Digital BW, The Print

Thanks to the people who offered advice. I'll use it to the extent I  
can, stick with Printfix Pro (since I have a basic competence with  
its workflow) and keep plugging away.

I do feel compelled to point out that I went up the learning curve  
for fine silver printing beginning in about 1970, working primarily  
with Tri-X and Tri-X Pro, HC110-B, Ilfobrom, Seagull, D72 and Rapid  
Selenium Toner.  I know what a fine print looks like, I know how to  
process "archivally", and I know the importance of discipline and  
vision.  As a philosopher and law professor for twenty five years I  
also know something about learning and teaching a discipline.   
Digital B&W printing has progressed so rapidly in the past three  
years or so that we have not had time to find our Adams, White &  
Zachia, Picker, Rudman and so on for the new techniques. Some experts  
are in fact perfectly dreadful at explaining what they are doing...  
and now they have websites.

During the Silver era, you could get perfectly competent, no-nonsense  
information from Kodak, Ilford, Agfa and other manufacturers about  
how to use their products. You could not go wrong starting with their  
recommendations. Now we are offered products with incomplete, obtuse  
or non-existent information for proper use.  If I pay $300-$400 for a  
super new ink formulation that allows flexibility of tone while  
printing on either glossy or matte surfaces without exchanging black  
cartridges, is it really too much to expect a simple set of  
instructions for: 1) printing on glossy paper; 2) printing on matte  
paper; 3) making the print tone warmer; 4) making the print tone  
cooler; 5) testing for and correcting gross mismatches between  
expected range of tones and actual range of tones? If these things  
are so obvious that a supplier would not expect the end user to need  
such information, then the instructions should be very easy to write  
and post on a website. If these things are too complex to be  
explained by the manufacturer or supplier, this fact should be  
clearly conveyed to buyers so that people who prefer not to learn by  
guess and by gosh can choose another product and get on with their  
photography.

Myron