I did manage to get decent results at a lab which catered to professionals but that was significantly more expensive. In my opinion, Tri-X is an excellent film for the beginner. It is fairly affordable and forgiving. I teach photography at a small college and we've been using HC110B developer for 6.5 mins. We use diffusion enlargers.
Results are excellent.
A. XP2 is a delightful film with a fine grain, smooth tonality and wide exposure latitude. For a 'newbie', it is indeed a nice film. T400CN is quickly replacing TMY as my EI 400 film of choice. A. Start by saving your scans as a TIFF while you work on them in Photoshop. This should get your file size down.