Kirk, the grain in the xtol is not sharper, just bigger. It's sharper look in this post is a product of down sampling/grain size/ scanning resolution being close to multiple of each other.
I'm trying not to get in the subject but I think the big difference here is stain vs not stain. The scattered light in the Nikon sort of amplifies the effect. IMO, the stain reduces a lot of the dispersion and diffraction occurring around the “clean” grain and reaching the neighbor cells in the CCD.
Armando
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