Digital BW, The Print

That has been my experience also. William Turner and G. Etching
"appear" to produce deeper richer blacks, especially with monochrome,
than smoother excellent fine art papers, although they don't measure
that way. The reflection theory makes total sense to me and although I
have thought about that, I've  never heard anyone actually articulate
it in regard to the various coatings of matte textures. I guess that
could be a characteristic of all types of printmaking media, but
especially coated stock.

Also, if we really want to take this further (I don't really) this
visual-psychological aspect of print tonality is AS important or more
important than densitometer readings of dmax values when evaluating
any papers shadow rendition when exibited in the real world. It is
unsetteling, but true. And, we also have the glass, plexiglass that 
changes things too.

I do belive people have talked about this reflection phenomena that
may render a glossy prints shadow less dense visually than one on a
good matte rag, while showing a far greater dmax when measured
scientifically. When you get these glossy prints in a gallery or
museum you are talking about even more surface reflections and
scattered light.  That is one of the reasons I never get hung up on
dmax numbers and when I hear them I take them with a grain of salt. I
think they are just one thing to look at among many, even the scale of
an image should be taken into account.

John


By the way, that Crane MMax is certainly not revolutionary like they
claimed. I kind of expeced that was all hype, and its not that bright
either. It is really where they should have been 5 years ago.

John




> it's down to measurement error, or so close as to be visually the
> same) but the more textured surfaces seem to have blacker blacks than
> PhotoRag. I speculate this is because a smoother surface may begin to
> have a slight bit of actual though very diffuse reflection or sheen of
> the ambient light in the room. William Turner, German Etching, and
> White Velvet being more textured might break that up more. You know,