Digital BW, The Print

Bruce,
> 
> Almost certainly, scanner or not. Density effects many properties, 
> including graininess and perceived sharpness. As density goes down, 
> graininess decreases and sharpness increases a bit. This is one of the 
> reasons that slide film is perceived to be less grainy and sharper than 
> negative film -- slide film has its maximum density in the shadows where 
> it's difficult to see the grain, while it has its minimum density in the 
> highlights that appear almost grainless and very sharp.

When you describe a "thin" negative, I presume you mean that the silver density is thin. This 
distinction is relevent when using staining developers such as Pyro and Pyrocat-HD. In such 
cases the negatives have always seemed "thin" to the eye but the CI of the negative as seen 
through processes that are U.V. sensative (e.g. platinum) is quite good.

In such negatives the stain part does not have grain.

All told, one can have negatives with quite good shadow detail, with excellent tonality, which 
in fact have quite good darkroom contrast but also scan well.

Jonathan