Dont take it to hard Mark. Jeff is capable of dishing it out and, hopefully, he is capable of taking it. I did not intend to insult him, he made the mistake of seeing himself as a "marketer" instead of as an "objective educator", with regard to my "liar" comment. The fact is that what i said was not a "grave injustice" to anyone, it was the truth. Epson has gained because of Jeff and vice versa. You read to much into my use of the word "tool". Don't be tempted that way..perhaps I should have said "device". Jeff has gotten into more than his share of word wars on the internet. His associates think it's entertaining and perhaps, endearing.
Yes, I can be full of attitude and many other things...Many people are weary of the hype machine. As I said, Im not impatient with the rate of technology, im impatient with the circle of market speak we are all given on a daily basis.
I quoted Mr. Schewe because I believe that, at the time, the statement was not altogether factual based on my observation of prints made with K3 on glossy papers, early on in the K3 releases. I did not think that "it" had arrived. It had gotten better, but it hadn't achieved what it was trying to emulate...traditional process. Maybe the Dmax is there now but the surface issues, with the current crop or papers available now and a year or so ago, are still present and have to be kludged with spray. Gak, pain in the ass spraying is.
As I said before, Jeff may be aware of products not yet released to the general public...that does not affect the collective perspective of demanding photographers around the world who want to use PK on a decent gloss stock. They are still in the position of not being able to make the prints they want to with PK on gloss. In a sense, BW printing has not arrived for them because they haven't had access to the ideal paper. Keep in mind that K3 was released a while ago at this point.
I have seen a lot of photography in my day and, for the most part , most fine art photographers (traditional) prefer to use fiber based gloss dried slowly in the air. Of course, there are other processes and paper surfaces out there, but again, for the most part, the previously described surface is preferred, and, is what is missing from the digital repro system.
Robertwatchers question was about Image Print being more successful with dealing with gloss diff and bronzing, surface issues. That is what I was answering. As for Image print and the deep blacks..when you get down to the dark darks it cant really seperate the subtleties on matte paper, it's because of the matte black ink/matte paper struggle, not the program.
Tom