Recently I posted the following and got slammed for it.

"Beautiful prints can also be made on Pt/Pd paper. But few prints on Pt/Pd paper are truly beautiful. Usually, they are muddy (some would say "dreamy") and do not often have rich blacks."

Why this comment elicited hostility is a mystery to me. The above is my opinion of platinum prints I have seen. Note that I did say that beautiful prints can be made on platinum. Later I added that I had seen some exceptional platinum prints--I was particularly of thinking of Irving Penn's platinum prints.

In a wonderful article comparing platinum prints to Azo prints, Bob Herbst, had 1.43 as the maximum density for platinum prints, and it is my understanding that densities in that area are generally accepted as standard.

At the printing plant in Belgium where Paula and I are printing our new Tuscany books they have a Platinum printing atelier. (Next year they will add a Carbon printing atelier and a Dye-Transfer atelier.) I found that they not only make the finest book reproductions (no one else can print 600-line screen quadtone, and 10-micron stochastic printing does not quite come up to it--they do that, too), they also make what are, in my opinion, the finest platinum prints I have ever seen. They get densities in the blacks, on platinum prints, of up to 2.1. Their platinum prints are so rich, that Paula and I will have some of our negatives printed in platinum by them.

I hope this lets everyone know that I am not against platinum prints. I am just not impressed with a platinum print, unless it is also a good print. Just as I am not impressed with an Azo print unless it is also a good print. It is never the process that ultimately interests me, it is the quality of the finished result.