Agreed Ken, but what I am saying is that perhaps all those "extra" controls are not necessary when things are calibrated properly.
From my experience until I learned the BTZS I had some of the same struggles Hogarth mentioned. Even with the zone system I often had either blown highlights and/or a morass of black with no separation, and of course to produce a "good" print required many of the tricks we all know, masking, flashing, 5 hands for dodge and burn, selenium intensification of the neg, etc, etc...then when I decided to print in pt/pd I realized I had to learn a better way to do this as those "tricks" are less effective and harder to do, so reading Davis's simple concept of "test your paper and adjust the negative to the paper" and putting it to use I have found I rarely have to do all those gymnastics I had to do before.
I will even go as far as saying that even with digital output, if you are still doing all that burning and dodging, masking, unsharp masking etc, you still do not have your process under control. Given than most people doing ink jet prints are printing in some kind of watercolor paper I am sure the reflection densities are not that different from a pt/pd print, yet as well calibrated your printers and monitors are, I bet few have taken the trouble to print a step tablet, see the exposure scale of your printed tablet and adjust your negative development so that when you scan it you get the same density range as the exposure scale of your paper.
My point is that is all a matter of proper testing and control of the materials. Of course, further aesthetic decisions might require the use of all these techniques, but they should not be the basis of saying "digital offers more control" or "digital is easier" since it is not if it is use to fix problems created by improper technique.
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