Hello all - Been lurking a few months now (very educational!) but wanted to share some recent film testing and get some opinions on the results, apologies for my lengthy blather:

I've just recently started processing my own film again after a 15 year hiatus, and instinctively reached for my old standby HC-110 to process 4x5 TMX. But to add interest and after reading many glowing reports on this forum I decided to give Pyrocat-HD a try. I've been really surprised (and a little disappointed?) by the results, and wanted some extra eyes to spot any issues in my process / results / expectations. Excuse the boring subject matter and somewhat flat scan, I scanned to retrieve all the information from the negative, putting the white and black points just beyond the end of the histogram:

HC-110 (Dilution B @ 68F 7.5m, TMX EI 100) : http://gottanukesomethin.com/photo/d...ei100-7-5m.jpg
PyrocatHD (1:1:100 @ 68F, 16m, TMX EI 50) : http://gottanukesomethin.com/photo/d...-1-100-16m.jpg
PyrocatHD (1:1:100 @ 68F, 16m, TMX EI 100) : http://gottanukesomethin.com/photo/d...-1-100-16m.jpg

Processing:
All done single-sheet in homemade PVC tubes with ball valves as light-traps. I can see no fogging / streaking / scratching from this process.
Agitate continuously for first minute, then 10 seconds / minute thereafter. Standard dilution indicator stop and kodafix.

So all three negatives look fairly reasonable, nothing blown out or terribly underdeveloped, the 50 EI is preferable of the two Pyrocat negs I think, but my concern is the highlights: the HC-110 negative shows good seperation and local contrast in the top of the binder pages (which I placed in the neighborhood of Zone VIII), but the Pyrocat negatives seem to have flattened out and gotten a bit murky and undetailed. I guess I can see how this would be a pleasing effect in many situations, but the loss of local contrast seems a bit dicey to me and makes me nervous about Pyrocat for general use. Maybe I'm falling for magic bullet syndrome, but I was surprised to be overall happier with the HC-110 (in this admittedly non-real-world test).

So, do these negatives look like I should expect for Pyrocat HD? Is there something flawed in my process or my testing, or should I accept my results and keep on with my nice cheap yellow cough syrup? Would another film show the PHD magic?