I recently developed a few of my pictures on Kodak Paper in Ilford developer. The final print came out extremely grainy. The prints looked good, but I was wondering if the combination of two different products (Kodak and Ilford) is what caused the prints to come out grainy?

-- Kevin B. Finigan (kfinigan@swbell.net), February 06, 1999

Answers

Hi Kevin, You don't indicate the film you used, grainy or other wise. That would be the first place to look. It would be highly unlikely that the combination you used would give poor results. I recently used Kodak paper in Agfa Multicontrast developer with very crisp results. You can safely assume interchangability between developers and papers. Look at your film processing, maybe you have used one of your chemicals at too high or low a temperature relative to the next or previous bath.

-- Steve Nicholls (gl1500@chariot.net.au), February 06, 1999.

The only effect you might be seeing here is an increased contrast, which will show up any grain more clearly. But if the print has the contrast you want, changing developer won't change the graininess.

As Steve says, you should look at your film (and film exposure).

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), February 06, 1999.