The typical use for slides as you note is
for projection and viewing with a dark
surround. The other typical professional
use is for reproduction (magazine, book, etc.)

The density range of a color transparency is
only 5 to 51/2 stops, so the problem is
limited highlight and shadow density at either
end of the film curve (i.e., it's either black
or white.) This narrow density range is very
difficult to print on conventional photogaphic
papers. Which means you need to be very careful
how you expose those highlights (don't over
expose or underexpose.) The best way to make
prints from transparencies is to have an
internegative made (best if contact printed.)
This produces prints conparable to neg-pos
methods. I've made scores of prints this way.
Unfortunately Kodak stopped making their inter
neg film and it's increasingly difficult to find
a professional lab to make them. If practiced
enough though you can make your own internegs
(requires pin register and color densitometer)
and I think fuji may still make interneg film.

OTOH any professional lab should be able to
scan the slide and produce excellent quality
prints on a Lightjet or other photochemical
output. Most lab techs I know say these prints
are far better than optically enlarged prints
but I miss having internegs and making my own
prints. The caveat is (as with all things digital)
is an interneg used to cost only about $15 and
whereas a good quailty scan costs more...

Gregory Wool a écrit :

Positive paper and its relative process for slides printing is low in
contrast but the combined contrast with the slide may still be somewhat
high.
The problem if you reduce more the paper contrast is that you may end
up with a print lacking the "snap" a slide gives.
This happens in B/W too, a straight print is rarely the best one ...
So, the preferred approach is to use a "contrasty" paper and use some
global contrast reduction with techniques that are comon to B/W
(dodge/burn, ...) or others that are more usual in color (silver
masking, unsharp masks, ...) but can of course be used also for B/W
work.
This way, you obtain a high local contrast while maintaining a global
contrast acceptable.

Of course, if you have a digital enlarger available, all this work is
simplified.
I had the chance to print a hundred 30x45cm prints for an exhibition on
the Lightjet at Ilford plant in Marly (manufacturer of Ilfochrome and
inkjet papers) and the result is really impressive.

Claudio Bonavolta
http://www.bonavolta.ch