Digital BW, The Print

Hello Clarence,

>In reading an article containing the thoughts of Jon Cone it was 
>mentioned that while matte papers excel in their ability to 
>reproduce tones and depth, none of the non-matte papers receive the 
>ink as well and do not have the same quality. Previously, I had 
>thought that the opposite was true, and that matte papers wouldn't 
>have the depth and tonal range and depth. Do I need to reverse my 
>understanding? In having to choose between inks and papers to
>achieve depth and tone, are the matte papers superior?

This is really hard to answer because it's so subjective.  Terms like
"depth", "tone" and "recieve the ink as well" mean different things to
different people, and it can vary among different images.  I keep
around 10 different matte papers on hand.  Some have very hard smooth
surfaces and some have soft and/or textured surfaces, plus different
contrast curves, and it's amazing what a huge difference they can make
for any given image.  I recently did some testing with Silver Rag
using several different images, and some looked better on it and
others looked better on matte paper even with its lower dmax.  

Ultimately, these are individual aesthetic decisions.  Which ice cream
is superior, chocolate or strawberry?  IMO the only way you'll be able
to answer this question is to make prints of a variety of images on
several examples of both kinds of papers and come to your own conclusions.


Regards,
Clayton


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