Digital BW, The Print

Tyler,

>Just a quick note. I've framed Piezo prints only behind plexi at this
>point. It's a toss-up, some of the sumptuous surface 
>quality is lost, but they definitely pick up apparent density range.

That's what the general consensis seems to be, but it wasn't my 
experience...but I used glass, not plexi. I used Torchon paper for this 
show which does give very deep blacks and I found the prints lost 
something behind glass - in the deep velvet blacks of the original image, 
that hard to define three dimensional quality and in the subtleties of 
tone, not to mention paper surface characteristics. I dunno. One of the 
advantages of Piezo printing is the possibility to use fine art papers 
and not just what is available (less and less) for darkroom use, meaning 
that the physical print itself gains more weight (pun intended) as a fine 
art object. Of course it is mainly the image that counts, but why have 
folks over the centuries printed/written/drawn on a wide variety of 
papers if the substrate too isn't involved in the artistic endeavor?

As I mentioned, I have no experience with plexi but glass seems to me to 
detract from the prints, not add anything positive.

Cheers,

Nina

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., ncm <ncm@m...> wrote:
...I used Torchon paper for this 
> show which does give very deep blacks and I found the prints lost 
> something behind glass - in the deep velvet blacks of the original image, 
> that hard to define three dimensional quality and in the subtleties of 
> tone, not to mention paper surface characteristics.

Mine are on Wells River which is a very different surface. Actually, I agree with Steadman, I like bare prints best.
Whew, say that ten times fast and see if you don't get into trouble.
Anyway, silver, alternative processes, quadtone, all of it seems to lose a bit of the special qualities of the paricular 
materials.
Tyler