OK, there is really no secret, but lith printing taught me something that helped my standard printing.  And it is something that every book on printing will tell you: prints (generally) need a solid black and a solid white.  I've never been a fan of this approach, but there is a bit of truth to it.  For my priniting, I've always been OK with a bit of solid black with no details, but I can't stand solid white with no details so that is how I print.  In lith you expose for the highlights and develop for the shadows.  Straight printing can be similar.  You expose for the midtone and adjust the contrast to get the highlights and shadows correct.  If you look at the black church image above, you can see what I mean.

That's it. 

I recently went on a trip to Iceland organized by Bill Schwab (great photographer and all around good guy) to photograph the Western Fjords area.  I'd highly recommend a trip there if you can swing it.  Lot of water, green and sheep.  Not many trees or people.  
I primarily used a Hasselblad with 50-80-150 lenses.  I also brought along a Leica M2 to play with, but this was a medium format-on-tripod kind of place.  I only have a few images printed so far.  There will be two separate bodies for work from this: landscape like this and abandoned things like old herring factories and ships.  I suspect it will be a while before I get the complete work printed!