Ugly grain when scanning.

John Bragg · Jun 19, 2021

I have been a long time darkroom printer and changed to scanning and inkjet printing back in 2012. The worst combination of film and developer for ugly grain when scanned that I ever encountered was Tri-X in Rodinal. About the best has been HP5+ @ ei200 in Ilfosol 3. I also liked HC-110 H but I am trialling Ilfotec HC as a replacement. Do you have any favorite combinations or horror stories and why ? Let it be said, I like good regular even crisp grain. Artificially softened smushy grain is a no no for me. I guess that's why I predominantly go for non solvent developers or higher dilutions.

MattKing · Jun 19, 2021

You have to add the scanner/digitization method and software into the calculation, because they may have more effect on the results than the film and developer combination.

John Bragg · Jun 19, 2021

MattKing said:
You have to add the scanner/digitization method and software into the calculation, because they may have more effect on the results than the film and developer combination.

Thanks Matt. In my case, Plustek 7400 film scanner and Silverfast 9. Some tweaks in GIMP if needed.

John Bragg · Jun 19, 2021

Old Gregg said:
@John Bragg Ilfotec DD-X produced very unpleasant grain for all films I tried it on. I had chosen this developer because all Ilford's data sheets and tutorials tout it as "best for most purposes", only to realize that ID-11 and pretty much everything else produced smoother negatives.

I swear that the results we get are more individual and quirky than in darkroom days ! I never tried DDX as cost seemed out of all proportion to supposed benefits. I have long fancied trying D23 one shot at 1:1 or 1:2 and I suspect it could be a winner. The dark horse of Ilford developers is Ilfosol 3. Results are supposed to be like Xtol and it just looks right.

jeffreyg · Jun 19, 2021

I use ID-11 but when none is mixed I use Ilfotec DD-X and really don't notice a difference. I am using ilford Delta 400 120mm and HP5 4x5. since I am starting with larger negative than I am guessing that you are referring to 35mm that may make a difference. My scanner is an Epson V850 Pro and SilverFast Studio 8 software. I got similar results when I was using an Epson 4780 with the same film/developer combo.

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John Bragg · Jun 19, 2021

Old Gregg said:
@jeffreyg you are right. I only used DD-X with 35mm films. Here's a good example of what I was getting with Tri-X. It illustrates everything I didn't like about this developer: strangely flat mid-tones (and this was true for all types of light) and grain looked unpleasant in the shadows - look at the hull of the contraption. And here is a comparable scene under comparable light of comparable film (Delta 400) but with Xtol-R. Night and day difference IMO.

I also prefer the Xtol example.... It seems to have more shadow detail and less noise in the dark tones.

Different subject matter, but this is a recent shot of mine made on HP5+ in Ilfosol 3. The grain seems just right to me.

Philip by E.J. Bragg, on Flickr

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 19, 2021

HP5 in Pyrocat-HD, or Xtol 1+1, repenished, or stock.

Andrew O'Neill · Jun 19, 2021

And yes, HP5 is fab in Ilfosol-3, 1+14, printing or scanning. It's our main developer at my school photography program.

wiltw · Jun 19, 2021

John Bragg said:
I swear that the results we get are more individual and quirky than in darkroom days ! I never tried DDX as cost seemed out of all proportion to supposed benefits. I have long fancied trying D23 one shot at 1:1 or 1:2 and I suspect it could be a winner. The dark horse of Ilford developers is Ilfosol 3. Results are supposed to be like Xtol and it just looks right.

We are taking a very randomly distributed set of variable size grains, and turning them into a regular matrix of fixed size pixels via a scanner.
Just as photography onto digital sensor can create moire patterns (shooting thru a window screen) where none previously existed, one can appreciate going from random distrubtion to regular interval fixed size pixels can introduce abberations.

wiltw · Jun 19, 2021

Old Gregg said:
@wiltw Modern de-mosaicing, interpolation and sharpening algorithms make this negligible. Putting aside low-resolution scanning equipment, film+developer combination make far bigger difference on final scans than the scanning hardware. I have danced with five different high-quality scanning methods in the last two years and learned to produce the same result with all of them. Software and default settings differ, but you learn that. The biggest positive gains in technical quality of my images all came from the analog side of the process: better films, better chemistry, and more accurate exposure. But maybe that's because I am an electrical/software engineer by training so of course there aren't any skill gains to be had on the digital side, and I'm still a student of film photography and that can explain my results. I can imagine that an experienced film photographer with vague understanding of computer equipment/software may see most gains by honing those skills.

I do not dispute the 'not difference due to scanning hardware'...I was merely pointing out the artifact that could be introduced by going from any irregular distribution to a regular matrix distribution. Yes, software can be used to diminish issues, just as antialiasing software can decrease the stairstepping of edges...that is an amelioration, not an elimination of the fundamental cause of the artifact. I do not disagree, that "film+developer combination make far bigger difference on final scans than the scanning hardware."

Lachlan Young · Jun 19, 2021

Old Gregg said:
Putting aside low-resolution scanning equipment, film+developer combination make far bigger difference on final scans than the scanning hardware.

Only up to a point. If the results from Rodinal and 400TX are differing significantly between scanning and darkroom printing (ie worse results from the scanner), the problem is unequivocally in the scanner, its MTF performance and the way it handles film granularity. Plustek 35mm scanners don't seem terribly sharp even at quite low frequencies - and that, plus the subsequent sharpening performed to try and compensate for fundamental unsharpness of the optical system (I've seen some awful oversharpening on a pretty routine basis from Plustek users) apparently interacts with the MTF performance and RMS granularity of Rodinal developed negs in a very specific way. Ilfosol 3 seems to draw on some industry knowledge about how to create a better, sharper Rodinal - and because it seems to produce higher MTF performance at low frequencies, it can make a lower MTF scanner seem better - and less noisy because it might dissuade the user from jamming the sharpening to the limits.

Ko.Fe. · Jun 19, 2021

I never had issues with MF, LF scans. 135 film, never had results as good as darkroom print scan. I don't have any problem with it. Done with MF and LF. And I have small Vivitar enlarger in the bathroom to print on 5x7 and 8x10.
Here is no real need for dedicated darkroom and huge prints. For me .
I print inkjets from digital cameras files. It is totally fine as well.

Ugly grain when scanning.

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