DD, George Andrews, and others: I finally have a moment to respond to the earlier comments about R&R's paper quality, printing, etc.

Without borrowing a micrometer from work, I can only go by what my fingers feel, and they tell me that R&R's paper is not much lighter than Trains, and is on par with what many of the weekly newsstand magazines (Time, etc.) use. Might be a difference of 45-lb. stock at R&R vs. 50-lb. stock at Trains, or 50-lb. vs. 60-lb.

Whatever the weight, R&R's paper and their typical press run are capable of very decent reproduction. In the November issue, look at the Highball Productions ad on page 5. Good color, crisp, nice shadow detail. Highball's ads in recent issues of Trains printed almost exactly the same as those in R&R. Just a very, very subtle difference in the red type in their logo. Elsewhere in the same issue of R&R, there's a digital night photo on page 11, TRP ad photo on the top left of page 15, Mitch Goldman's digital photos on 28, 29, and 66, and Steve Barry's digital photos on 62-64, all of which reproduced wonderfully.

When something prints badly in R&R, if it's not because of the original image itself, it's because of the methods which were used to bring that image into their digital pre-production. As I mentioned previously, their shortcomings have been mainly with the hardware used to scan transparencies, and the software used to view and manage those scans. I've recently learned that a software upgrade has taken place in the wake of my Idaho autumn piece, an upgrade which will give R&R better control over color and shadow detail.

I recently had a couple of my slides sent to our sister plant across the country to be scanned on the same drum scanner which we once had here in our Idaho plant, for a company calendar we're making. It was amazing to see such sharp, realistic reproductions of my photography, the likes of which I haven't seen in a long, long time. When I get a chance, perhaps I'll upload those files to this forum just for fun.

But until then, to get a glimpse of what my fall photos in R&R should have looked like, go back to the November 2007 Trains. To make a long story short, my fall color piece was initially sent to Trains about five years ago, where it then sat for quite some time before they finally returned it. Rather than give it the full eight pages like R&R did, Trains simply pulled out one of the photos and ran it across pages 82-83 in that November '07 issue. Same location, film, and lens as the photo on page 37 in R&R, but with a different sun angle. Taking into consideration the full-spread enlargement, and the exhaust from the two units throwing heat ripples up against most of the distant bridge, the photo in Trains reproduced quite well.

That's all I've got for now. Hope this answers a few more questions.