Digital BW, The Print

The grain of scanned B&W is primarily dependent on the film developer.  Many
labs use stuff like D76 or HC110 because of cost and replenishment.  much
better choices can be made.  If your scans are too grainy, try Kodak XTOL.
This suggestion is particularly applicable to anyone who shoots Tmax.

The developer is very sensitive to contaminents.  If your result appears too
thin, that means your darkroom tanks and vessels are not clean enough.  so
clean everything more thoroughly than usual.

I believe the invention of this developer by the Kodak engineering team is
possibly the biggest advance in chemical photography in the last decade.
The improvement is substantial.  However, the chemicals cost about double
what the old developers can be had for.

Thomas Robinson