Digital BW, The Print

Ok, I did the coatings test on Silver Rag similiar to what I did on 
Innova F type that I reported earlier.  The best looking section of 
the Silver Rag print was coated with Premier Print Shield with no 
wax!  THe second best looking to my eye was the plain print with no 
coating - it did have evidence of gloss differential but did have 
luminous shadow detail.  The Premier Print Shield only section had 
zero gloss differential and slightly more "richness" 
and "luminosity" to the shadow detail.  There didn't seem to be much 
difference in the highlights. The third best looking was the wax on 
top of Print Shield - the fourth was the waxed only print with no 
spray.  Again the ClearJet Semigloss FA spray gave a veiled look to 
the print whether waxed on not.

Some caveats:
These were pretty subjective tests judged with only my eyes and a 
friend - we agreed on the results.  All were done on the same 
printer using the same K3 set of ink cartridges with the PK black. 
The differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places are very small, 
like barely noticable.  The same image was used for both tests, just 
printed on the different papers using the same printer setting for 
both.  The prints were evaluated on my desktop with a drafting light 
that had both a florescent and incadesent bulbs operating. Maybe 
using daylight would give different results.  I only had the 
ClearJet Semigloss FA spray - they make a lot of other types of 
sprays that may work better.  The semigloss kind of kills the 
richness of both of the papers tested.

What I learned:
For me, I will use Premier Print Shield spray with Silver Rag prints 
and will wax Innova F Type Gloss Ultra Smooth prints with Rennesance 
Wax.  I will use both papers, the innova has a white base whereas 
the silver rag has more of a cream color base.  Both papers give 
about the same tonal range with my printing scheme. Both make very 
lovely images. I think the gloss differential issue is overblown for 
framed work - you can't see it when framed behind museum glass.  It 
may be visable when looking at prints held in the hand - it takes a 
pretty acute viewing angle to see it on the uncoated section of the 
print.

This is what worked for me with my setup and my eyes for evaluation -
 I advise anyone interested to do their own testing to arrive at 
their own results.

Cheers,

TK