Q&D BW (updated thrice)

I sorta liked those pics of the plugs that I took in BW by accident, so I made a few Quick-And-Dirty black/white photos as an experiment. Played a bit with sharpness, contrast, and such. I can see it going places potentially.
(The big versions (click) are different. The million tiny scratches in the sink for instance look kinda kewl.)







(I like how there is just one tile in the linoleum which has a darker flower.)

This started with me wondering last week, like many, why it's harder to get good BW prints with inkjets than color prints, despite all the factors at least matching traditional methods. Well, I just now printed the sink photo, and I must say, it looks pretty good. I have learned for prints to lift the shadows, and for BW digital to boost contrast and sharpness more than expected. This is one I could exhibit without it falling through next to the color prints.
So with a bit more experimenting with papers and inks, we should get somewhere nice. I might get up to prints the quality of Brooks Jensen's (see here and here), whose inkjet prints are at least the match of any traditional BW prints I've seen.

Update: I warm-toned the picture (not so easy, just a two percent change is very visible), and printed on the fancy glossy paper. Hey, not bad. A beautiful BW print!
I think I'll look into the special Lyson warm-tone BW inks.

Update: Once again I'm struck by how Google is on the ball. Literally less than one minute after posting the paragraph above, I googled: - lyson warm tone bw inks canon - and this post came up amongst the results!