Digital BW, The Print

I think there are a couple of questions to be answered here.

First, what equipment is necessary to prevent reasonable hardware 
limitation?  My answer has only come this year, for black and white archival 
digital printing.  Since I hardly ever print bigger than 8 x 10, even when I 
did darkroom work for myself, the choice is easy.  Epson R220 printer, MIS 
carbon inks, and my trusty Finepix 3.2 mp camera.  Download Picasa II for 
free, and there you go!  Whatever appears before your camera can get to a 
black and white print, even without color converting.

Second question.   What skill is necessary to recognize good images that 
pass before your camera?  Here's the part that requires skill, taste, risk, 
luck, experience, fear, and perseverence.  The human application of 
technology is what we seek.  How does the person communicate?  What is the 
message in that simple image?  Did I miss something?

My machinery prints snapshots or compositions equally well.  It's my side of 
the camera that takes so much labor.

Frank Vincent


> >
> > Does anyone really want to tell me that it will require years of
> > experience and experimentation to get a system that will take a good
> > B&W image in screen, and make a large, gallery quality, archival print
> > from it?