Digital BW, The Print

Paul D. DeRocco writes:

> The usual reason for such underexposure is that digicams clip highlights
> hard, but shadows just descend into the noise.

That's kind of what I was thinking, although pulling shadows out of
noise seems like not much more than the lesser of two considerable
evils.

> I normally just leave my Canon 10D set to -1 stop, to avoid
> blown highlights when I'm shooting quickly. It's sensor is so
> quiet that I don't miss the 3db of S/N when I bring the midtones
> up later in PS.

What about shooting raw?  If the raw file holds the original signals off
the sensor (?) with their linear characteristic, that would give you a
lot of headroom to retain highlight and shadow, although there would be
less contrast.  With sufficient manipulation, you could have both,
albeit not in the same area of the image.  I presume that most of the
problem with blown highlights or blocked shadows in digicam photos
arises from software manipulation of the raw image right in side the
camera--to make an image "pop," you'll naturally apply something like an
S-curve to a linear signal so that the midtones stand out ...
sacrificing the highlights and shadows.  But if you can get the image
before that manipulation is performed, you should be able to recover a
lot.