Digital BW, The Print

FWIW, in my year or so of digital capture (after 40+ using film, almost all 
of it black and white) it is my observation that if you blow a highlight 
there's nothing to be done because there simply is no data to work 
with.  OTOH, there is an enormous amount of shadow detail captured by good 
digital sensors, detail which is completely invisible unless you lighten 
the overall image way beyond what would be tolerable in a print.  Given the 
ability to selectively "burn and dodge" a digital image with very precise 
boundaries to the adjustment, I suspect that you would find you have even 
more flexibility with digital capture than with film.  SO - if you expose 
to capture the highlights, it's almost certain that there will be a way to 
dig out the shadow detail, whether by a simple adjustment to the levels or 
curves applied to the overall image, or a more complex adjustment that's 
limited to specific shadow areas.  (I was never very good at burning or 
dodging a print in my darkroom, but I'm a (comparative only) master of such 
manipulation in Photoshop.)  The better digital cameras have preview 
options that let you see immediately if (and to what extent) you've blown 
the highlights in a particular image, so you can reset and reshoot 
immediately if necessary.

Cheers,
Kip

At 9/10/2003 03:01 PM +0000, you wrote:

>Hi Loring --
>
>Hmmm, I think what I *really* meant to ask was whether a digital
>camera can mimic the ability of film to "compress" a high-contrast
>scene so that both shadow and highlight detail are evident in the
>final print.  If both shadow and highlight detail are beyond the
>dynamic range of the film, development time can be cut short in
>order to allow both to appear in the final print.  Photoshop can re-
>map the highlights, but what if the original digital exposure "blew
>out" the highlights because the photographer exposed for shadow
>detail?  Or conversely, what if the image is correctly exposed for
>highlight detail but significant shadow detail is blacked out?
>
>Perhaps a better question would be whether the dynamic range of a
>digital camera is such that the curves and levels adjustments in
>Photoshop will be able to recover detail that at first glance
>seems "lost" in pure white or black.