Recommend developer for grain enhancement

[Lachlan Young]

Rodinal is not intrinsically grainy; it's just honest; it has no solvent action and makes for sharp edged grain that appears more conspicuous to the eye.

It actually isn't as sharp with many modern emulsions as D-76 because of the lack of solvency not releasing edge sharpness enhancing iodide from the emulsions - and the larger visual granularity destroys fine detail resolution faster. A lot of what people describe as higher 'sharpness' is actually stronger granularity (possibly just below the threshold of perception) in relatively small enlargements. The lack of solvency also may be part of why Rodinal seems somewhat less likely to shoulder highlights with many emulsions. If you like Rodinal's 'look', the old 'Universal' type of film/ paper devs (at appropriate dilution) can do the same sort of thing, but in slightly different directions.

 

[Bill Burk]

Thank you all for your replies which I’m now assimilating.
A couple of points about my situation:
I’m resuming film development after a massive gap from my teenager days, so I thought I’d ask before buying the necessary equipment and chemicals. I’m restricted to film processing since there’s no opportunity for a darkroom (space and keeping the wife happy!), hence scanning only.
I’m not restricted to HP5 and happy to try different films as mentioned above. Camera wise, apart from a number of film cameras, SLRs and a RF, I have a rather a nice Pen F and I’ve made a note to use it more.

Hooray! Pen F is your ticket! That is the best way to get more grain!


Hold it vertically to get the traditional horizontal (landscape) orientation.

 

[Todd Niccole]

I played around with Caffenol C on HP5 a few months ago, really grainy and fogged base. Even more grainy than print developer like Dektol.