Thank you, Ferp.
Please know that I’ve written what follows in the absence of any argumentative feeling, only to share/clarify my thoughts about our subject and perhaps elicit other replies.
I think I’ve gotten used to working without good screen/print matching: if something in the print looks like it can be improved upon, I go back to developing the image and work on it a bit more.
I hadn’t thought about trying your suggestion to see if I could get closer (in terms of all-over tonal relationships) right from the first print by changing the ABW setting to approach the appearance of a test target (I always thought it would be merely “different,” not “better”). That might teach me something I’d value knowing. Looking back through this thread, I think Mark was suggesting something related to this in his reply #3, where he mentioned Keith Cooper’s BW printer test target.
What you suggest seems to be is a sort of calibration (or perhaps pseudo- or partial calibration?) in the sense of getting the closest screen to print match that is possible with my Macbook Pro. I think if I was concerned with that match I would invest in whatever hardware and software were necessary to achieve it, although wouldn’t that get into controlled ambient light for working and controlled areas for viewing prints? (Both of which are rather beyond what I can undertake for the foreseeable future.)
I conclude for now from what everyone has written that there is nothing “major” to concern myself about with regard to MBP/P800 system “drift” over a period of, say, a year. Knowing more about what that drift might be would be nice.
I gather from the thread to this point that aside from screen brightness, there is nothing I can to do get screen/print appearance closer.
Also (and I think this is just personal workflow preference), keeping my print presets at ABW Normal (rather than work with Dark, etc.) and altering the appearance of a print through Lr or Ps keeps that one variable (i.e., the printer setting) constant, which I find an appealing simplification.
The brightness setting on my MBP (when I work on my images) is 4 clicks from the left; pretty dark, relatively speaking.
With continuing appreciation to everyone who has been expanding my understanding of what factors I can consider...
Jeffrey
www.jeffreysaldinger.com