Grain vs Grade in B/W Photo paper

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Craig75

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Morning everyone,

My house burned down so no darkroom to test this out so any thoughts most welcome

One sees it repeated often that the higher the grade of paper the higher the grain in the print. Does this just refer to fixed grade papers or is it also true for multigrade?

Normally developed negative (manufacturers instructions) on say grade 2 vs cutting development by say 10-20% and printing on grade 5 - which will exhibit the least grain? (my experience was the latter but i lost all my prints to check if this is right)

im sure this will have been answered a million times before but im garbage with the search function

cheers, craig
 
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I assume you mean to compare two prints with the same overall contrast, otherwise of course more contrast=more grain. In your example, contrast would not be the same between both prints; going from grade 2 to 5 is much more contrast change then developing 10-20% less.
Conventional wisdom seems to be that less development for the negative and higher grade gives more grain. I have never tested it. And I wonder whether other people have, or just observed that lower contrast negs which, however, were developed normally and just have low contrast subjects or lighting, show more grain when printed on the harder grades that are necessary... that would be meaningless for this question.
I see no reason to why there would be a difference between multigrade and fixed grade.
I hope you're ok after the loss of your house.
 
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Craig75

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The grain itself assuming it's the same negative is no different you are just accentuating the contrast so it will become more apparent.

Ian

2 negatives - one developed normally and printed on grade 2

Vs

One with reduced development and printed harder to compensate for reduced development

So the overall print contrast is approximately the same.

Is there some inherent property of grain in harder grades with multigrade or is that just fixed grades or is that grain just a function of increased contrast which is cancelled out through reduced development?

My experience was cutting development just above point where the shortness of time in developer creates issues and printing very hard created really smooth tones with very small grain even in fast films from memory. But is that smoother / less grain than developing longer and printing softer
 

ic-racer

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Assuming multigrade paper can not match graded #5 paper, in that situation you are correct.
 
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Craig75

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Assuming multigrade paper can not match graded #5 paper, in that situation you are correct.
For sure - i max out at grade 4 with multigrade. Never got near to 5.

I thought that was right from printing myself but once in a while i will read "harder grades = more grain" - and wondered if that is a rule of the paper itself + the development time of the negative or just refers to the development time of the negative. Easy to forget that the most books start off with premise that develop for grade 2 or 3, but if you develop for grade 4 that "harder grades = more grain" no.longer applies.
 
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Craig75

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Having lost all my books this might be total garbage but...

If .multigrade is made from 2 emulsions is it fair to say the slower higher contrast blue sensitive emulsion will actually be inherently less grainy than the faster lower contrast green sensitive emulsion (as it would be in a film emulsion)

Or does it not work that way with papers?
 
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You can't see the paper emulsion grain with the naked eye in any case. Visible grain comes from the film.
 

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Having lost all my books this might be total garbage but...

If .multigrade is made from 2 emulsions is it fair to say the slower higher contrast blue sensitive emulsion will actually be inherently less grainy than the faster lower contrast green sensitive emulsion (as it would be in a film emulsion)

Or does it not work that way with papers?

Multigrade papers normally use 3 or more emulsions today - but even so, you're not enlarging the print so relative granularity of the component emulsions are largely irrelevant. The higher the contrast grade you print at will however make the negative's granularity more apparent.
 

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Multigrade papers normally use 3 or more emulsions today - but even so, you're not enlarging the print so relative granularity of the component emulsions are largely irrelevant. The higher the contrast grade you print at will however make the negative's granularity more apparent.

An Ilford Multigrade paper uses one basic Blue sensitive emulsion (that itself may be a blend of more than one and varies depending on the paper), this is split and each third given different and increasing Green spectral sensitivity, its mixed back together during coating, it's explained in one of the Multigrade Contrast PDF files.

I think Simon Galley mentioned this in a thread here but we were also told this on a factory tour in my case back in 2008.

Ian
 
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Craig75

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Multigrade papers normally use 3 or more emulsions today - but even so, you're not enlarging the print so relative granularity of the component emulsions are largely irrelevant.

+ @grain elevator - ok so whatever grain is in the paper emulsion isnt even visible. That makes perfect sense.

"The higher the contrast grade you print at will however make the negative's granularity more apparent."

This would only be true though if you developed the negative for grade 2 but printed at grade 4.

If you developed it for grade 4 it would actually exhibit less grain than a negative developed for grade 2 (Ie cut development time by say 15% vs developing it for grade 2)

So the maxim should be "using a higher grade than you developed the negative for makes the negatives granularity more apparent"

This is where i got confused. Thanks everyone.
 
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Let me try to re-phrase your question:
We have two negatives of the same scene, one developed to a low contrast, one to a high one. Then, they are printed in such a way that the resulting prints have the same contrast (look practically indistinguishable, at least form a distance). Will one of the prints look more grainy?
Is that it? I don't see it definitively answered so far, how did you reach the certainty in the above post?

My hunch is that the conventional wisdom is probably correct and a more contrasty negative makes a less grainy print, because the grain basically has constant contrast irrespective of the developing time/overall contrast the negative is developed to: A grain of silver halide can be either reduced to silver or not. Longer development doesn't make the individual crystals darker, it just makes more of them go dark. The fact that we don't see individual crystals as grain, but clumps of them, probably moderates this dichotomy. But still, the contrast of the grain does probably not go down as much as the overall contrast if we decrease the developing time for a negative. Then, the necessary higher grade in printing would increase the contrast of the grain to be higher than that of a higher contrast negative printed a lower grade. Correct?
 
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MattKing

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The other factor to consider is the subject matter.
Graininess is at least partially subjective - we notice grain more in certain situations than in others.
I'd be willing to bet that if you have large areas of relatively bright relatively featureless tone - think cloudy skies - the appearance of grain will be different in a high contrast print from a low contrast negative than it will be in a low contrast print from a high contrast negative, because of the different shape of the curve and rendition of highlights in the two different negatives.
If your subject is mostly shadows and mid-tones, the comparison may be closer.
 
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Craig75

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Let me try to re-phrase your question:
We have two negatives of the same scene, one developed to a low contrast, one to a high one. Then, they are printed in such a way that the resulting prints have the same contrast (look practically indistinguishable, at least form a distance). Will one of the prints look more grainy?
Is that it? I don't see it definitively answered so far, how did you reach the certainty in the above post?

My hunch is that the conventional wisdom is probably correct and a more contrasty negative makes a less grainy print, because the grain basically has constant contrast irrespective of the developing time/overall contrast the negative is developed to: A grain of silver halide can be either reduced to silver or not. Longer development doesn't make the individual crystals darker, it just makes more of them go dark. The fact that we don't see individual crystals as grain, but clumps of them, probably moderates this dichotomy. But still, the contrast of the grain does probably not go down as much as the overall contrast if we decrease the developing time for a negative. Then, the necessary higher grade in printing would increase the contrast of the grain to be higher than that of a higher contrast negative printed a lower grade. Correct?

Well yes thats true.

Definitive is that the paper isnt adding grain so it makes no odds there which grade you print at, but beyond that ...

Developing longer printing softer vs developing shorter printing harder and which is grainer isnt decided.

Im just going off my own experience that cutting times and printing hard creates very smooth prints but then my enlarger is always set to max contrast no matter what i do so .. im not the best judge at all!

As matt says the scene is going to matter but if you run out of contrast at the printing stages then masking is a possibility to force some more contrast (im assuming intensifiers add grain)
 
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Craig75

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The other factor to consider is the subject matter.
Graininess is at least partially subjective - we notice grain more in certain situations than in others.
I'd be willing to bet that if you have large areas of relatively bright relatively featureless tone - think cloudy skies - the appearance of grain will be different in a high contrast print from a low contrast negative than it will be in a low contrast print from a high contrast negative, because of the different shape of the curve and rendition of highlights in the two different negatives.
If your subject is mostly shadows and mid-tones, the comparison may be closer.

Yes my initial premise is pretty hokey because the prints will very likely render differently especially in midtones / highlights; the exact place where grain is more noticeable to our eyes.

Its the exact kind of question where id just use darkroom to show myself what goes on, but no darkroom at the minute = trying to work it out in head and yeah thats not happening in my head
 

Bill Burk

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2 negatives - one developed normally and printed on grade 2

Vs

One with reduced development and printed harder to compensate for reduced development

So the overall print contrast is approximately the same.

Is there some inherent property of grain in harder grades with multigrade or is that just fixed grades or is that grain just a function of increased contrast which is cancelled out through reduced development?

My experience was cutting development just above point where the shortness of time in developer creates issues and printing very hard created really smooth tones with very small grain even in fast films from memory. But is that smoother / less grain than developing longer and printing softer

You should get better definition and less grain by the combination of proper exposure, developing the least necessary for a higher grade of paper.
Than you get by the combination of proper exposure, developing normally and printing on normal paper grade.
It would be worth exploring but when you develop the film to a lesser degree, there won't be as much grain in the negative.
 
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Craig75

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You should get better definition and less grain by the combination of proper exposure, developing the least necessary for a higher grade of paper.
Than you get by the combination of proper exposure, developing normally and printing on normal paper grade.
It would be worth exploring but when you develop the film to a lesser degree, there won't be as much grain in the negative.

Well yes thats another key point "correct exposure" - as youre cutting development time youre also losing speed.

Im sure by the end i was shooting hp5+ at 100ei as i kept cutting the time more and more so i was right in fp4+ territory speed wise and the further side salad of fp4+ grain and rendering at box speed on grade 2 vs hp5+ in reduced development on grade 4.

Im not so worried about printing as "grain free" as possible but just seeing the two extreme ends of the spectrum (as grainy possible and as grain free as possible) just so i know my palette of options to dial in a grain pattern for different occasions.

Lockdown here in uk - all my cameras are in storage bar one and one solitary roll of hp5+ so this roll is like gold dust to me. I will enjoy shooting it while thinking of everyones comments and trying to work out how i want to develop it and guess how it will print.

Thanks everyone for their very considered opinions.
 

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Even if the grain is different, it would be an unnoticeable difference. Think about how fine grain pushed HP5 is on sheet film to the naked eye. That's much bigger grain than any paper emulsion will be.

Personally, I've done a lot of non-scientific testing around the grain vs contrast issue and came to a conclusion. You'll get less visible grain in your prints by aiming for a higher contrast negative and lower contrast print... of course, increasing contrast in negative vs in positive also will give two entirely different appearances. Specifically, negative contrast typically (depending on paper) primarily affects the highlights of a print, while positive contrast in printing, will primarily affect the shadow contrast. This relationship can be altered some using custom print developers, but in general will hold.

I don't have the proper tools to measure this (and it might be that grain is more subjective than anything anyway) but my computer science style experience says that it has to do with information compression. ie, if you capture a high dynamic range subject on film and compress it (ie, low contrast negative), you'll introduce more "noise" as there's less "space" (negative scale) to hold that entire range, you then decompress it in printing by increasing the contrast, amplifying that noise. If you instead aim to have more space (higher contrast) on the negative, then there will be less of this noise and you'll be doing the "compression" part on the very fine grained paper. Both of these come with different appearances though, but judging from near identical negatives and similar low-sulfite/solvent developers, the high contrast negative almost always looks less grainy.

I don't entirely have an explanation for why pushed negatives tend to look more grainy though. I assume pushing in itself can sometimes trigger grains to develop less evenly, resulting in visible grain. I've found this effect tends to highly depend on the developer. Some developers will give especially grainy highlights, others will only seem to increase grain in the shadows. The actual grain size may actually be smaller when pushing due to more solvent action being possible. There's not really a method by which grain should actually get bigger in pushing, it just becomes more visible.
 
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Craig75

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Even if the grain is different, it would be an unnoticeable difference. Think about how fine grain pushed HP5 is on sheet film to the naked eye. That's much bigger grain than any paper emulsion will be.

Personally, I've done a lot of non-scientific testing around the grain vs contrast issue and came to a conclusion. You'll get less visible grain in your prints by aiming for a higher contrast negative and lower contrast print... of course, increasing contrast in negative vs in positive also will give two entirely different appearances. Specifically, negative contrast typically (depending on paper) primarily affects the highlights of a print, while positive contrast in printing, will primarily affect the shadow contrast. This relationship can be altered some using custom print developers, but in general will hold.

I don't have the proper tools to measure this (and it might be that grain is more subjective than anything anyway) but my computer science style experience says that it has to do with information compression. ie, if you capture a high dynamic range subject on film and compress it (ie, low contrast negative), you'll introduce more "noise" as there's less "space" (negative scale) to hold that entire range, you then decompress it in printing by increasing the contrast, amplifying that noise. If you instead aim to have more space (higher contrast) on the negative, then there will be less of this noise and you'll be doing the "compression" part on the very fine grained paper. Both of these come with different appearances though, but judging from near identical negatives and similar low-sulfite/solvent developers, the high contrast negative almost always looks less grainy.

I don't entirely have an explanation for why pushed negatives tend to look more grainy though. I assume pushing in itself can sometimes trigger grains to develop less evenly, resulting in visible grain. I've found this effect tends to highly depend on the developer. Some developers will give especially grainy highlights, others will only seem to increase grain in the shadows. The actual grain size may actually be smaller when pushing due to more solvent action being possible. There's not really a method by which grain should actually get bigger in pushing, it just becomes more visible.

Interesting observations earlz. Im a firm believer in doing and observing but as i cant at the minute im reduced to my crappy theory to work it out.

Some of it seems counter intuitive to me. Reducing contrast should reduce grain but then printing harder should accentuate it. Increasing contrast should increase grain but then printing softer should reduce it.

Whenever i get back home, i have two of the same camera body and lens so i will run the test on the same scenes and have a good look at the prints.
 

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Well yes thats another key point "correct exposure" - as youre cutting development time youre also losing speed.
...
Im not so worried about printing as "grain free" as possible but just seeing the two extreme ends of the spectrum (as grainy possible and as grain free as possible) just so i know my palette of options to dial in a grain pattern for different occasions.

As for cutting development time equating to losing speed... there are a couple ways people determine speed. One common way is to call the speed point at where the curve crossses 0.10 above base+fog (Left). Another way is to call the speed point as where the curve turns to 0.3 times its average gradient (Right).

upload_2020-11-7_8-3-40.png


When you develop less, as the curve gets flatter, you can still get details in the print from where the 0.10 point used to be... even if shadows fall a little under 0.10 with less development. You can still get detail there. So my philosophy is: Unless you are deliberately pushing for speed, just pick one favorite film speed setting for a particular film, regardless of how you develop it. Really push (develop longer) and use a higher film speed rating when you need it for a particular picture, like available light handheld where you need the f/stop and shutter speed.


As for knowing the range of graininess, I love to experiment with that.

I know today you have one roll of film and it's probably already loaded so this info is for another day:
The secret to getting bold grain with 35mm film is to use a half-frame camera.
 
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Craig75

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As for cutting development time equating to losing speed... there are a couple ways people determine speed. One common way is to call the speed point at where the curve crossses 0.10 above base+fog (Left). Another way is to call the speed point as where the curve turns to 0.3 times its average gradient (Right).

View attachment 258812

When you develop less, as the curve gets flatter, you can still get details in the print from where the 0.10 point used to be... even if shadows fall a little under 0.10 with less development. You can still get detail there. So my philosophy is: Unless you are deliberately pushing for speed, just pick one favorite film speed setting for a particular film, regardless of how you develop it. Really push (develop longer) and use a higher film speed rating when you need it for a particular picture, like available light handheld where you need the f/stop and shutter speed.


As for knowing the range of graininess, I love to experiment with that.

I know today you have one roll of film and it's probably already loaded so this info is for another day:
The secret to getting bold grain with 35mm film is to use a half-frame camera.

Very interesting Bill. Thank you. Even more to add to the mix. For speed i just use the ilford instructions ie shoot at 200ei and develop for x% less than at box speed and go on the basis that cutting it even more will require even more exposure. I think your idea is good though. Pick a speed and just use it for 90% of ideas later of how you want to develop and print; 200 seems sensible to me with hp5+ - youve got a ton of range to play with anyway so that extra stop is neither here nor there.

There would be a time where exposure would be pivitol in grain though and that would be massive overexposure; say 5 stops or more over where the placement of the image on the curve is itself creating a more grainy image than "correct" exposure (from memory of printing successive frames of gradually overexposed image)

At the grainiest end of the spectrum theoretically you could go on and on and on breaking the image up. Continually copying the negative, massive enlargements of tiny crops, half frame, slitting the film for 16mm or minox. Im glad you mentioned half-frame as i forgot i managed to save my mamiya enlahead which from memory is a 12x17mm frame neg carrier and a 30mm enlarger lens. Shooting ultrawide then copying and trimming 35mm film to 16mm through a 30mm lens will create some lively grain.

At the other end i suppose you could go down the rabbithole of searchinģ for ultrafine developers but the quest for the ultimate finest grain seems the road to madness. Time in developer experiment is as far as i want to go. But then i guess reduced time in developer, copying the enlarged negative on ilford ortho (or pin registered negative carrier for ballers) and using contrast masks would presumably create less grain than contrast increasing filters. (Maybe?)

Just how much control you get over the grain though in between these extremes and whether you can effectively shape the pattern to suit whatever mood you are in when printing i dont know.

There would also be grain introduced by intensifiers on top of all that.

It would definitely be nice to have a grain pattern book to choose from though when it comes time to develop negatives or further process in the darkroom for printing.
 
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grainyvision

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You might look into lith printing with a suitably grainy paper as well. It introduces what the lith community calls "paper grain" but it's not really paper grain, it's more like hydroquinone radicals affecting nearby grains at points of development. Regardless of what it is, it's a very attractively grainy appearance. Be warned that you'll be truly sucked in once you try it though and it's a fairly time consuming process (5-20m per print depending on paper, dilution etc). To me though, there's nothing else that can match the results no matter how much you mess with the negative or regular prints.

For getting the grain on the negative though, keep in mind there are two types of grain visible in a print. Shadow grain is from printing close to the dmin of the film. The dmin is naturally grainy due to manufacturing process (and many sensitizers basically work as very mild fogging agents). If you're printing shadow detail very close to dmin, you'll get some of that dmin into the print. This is why thin negatives typically print and scan more grainy than pushed negatives. The other side is more like, idk, "variation grain?". Basically it comes more from the actual grain designed into the film, but the developer can affect this grain. Silver grains are variable sized, some big some small. Bigger grains are more sensitive to light and smaller grains are less sensitive. So, in a natural "normal" developer, the grain is more from variations between these sensitivities. For example, you take a picture of a grey card, but some grains are lighter and some grains are darker. Some developers are designed for "solvent type" finer grain. They don't make grain go away, but make the edges between these differences smoother and rounded off, hence giving less obvious grain even though it's very much still there. Other developers are "replating type" finer grain. They work by taking some silver from the bigger grains and depositing them on the smaller grains, thus averaging out that difference to an extent. This basically touches on "definition" and "sharpness/resolution". And of course, most fine grain developers work by incorporating both of those aspects. And then other developers work in the opposite way, to make the difference between these grains bigger, or even the "edge effect" stuff where development locally exhausts, exaggerating the borders between bright spots and dark spots. The most obvious type of developer that does this is tanning developers. I feel like these "should" be very coarse grain, but the tanning effect masks that. It builds a mask over where it develops, bringing overall density up evenly without regard to the grain and makes the difference between the grains smaller in relation, thus hiding it.

How this connects to printing contrast and grain.. Increasing contrast on the print will increase the contrast between these grains, thus, grainy appearing print. However, negative developers are much more complicated and typically don't build contrast between grains in the same way... I mean, they do to an extent, but it's not at all like a flat contrast increase. It depends on surrounding density, design of the developer, how permeable the film is, etc... and even with that, lowering the contrast in printing will decrease the contrast between the grains in a flat way. This is why some films/developers will give weirdly grainy skies when pushing, but another combo might give you smooth skies but grainy shadows. There's a lot more flexibility to controlling grain on the negative than when printing

edit: Note that bigger grains are also less stable. They can be prone to fogging or inconsistent exposure response. This is why super fast films made using mostly bigger grains (along with tons of dyes etc) are so grainy.

For your question of how to get the ultimate amount of grain on the negative though, I'd recommend something crazy like half frame or 16mm with super fast film. Pull it if you need extra shadow detail and lowered contrast, use a grainy developer like rodinal. Some of the most grainy negatives I have actually came from a mistake in processing some 3 ISO film. I boosted it to ~12 ISO by using a fogging solution, but that went wrong. It'd be impossible to print from in that case as it looked nearly black... but used more carefully it might be what you're going for. Example (in ~6x4.5 format)

The most easily available fogging agent but hardest to work with is sodium dithionite, sold as "Iron Out" rust cleaning solution. It's not a homogenous powder and the amounts you'll need are extremely tiny. Keep it neutral or weakly acidic to slow the action, in even weak alkalis it'll act as a very potent fogging developer. Bromide seems to slow the development but not the fogging action. Note that dithionite decays into metabisulfite and using acids with metabisulfite will result in a sulfur dioxide gas release (smells like burning matches), so be careful and keep the amounts used small if doing anything with acids around it. It is not stable in any known solutions, but triethanolamine has been quoted by a patent to work as a preservative when at very low temperatures and for a few days. Always use distilled water as any iron etc introduced will cause it to quickly decay.
 
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Craig75

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You might look into lith printing with a suitably grainy paper as well. It introduces what the lith community calls "paper grain" but it's not really paper grain, it's more like hydroquinone radicals affecting nearby grains at points of development. Regardless of what it is, it's a very attractively grainy appearance. Be warned that you'll be truly sucked in once you try it though and it's a fairly time consuming process (5-20m per print depending on paper, dilution etc). To me though, there's nothing else that can match the results no matter how much you mess with the negative or regular prints.

For getting the grain on the negative though, keep in mind there are two types of grain visible in a print. Shadow grain is from printing close to the dmin of the film. The dmin is naturally grainy due to manufacturing process (and many sensitizers basically work as very mild fogging agents). If you're printing shadow detail very close to dmin, you'll get some of that dmin into the print. This is why thin negatives typically print and scan more grainy than pushed negatives. The other side is more like, idk, "variation grain?". Basically it comes more from the actual grain designed into the film, but the developer can affect this grain. Silver grains are variable sized, some big some small. Bigger grains are more sensitive to light and smaller grains are less sensitive. So, in a natural "normal" developer, the grain is more from variations between these sensitivities. For example, you take a picture of a grey card, but some grains are lighter and some grains are darker. Some developers are designed for "solvent type" finer grain. They don't make grain go away, but make the edges between these differences smoother and rounded off, hence giving less obvious grain even though it's very much still there. Other developers are "replating type" finer grain. They work by taking some silver from the bigger grains and depositing them on the smaller grains, thus averaging out that difference to an extent. This basically touches on "definition" and "sharpness/resolution". And of course, most fine grain developers work by incorporating both of those aspects. And then other developers work in the opposite way, to make the difference between these grains bigger, or even the "edge effect" stuff where development locally exhausts, exaggerating the borders between bright spots and dark spots. The most obvious type of developer that does this is tanning developers. I feel like these "should" be very coarse grain, but the tanning effect masks that. It builds a mask over where it develops, bringing overall density up evenly without regard to the grain and makes the difference between the grains smaller in relation, thus hiding it.

How this connects to printing contrast and grain.. Increasing contrast on the print will increase the contrast between these grains, thus, grainy appearing print. However, negative developers are much more complicated and typically don't build contrast between grains in the same way... I mean, they do to an extent, but it's not at all like a flat contrast increase. It depends on surrounding density, design of the developer, how permeable the film is, etc... and even with that, lowering the contrast in printing will decrease the contrast between the grains in a flat way. This is why some films/developers will give weirdly grainy skies when pushing, but another combo might give you smooth skies but grainy shadows. There's a lot more flexibility to controlling grain on the negative than when printing

edit: Note that bigger grains are also less stable. They can be prone to fogging or inconsistent exposure response. This is why super fast films made using mostly bigger grains (along with tons of dyes etc) are so grainy.

For your question of how to get the ultimate amount of grain on the negative though, I'd recommend something crazy like half frame or 16mm with super fast film. Pull it if you need extra shadow detail and lowered contrast, use a grainy developer like rodinal. Some of the most grainy negatives I have actually came from a mistake in processing some 3 ISO film. I boosted it to ~12 ISO by using a fogging solution, but that went wrong. It'd be impossible to print from in that case as it looked nearly black... but used more carefully it might be what you're going for. Example (in ~6x4.5 format)

The most easily available fogging agent but hardest to work with is sodium dithionite, sold as "Iron Out" rust cleaning solution. It's not a homogenous powder and the amounts you'll need are extremely tiny. Keep it neutral or weakly acidic to slow the action, in even weak alkalis it'll act as a very potent fogging developer. Bromide seems to slow the development but not the fogging action. Note that dithionite decays into metabisulfite and using acids with metabisulfite will result in a sulfur dioxide gas release (smells like burning matches), so be careful and keep the amounts used small if doing anything with acids around it. It is not stable in any known solutions, but triethanolamine has been quoted by a patent to work as a preservative when at very low temperatures and for a few days. Always use distilled water as any iron etc introduced will cause it to quickly decay.

Yes Lith is another good avenue for grain. I have tim rudmans lith book, i had some moersch chems, and some foma lith paper but i never had the chance to do it before the darkroom "disappeared". Def an avenue to explore. I do like a lith print.

Ive done 16mm and rodinal and that works well at the extreme end. The only problem i had was scratching film reloading cartridges. That would happen to me almost every time no matter what i did. This time my idea was to use an ultra wide on 35mm film put my composition in the centre of the frame then cut it out with scissors and stick it in a 16mm enlarger head; basically turn a 35mm camera in a 16mm camera without the headache of scratching the film reloading 16mm cartridges.

Beyond the basic time / contrast / 35mm film and silver gelatine paper there is a whole world of arsing around to manipulate grain further.

I nedd to make a proper workbook to run through all these combinations at some point.
 
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