Digital BW, The Print

Ansel demonstrated the same thing years ago...exquisite potential
precision matching tone-for-tone using halftone and printing press. 

HOWEVER that perfect match isn't necessarily "better" than optical,
it's just different. Changes in the course of copying are often
visually "better." 

The original topic here dealt with "certification" of originality, ie
a fraud question: fraud be much easier optically than with ink,
especially as the original wasn't a halftone :-)

In reality, few know or care if a copy matches an original with
tone-for-tone precision, they attend to the looks of the image,
perhaps not even thinking to ask about authenticity. 

Many of Ansel's originals can certainly be optically copied and
reprinted to "look better" (you know this if you've seen his early and
occasionally not-so-great Polaroid work)...one can improve on an
original with scan and lithography as well...was actually demonstrated
by Ansel himself, when he went back to his originals to produce his
ultimate book.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Tim Atherton"
<timatherton@...> wrote:
>
> If you follow Richard Benson's line, you can make a much better copy of 
> a photograph via printing (press) than by photographic copy....
> 
> as he did with the book Photographs from the Gilman Paper Collection
> 
> http://www.ursusbooks.com/item37462.html
>