I am not professional and never learned anything about the old fashion way of developing pictures in a lab, etc...
however, it seems that based on the type of paper/film you were/are using, and the diffferent technic used for that specific paper, a professional Photographer would exact know what to expect when the final print has dried out.....

So when taking picture, I would think that not only did the exposure, etc...mattered but also what film was used and how the final product was printed (I would call that analog post processing...)

Now, with digital and the Digital PostProcess, everything/anything is possible in postprocess..

and I would think that the Film equivalent in digital is the sensor. now what I am wondering is if a photographer can approach the sensor properties the same way he knew about the film properties.

It sounds to me that there is not necessarily such an equivalent, but more a combination (like sensor/color profile/noise...) and in fact, maybe in the old days it was somewhat simpler...(again, I don't know much/anything about differnet types of film, etc..)

would that make sense?

Vincent