Black and White Printing

[Peter J. De Smidt]

This thread reminds me about the Fred Picker demo prints that I bought before the internet was available to me. I bought into the notes and waited patiently for each issue. At the time I thought I was a pretty good printer and I was being told that if I bought these wonderful prints and put them in my darkroom , the beauty of them would inspire me to become a better printer overnight.
So I bought them, waited with great enjoyment in knowing I was going to see the best prints in the world.
Well they arrived, I took one look at the chalky whites and dead blacks and with a lesson learned threw them into bin 9 where they belonged.
I have had the luck to be able to see most processes including piezo , digital fibre, cannon black whites, enlarger black whites, platinum, azo, gum,carbon, tricolourcarbon,................
which one is better, depends on the viewer and their tastes.

I agree with Bob, both about Picker's sample prints and subjectivism concerning which printing method is best. I've printed with both Piezography (the current version), and QTR with K3 and K4 (MIS) inks. Each of these processes when fine-tuned can produce beautiful prints. There are differences, sure, but none clearly blows the other out of the water.