The final instalment ................received the replacement print plus two extra prints he threw in. The two extra shots are quite nice and seem to be fine quality wise........the one I purchased is marginally better but not much. Image is certainly not as noisy as the original one he sent me but I can still see a fair bit of noise. I have come to the conclusion that the photo in question was actually quite under exposed and the noise was caused by pushing the exposure too far in PS. (my original assessment of the pic was that it had been pushed too hard) The revised one is certainly less noisy but now quite dark. and that puts an end to this tale of woe.....................