Digital BW, The Print

Andre writes:

> I wonder if you've tried the "new" TRI-X 400,
> the one with the 400TX lettering on the box.

I don't think I have, although I'm not sure what the new box look like.  I
usually have quite a reserve of B&W film, since it keeps better than color
film.

> I'll sure give Portra 400BW a try but if i'm not
> mistaken, you dont like too much for daytime
> use.

Like all highly panchromatic B&W films, it tends to look flat in daylight.
Colors that are vividly different in a color photo often have the same
perceptual luminosity, so when you shoot them with a film that accurately
converts color to grayscale, you get a loss of contrast.  The representation
is very accurate with respect to real-world luminosity, but it just doesn't
look very good--it doesn't "pop" the way less panchromatic films like Tri-X
do.

T-Max has a similar problem, IMO, which is why I'm not too happy with that,
either.

> Can you just "soup" it up in PS, or does this
> induce unwanted results ?

Unfortunately, little can be done.  Since you don't know what the original
colors were, there's no way to select them and adjust their luminosity.  All
you can do is selective steepen the curve for certain areas of the image to
emphasize what little tonal gradation there is.  But this tends to posterize
and speckle the image pretty quickly (see my example of the daytime MF photo
for an illustration--note the deterioration of the image in the shadows
where I tried to boost constrast in the excerpt of the full scan).

In very contrasty images, of course, the flatness of these films might be an
advantage.  Which is probably why Portra seems to look good at night.