The fact is, there really are no shortcuts in making your print express the important feelings that accompany your vision. The beautiful prints starts with a good negative and then practically prints itself. It is a little like Michelangelo just uncovering the thing that already exists inside the stone. What makes that print easy or difficult to make is the decisions you make all along the path to the final print. Each decision, beginning with exposure of the negative, has enormous impact on the end result.
Great prints are the products of great decisions.
Your proof sheet should reveal the truth of your negative with its characteristic beauty and flaws as well. I make all my proof sheets on the same paper, same grade, same processing. That tells me what my negative really looks like. It doesn t really help me to make a cosmetically repaired or adjusted grade proof for what I know to be an unprintable thin, flat negative. I want to know at the proofing stage what I am in for in making that final print.