[pure-silver] Re: what causes graininess?

A condenser enlarger can make prints look sharper with more contrast,
and both of those favor graininess. Try developing some FP4+ in PMK
Pyro. The staining action of that developer seems to make the grays a
bit smoother.

Jeffery

On 10/20/07, Shannon Stoney <shannonstoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I was enlarging some negatives today (using the ever-reliable Omega)
> and the prints look surprisingly grainy.  The negatives are medium
> format and the prints are only 7" square.  The ones I enlarged with the
> Devere before it broke don't seem as grainy.  Does a condenser enlarger
> make things look grainier?  What are the other factors?  These
> negatives are HP5+ with DDX 1+4, processed around 11 minutes.  (The
> longer processing time is due to the fact that the diffusion head
> lengthens the scale on the Ilford Warm Tone paper to about 1.2.)
>
> I don't like grain and I am thinking of switching to FP4+ more, the
> only problem being that in the Hassie you have to shoot (hand-held) at
> 1/125 of a second, so there has to be a lot of light for FP4+ to work.
> I have a flash but I don't much like using it.
>
> I thought that DDX might be the problem, but I tried ID-11 and didn't
> see any difference. I think DDX is a fairly fine grain developer, but I
> would be interested in what other people think.
>
> --shannon
>
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-- 
Jeffery L. Smith
New Orleans, LA
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