Yipes! Tri X 320 in Xtol

[Flotsam]

I wanted to shoot some green foliage with a red filter so instead of using my usual standard Efke R50, I opted for some TXP 120 that I had lying around, about a year past date but stored in temperate climate.
I'm a stickler for critical process control and developed it in Xtol 1:1. The negs look fine. Density is great.

Right now I am now printing them and YIPES!, The Grain! An 8x10 from 6x7 neg and it looks 35mm Tri X in Rodinal. I am new to Xtol and haven't done much with TXP 120 but have found the 35mm Tri X that I have done in it to have pretty fine grain.
The prints look fine but the grain is totally unexpected. Any thoughts?

 

[Alex Hawley]

Sounds like my experience too Neal. When I was using Xtol, I went to 1:3 or full strength. The 1:3 dilution worked well. I have no idea how to technically account for the difference.

If you want to see something really sharp withTri-X, try Xtol 1:3 with 10ml/liter Rodinal thrown in.

 

[Flotsam]

If you want to see something really sharp withTri-X, try Xtol 1:3 with 10ml/liter Rodinal thrown in.

I've actually tried that. It was only one roll so it wasn't really enough to make any concrete judgements from but I'm thinking that if want Xtol with more snap and slightly more pronounced grain, I might as well just go back to Good Ol', out-of the bag, D-76. I've used it on and off for 30 years and I'm beginning to wonder why I've ever bothered to try anything else for general purpose developing.

 

[Alex Hawley]

Good point Neal. Hard to beat Tri-X and D-76 1:1.

 

[Gerald Koch]

If you want fine grain development then you need to use Xtol at full strength. This concentration provides the maximum amount of halide solvent action. (This also applies to any high sulfite developer such as D-76 or D-23.) Dilute Xtol is not a fine grain developer but rather an acutance developer.

Excess grain can also be caused by negatives that are too dense either from over-exposure or over-development.

 

[SchwinnParamount]

Hmmm.. I've been doing the Tri-x 120 and Xtol 1:1 for a few years now. I've compared these negs with the same film in D76 (my old standby combo) and have never seen XTOL give me larger grain than D76. Of course, like Gerald said over-development could be the problem. I generally don't make super thick negatives. my style is to make them a tad on the thin side but with enough shadow detail to be printable.