Digital BW, The Print

Thanks for the depiction of your workflow. 

I find that MIS UT7, with 2200 CS2 & Epson driver, almost always beats
black-only. (I prefer Epson over QTR with UT7, but still use QTR with
Epson pigments)

I can produce the snappy black-only look with the full UT7 inkset, and
the detail resolution is higher than black-only because fine details
(including Nikon V-scanned film grain) aren't lost between the
black-only dots. Probably not relevant if one uses grainless
non-silver film, and not applicable above letter-size, where the dots
become smaller than the details. 

On the other hand, if the original file isn't highly detailed, as with
my rare 3.2 digicam files or unsharp color snapshots, black-only is a
good way to invent an impression of sharpness. 

Baryta coating has been standard with silver paper for a long time, it
wasn't just used on special high quality papers. 

Weston enthused about Kodabromide when it first came out (Daybook II).
Like almost all silver papers, with the exception of the plastic stuff
to follow, it was was coated on baryta. 

By the Sixties nobody still considered Kodabromide a "fine" paper Vs
Agfa and Dupont and even Ilford, all of which were baryta coated (with
the exception of the "rapid"-drying polyethylene papers and a few odd
types). I even have a couple of early-Seventies Agfacolor prints,
whose paper was baryta coated fiber (they still look good, amazingly).




--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "dmdctusa"
<dmdornctusa@...> wrote:
>
> I think that after a week of testing I have found Nirvana (or maybe 
> Near Nirvana, time will tell).  As background my wet darkroom 
> printing was 99% glossy paper which was air dried and my develper of 
> choice was and still is Harvey's 777.  This paper has gotten me 
> closer to the "look:" than any I have tried.
> 
> According to Harman's info, the coating base is Baryta, the same as 
> used for the base of high quality silver emulsion paper.  The 
> increase in sharpness and depth of the blacks when compared to other 
> matt papers is amazing.  NOTE: this is not an ILFORD injet product. 
> The Ilford injet paper business was acquired by another company from 
> Ciba-Geigy.  The Harmon injet paper shows the Ilford technology in 
> silver based papers.
>