Digital BW, The Print

"Clayton Jones" <cj@...> wrote:

> I'm not taking sides here, Bruce and Paul's views are both 
> correct and realistic. 

I think where we left it was essentially this same position.  The 
differences in the viewing enviroment, mostly relating to lighting, 
makes all the difference.  We all want deep blacks and the highest 
dynamic range.  Whether matte or glossy (whether glossy inkjet or air 
dried silver print) deliver the best dynamic range depends on the 
viewing environment and lighting.

>... I fall in with Paul on the reflection issue.
> 
> > For me, reflections are the enemy -- 

While during the day the matte print did better in most areas of my 
house, I tried the same comparison at night.  There, where the light 
was much more weighted to the spots and floods, and there was much 
less ambient, diffuse light from the windows being reflected off the 
white ceiling and light walls, the glossy print did better. 

With really good lighting those spectrophotometer dmax figures that 
favor the glossy prints turn out to be quite right.  My house, like 
most office environments (and, unfortunately, the gallery I'm 
involved with) are dominated by rather diffuse lighting that causes 
all sorts of reflections off the glossy surfaces of print and glass.  

The  reflections off the surface off prints and the glazing is, I 
think, a type of luminance noise.  The more we can reduce it the 
better.  Whether a matte surface or glossy surface does a better job 
is very dependent on the viewing environment.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com