Somehow these threads tangled and one part of the discussion focused on comparing a scanned neg to the digital image.
About a year ago I attended a presentation given by Franklin Way. He's an interesting character and a nature photographer. He shoots 4x5 velvia transparencies. He backs those up with either a Pentax 6x7 or 645, I really don't remember which. You can see his work at:
http://www.imagesoftheland.com
He sells prints of all sizes. He displayed several 24x48 mounted prints during his presentation. I don't remember the reason he selected that aspect ratio, but he said he has it masked off on the ground glass of his view camera. It had more to do with marketing than art.
At any rate, once processed, the 4x5 transparencies are scanned and printed on a lightjet printer. The website doesn't do justice to the detail in these prints.
I think the first part of the point is it's time to accept that for all practical purposes the wet darkroom is dead, at least for color.
The last part of the point, good scans are at least good enough to use for comparison to digital source images because neither the scan nor the source image is viewed by anyone in it's full gamut, full resolution form. The color range and resolution of anything you will use to present the image is more limited than both.
Oh, by the way. Way is sponsored to some extent by Fuji.
See you later, gs
