Fine grain paper?

[Ektagraphic]

(This may be a dumb question and I just haven't been paying attention )Film manufacturers battle to make finer grained films but how come we don't try to make fine grain paper? Was this ever a discussion? Am I nuts? Does paper have grain like film? I would think it does since it is almost like another negative....

 

[2F/2F]

Because papers are not enlarged. We would also not need fine-grained films if film was not enlarged.

 

[PhotoJim]

Correct. People who shoot 8x10 and larger very often shoot ISO 400 film even though they might enlarge the image. This helps to keep subject motion in check but primarily, they don't mind using the fast film because even a 16x20 enlargement is only a 4x enlargement. A 35mm negative would only be 5x7 cm in the print if you enlarged it to this degree.

If you don't enlarge much (or at all), the grain is invisible - so there is no real advantage to fine grain.

Also, photographic paper is very slow already - so it does have fine grain. An ISO 400 paper (akin to film that is; paper has its own ISO speed system) would be annoyingly fast. It would be very difficult to use.

 

[DanielStone]

I thought 8x10-->16x20 is a 2X enlargement, not 4X.

who cares ?

-Dan

 

[phaedrus]

In some alternative processes such as platinum-palladium, the size of the grains determines picture tone. So for example, if you use a hot developer, the grains form faster and remain smaller at completion, giving a warmer tone whereas a colder developer gives a colder tone. No difference in graininess visible.

 

[brianmquinn]

I thought 8x10-->16x20 is a 2X enlargement, not 4X.

who cares ?

-Dan

Depends on how you look at it. It is either 2x as long and wide or 4x the area (80 sq. inches vs 320 sq. inches). I perfer to think of it as 4x because an image is 2D not linear.

 

[John Koehrer]

what he said^. But in conversation it's mostly understood that 810-1620 is 2X. At least in the non-pro camera counter world.
When you need to explain to an amateur customer ordering a print & don't want to spend the day explaining the difference.
Most folks don't think in terms of area of a photograph.

 

[mopar_guy]

What you are talking about is the quality that you want to see in a print. Grain is not as important as other factors. Type of surface, sheen, qualities of the support itself, color (warm or cool), etc.

 

[richard ide]

The grain of a paper is higher resolution than your eyes can resolve. As Mopar Guy states other factors are more important. If you print the same image on glossy surface paper and matte surface; the glossy will appear to have finer grain which is mainly due to the characteristics of the light reflection from the print surface. I would guess that when making the exposure on to matte surface paper, there is diffusion at the paper surface which would reduce the apparent image sharpness (micro contrast?). Glossy RC and ferrrotyped F surface paper yield images of highest (apparent) resolution.

 

[ic-racer]

(This may be a dumb question and I just haven't been paying attention )Film manufacturers battle to make finer grained films but how come we don't try to make fine grain paper? Was this ever a discussion? Am I nuts? Does paper have grain like film? I would think it does since it is almost like another negative....

Grain structure in paper is discussed quite frequently and is an important topic for a paper manufacturer and a paper end-user.

The grain structure affects the color of the image, ie Warm Tone vs Cool Tone etc. and the grain structure can be altered with processing technique, just like with film.

 

[Ian Grant]

Some of us control the grain size in our paper as ic-racer says.

The finer the grain the warmer the tones/image colour of a paper, this really only works with bromo-chloride/chloro-bromide warm tone papers though. The inherent grain of all papers is on a par with the finer grained films used for special purposes.

Ian

 

[RalphLambrecht]

(This may be a dumb question and I just haven't been paying attention )Film manufacturers battle to make finer grained films but how come we don't try to make fine grain paper? Was this ever a discussion? Am I nuts? Does paper have grain like film? I would think it does since it is almost like another negative....

Prior to development, paper grain averages around 0.1-0.2 microns. This makes it about 10% the size of film grain, which ranges from about 0.6-2.0 microns, depending on film speed. Neither of it is visible to the naked eye.

What we 'see' after development, and usually refer to as 'grain', are development clusters of metallic silver. These clusters are highly irregular in shape and hard to define by a single dimension, but as far as I know, also much smaller in paper than in film.

I think, there is simply no need for paper grain to be any smaller than it is, and the consequence of a smaller grain would be (as it is with film) a reduction in speed. Probably not worth it.