the local contrast is less, and not at all sharper in low contrast
> areas like sedimentary canyon walls.  Everywhere QTR has more detail,
> although it appears softer

Qualification: "appears softer" literally means "less sharp." I have
this problem with some grasses that are out of focus prettily but are
also fuzzed excessively by QTR.