Man and Dog (silhouette XP2)

I love XP2. It's a great film that should be used by more photographers, especially for people pics. What I like about it is that grain doesn't build up in the highlights ie. sky like regular film. With XP2 grain builds up in the shadows. So for landscapes it's an awesome film. This shot was done with XP2 https://www.photrio.com/forum/media/erna-in-pvr.25298/

Nice photo. I’m sure it scans well but I found it very annoying to print. I can usually arrive at an acceptable print quite quickly but that was not the case with XP2. Both exposure and contrast needed far more fiddling than usual. I’m sure I would gain proficiency if I used it enough but it is sufficiently different that it rather threw me in the darkroom. On the other hand, the light was flat and there was not much of it for this particular roll. Another 2 rolls taken on a bright day look far more promising. I was aware of what you say about the lack of grain in the highlights and that is evident in this print. I also took some photographs of Westminster Abbey (which is white, Caen, limestone) so I'll be interested to see how that turns out.

I have a print of the same image and it looks fantastic. I split grade print so I'm not sure this makes the difference. I also use Ansco 130 developer for my prints which I find to be the best I have ever used. Keep at it, it's worth it in the long run.

I just found it tricky compared to conventional film. I’ve heard of split-grade printing but I never understood why anyone would want to do it when the same could be achieved with one grade. On the other hand, I sometimes burn at a different grade.

How do you know you can achieve "the same thing" unless you have mastered split grade printing. There is a reason most of the best printers who use MG papers do split grade.

I am not saying I could personally achieve the same results especially as I don’t use split grade printing. I am just saying that there is a single exposure and contrast that would be equal to that obtained by the split grade method.

@Svenedin

Split grade allows you to hit a continuous range of contrast grades. Also, burning and dodging with high and low contrast filters gives better control as burning at 00 will not effect high contrast areas.

@Kilgallb Yes but I already have continuous contrast grades. I don’t use fixed interval contrast filters. I have a multigrade enlarger head with dichroic filters that can be continuously adjusted. I also use an RH Designs Analyser (effectively a spot meter). I can see where the important tones are on the analyser display.

What you mention about burning in at a low grade also applies to conventional printing. I can burn in at a lower grade and as you say, this has less effect on adjoining higher contrast areas. However, in a landscape where the sky needs to be burnt in it is not always useful to burn in the sky at a lower grade. The result is a darker sky but lower contrast sky compared to the rest of the picture. As the skies in the UK are often low contrast anyway (even if the original photograph was taken with yellow or orange filters) then it is often necessary to burn in the sky at the same contrast grade as the body of the picture or even a higher grade. Doing so means there is a high risk of tell-tale burning in ("scorch marks" as my little joke).

So there is "split-grade" printing as a means to achieve fine control of the overall contrast of a picture (which I don't use because I don't need to and do not wish to further complicate and extend my time in the darkroom) and a technique of burning at a different grade (which I do use).

Incidentally, I've never really worked out the scanner. The actual print looks significantly different and has more obvious clouds etc. Clearly I am doing something wrong with the scans. In the iPhone snap the wire of the fence is obvious but hardly visible in the scan. iPhone snap of print:

https://flic.kr/p/GsTDoP