How do you grain?

[Liam]

Firstly, I think my NLE, Hitfilm, might apply it weirdly. Like making it not as harsh just means there's a milky haze through the filter over the entire image. Or maybe a film grain video applied as an overlay just isn't the best way to create a subtle grain effect? Just a texture, that seems to add more detail to a portrait, make the image dance a little, and only be visible as a grain on like a flat wall. I tested another NLE briefly and it did seem to lay differently. Sorry, I should have gotten some examples. Just curious what others' processes are

[Dustin]

Admittedly I have experimented with grain all that much. Perhaps, I haven't figured out the best way to do it either. I know Lumteri in PP lets you add grain. Sorry if that doesn't help but I just don't have a need for it for my style. It's looked fine in Premiere the times I have used it.

[mercer]

I have tested it with filmconvert but I recently purchased red giant renoiser and I really like the texture it added. 

[Zak Forsman]

the old way was to put your grain on a video layer above the clip and set its blend or composite mode to "overlay" and then to use a contrast filter on the grain layer to dial in the intensity. 

[bamigoreng]

Film Grain in Premiere Pro CC. Overlay, % and contrast. 

 

[Liam]

7 hours ago, Zak Forsman said:

the old way was to put your grain on a video layer above the clip and set its blend or composite mode to "overlay" and then to use a contrast filter on the grain layer to dial in the intensity. 

 

6 hours ago, bamigoreng said:

Film Grain in Premiere Pro CC. Overlay, % and contrast. 

 

Right, that's the way I'm doing it now, which I'm unsure about. The milky haze is there unless I boost the contrast all the way and make it not at all subtle

[Geoff CB]

I really enjoy Devinchi Resolve's film grain, also use Film Convert in premiere. Seems to add texture to the image.

[Hans Punk]

You can't beat real grain from a 35mm telecine scan to add over video footage...but if time is tight, the filmconvert grain is ok if dialled down from its preset...and it renders very fast. I've got a ton of use from my effects element library which is from material shot for movies including 'Clash of the Titans' and 'Sunshine' - lots of open gate and anamorphic grain to be lifted from some of those plate shots at the leader and tail of shots. Gorilla grain is ok, but most of these overlay grain packs you can buy tend to be 'enhanced' with sharpening or have too much contrast built in for my taste.

I've personally found it best to mix it up and avoid 50% opacity preset settings...it's often better to layer up two low opacity grain overlays (offset), rather than one heavy hit. It depends on the grain intensity that you are after, but for a nice texture feel with a bit of a perceived sharpness boost, less tends to be more.

[Cary Knoop]

While I occasionally add noise to video I never add grain. 

I must say I am not getting it, what is the point in degrading picture quality?  Grain is just badly distributed noise!

It's like adding vinyl scratch sounds or tape noise to digital audio recordings.

But, to each his own!

 

 

[Liam]

1 hour ago, Cary Knoop said:

While I occasionally add noise to video I never add grain. 

I must say I am not getting it, what is the point in degrading picture quality?  Grain is just badly distributed noise!

It's like adding vinyl scratch sounds or tape noise to digital audio recordings.

But, to each his own!

 

yep, just a style thing. Surely the compression artefacts, low resolution, possible sharpening issues, etc that my camera does on its own, and which adding grain seems to help with, could be considered.. not ideal. Adding grain has never seemed crazy to me, but I won't make you do it

[mercer]

23 minutes ago, Liam said:

yep, just a style thing. Surely the compression artefacts, low resolution, possible sharpening issues, etc that my camera does on its own, and which adding grain seems to help with, could be considered.. not ideal. Adding grain has never seemed crazy to me, but I won't make you do it

I think people who shoot narratives are more interested in grain than filmmakers from other disciplines. Because sometimes I see a scene with a clean, digital image and I can't stand how sterile it looks... I want to make it as dirty and grimy as possible.

[webrunner5]

I use this method I found on Resovle and I like the look. Covers up a Lot of mistakes! https://davidtorcivia.com/film-grain-and-davinci-resolve/

[Hans Punk]

9 hours ago, Cary Knoop said:

While I occasionally add noise to video I never add grain. 

I must say I am not getting it, what is the point in degrading picture quality?  Grain is just badly distributed noise!

It's like adding vinyl scratch sounds or tape noise to digital audio recordings.

But, to each his own!

 

 

Grain and Noise are two entirely different things.

There have been a few posts here before about the benefits of the appropriate use of grain for both technical and aesthetic reasons. As for grain degrading an image? - the opposite effect can often be true. For example, an appropriate application of grain can give a perceived impression of extra sharpness and detail to an image:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vesku]

I think many use grain to hide banding. I use debanding filter. It hides banding but is not adding noise or grain. It reduces noise. Video becomes cleaner, more photo like.

[Cary Knoop]

6 hours ago, Hans Punk said:

Grain and Noise are two entirely different things.

That is not true.  Grain is ill distributed noise. 

What makes resolution in film are tiny film particles. Grains are an order of magnitude larger and obscure those particles.

 

 

5 hours ago, Vesku said:

I think many use grain to hide banding.

I think the better option is to apply Gaussian noise.

 

[Cinegain]

Noise is very digital looking. So, what you can do is apply a denoising correction. This might leave your image a little fuzzy and overly smooth and clean in parts. So, what you can do is re-introduce some definition by applying a layer of grain. Of the more organic/filmic kind. That usually looks very sexy. But to each their own.

[Zak Forsman]

On 12/14/2016 at 5:57 AM, Liam said:

 

Right, that's the way I'm doing it now, which I'm unsure about. The milky haze is there unless I boost the contrast all the way and make it not at all subtle

 

 

where did you get your grain clip? I remember making my own a couple years ago and one thing I did was make sure the file was at 50% gray so it wouldn't affect the look of footage when applied as an overlay. 

[Liam]

23 minutes ago, Zak Forsman said:

where did you get your grain clip? I remember making my own a couple years ago and one thing I did was make sure the file was at 50% gray so it wouldn't affect the look of footage when applied as an overlay. 

It's the free one from vision color (35mm 1080p, in case they may have more idk), should be well made I'd think. I thought of a couple more ways i could maybe adjust it in my editor, but i haven't gotten around to messing with it again lately. Maybe it's just meant to be a little more aggressive like that.. I'm gonna start looking up other free ones

[Cinegain]

http://www.gorillagrain.com/examples/

[Bioskop.Inc]

If it's for YouTube or Vimeo, I use a heavy handed approach simply because too many times I've added grain just to have it eradicated by the uploading process.

Now I upload everything in 2K & use Filmconvert at 150% (super 35mm grain).

If it's not for the internet, then I dial back between 50-100%.

However, recently I've been experimenting with underexposing BM footage & then lifting it in post to reveal the noise, which I think BM cameras do very nicely - so no post grain needed.