# Press 400

Film · punchy black and white

Press 400 is the black-and-white workhorse of newspapers and news photographers. It renders your picture in punchy black and white with the heaviest grain of any roll.

## Controls

### Stock

- **Strength** (hero knob, 0 to 100, rests at 100). The hero. How much of the stock's color and tone goes onto your picture. Grain and **Fade** stay on at any setting.
- **Exposure** (Fader, −3.0 EV to +3.0 EV, rests at 0 EV). Over or under, in stops. Black-and-white negative forgives a lot. Over goes soft and pale, under goes muddy, with grain in the shadows.

### Lab

- **Push / pull** (Fader, Pull 1.0 to Push +3.0, rests at Box speed). Push develops the roll longer. Contrast climbs, blacks crush and the grain gets bigger and heavier. Pull goes the other way, softer, with lifted blacks and lighter grain.
- **Lab** (Select: Standard / Crisp / Soft / Print / Flat). How the lab prints it. **Crisp** is punchy, **Soft** is gentle, **Print** has the deepest blacks and **Flat** is low contrast, ready to grade.

### Format

- **Format** (Select: Half frame / 35mm / 120 / Cine 35). The film size, which sets the grain. A small negative is enlarged more, so **Half frame** has the biggest grain and **120** the finest. **Cine 35** is a touch coarser than **35mm**.
- **Gate weave** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). The frame drifts and bobs, like film running through a movie camera's gate. It crops in a hair so the edges never show, and it loops cleanly.

### Color

- **Warmth** (Fader, -100 to +100, rests at 0). Tones the black and white, cool toward blue-black or warm toward brown, like cold-tone or warm-tone paper.
- **Fade** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 3). Lifts the blacks to a soft, slightly cool gray and dims the whites a touch, like an old print.

### Grain

- **Grain** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 55). How much grain. It gathers in the midtones and shadows, thins out in the highlights, and changes every frame.
- **Grain size** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 50). How big each grain is. **Format** and **Push / pull** scale it too.

### Halation

- **Halation** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). A soft glow around bright highlights, where light bounces back through the film. On black and white it glows white, not red.
- **Spread** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 40). How far the glow reaches.
- **Threshold** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 60). How bright a highlight has to be before it glows. Low, and most of the picture glows. High, and only the hottest lights do. **Exposure** moves it too.

### Light

- **Light source** (Select: Matched / Tungsten / Fluorescent / Sodium / Mixed). The light the scene was shot under, as film sees it. **Matched** is clean. **Tungsten** goes orange, **Fluorescent** goes green, **Sodium** drains the color to street-lamp orange, and **Mixed** puts green in the shadows under warm highlights. On black and white it tints the print.

### Darkroom

- **Bleach bypass** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). Skips the bleach, so extra silver stays in. There's no color to drain, so the contrast climbs and the tones turn hard.
- **Expired** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). Old stock. The blacks fog up, contrast sinks, the picture drifts toward the **Drift** color and a fine noise flickers over it.
- **Drift** (Select: Magenta / Cyan / Green). Which way the expired film turns. **Magenta**, **Cyan** or **Green**. It shows only with **Expired** up.

### Scan

- **Scanner** (Select: Lab / Flatbed / Drum). How the film is scanned. **Lab** is clean, **Flatbed** is soft and a little lifted, **Drum** is crisp and sharpened.
- **Scan sharpen** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). Scanner sharpening on top of the scan. A little brings up detail, a lot leaves bright edges and crunchy grain.
- **Dust** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). White specks of dust on the scan. Past halfway, a hair lands on the frame too. They hold still through the loop.

## Presets

- **Bleach Bypass**: Silver left in: color drops, contrast climbs.
- **Found Roll**: Expired years ago: fogged blacks, magenta drift, dust.
- **Office Light**: Shot under fluorescent tubes: the green cast film sees.
- **Sodium Street**: Orange street lamps: color nearly gone, glow around the lights.
- **Flatbed Scan**: Home scanner: soft, a little lifted, a speck or two.
- **Drum Scan**: Crisp drum scan with scanner sharpening.
- **Expired Cyan**: Old stock drifting cyan.