>I'm having problems with grain with the Polaroid SS120. This can be
>seen in the sample at:
>
>
>
>This is from a 6x7 neg scanned at 2880, unsharpened. I get far less
>grain with my Epson 1640 and am wondering what is going on. The
>original neg is Tri-X in Rodinal, grainy, but by no means this
>radical. I'd like to figure this out, since I have thousands of
>Tri-X/Rodinal negatives, in fact, virtually everything I have shot.
>Some are 35mm and are even worse. With this level of grain, I find
>I can't print much bigger than 5x7 without really noticeable grain
>at reasonable distances.
Tri-X and Rodinal is about as "grainy" as 400 ISO gets-there's little
or no sodium sulfite in the formula, the chemical that reduces
apparent grain in most other developers (Microdol/Perceptol is 90%
sulfite) by smoothing actual grain contours. Ralph Gibson based his
entire aesthetic on that peculiarity. (You can add sulfite to the
soup to smooth the grain.) So you are scanning the sharpest possible
grain pattern.
At the scanner level, I understand working at other than even
fractions of the max optical resolution can cause artifacts with fine
pattern and details. I'd see if 2000dpi were smoother. Or 4000dpi and
find something useful to do while it churns out pixels.
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