Could you explain how chemicals and processing work?

[RPC]

PE, if all the silver is removed from color film, what is it that is making the visible grain?

A color image is formed by dyes. My understanding is that dye "clouds" form around silver grains during development. The silver is removed and the dye clouds remain; those are what you see as grain.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thanks for the recommendation
I just looked XTOL on google. Seems like a nice film. What if i push it. Will i get more grain?

I always shoot box speed. XTOL slightly increases the film speed.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Indeed, grain in color film is due to clouds of dye. And silver halide (silver bromide, chloride or iodide) is removed by fixer, but something stronger is needed for the silver metal. Color processes use bleaches or blixes to remove silver metal or at least convert silver to something that can be removed. A blix is a weak oxidant plus hypo to convert silver to a complex and remove it in one step. A bleach is a stronger oxidant that converts the silver to silver halide and then a separate fix step removes the silver halide.

PE