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Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Bridging Tech and Creative Photography
Education Field Instructional

Incorporating Grain into Images in Lightroom

Chris Gampat
No Comments
12/18/2015
4 Mins read

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This is a syndicated blog post from Sam Gold. It and the images in this post are being republished with permission.

I have never been a fan of adding grain to my imagery. I think my obsession with having optimal image quality steered me away from the idea. Recently however, my sister sent me an old photo of our family and seeing it inspired me to experiment with grain in Lightroom. The less than good image quality stemmed from the photo being taken with a disposable film camera at night using the flash which illuminated the people in the photo but not the dark space around us which ended up grainy.

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I did not want to sound like an oaf on this subject and while researching the properties of film grain I found this article (a tough but fun read) which states:

The term “film grain” is often incorrectly used to describe the “fundamental” particles in a chemical-based photographic image. Fundamental image particles are the smallest particles that form an image: (a) silver particles or (b) color dye clouds … 

Film grain is a repeating noise pattern that is an order of magnitude larger than the fundamental image particles. Film resolution is directly related to the size and distribution of silver particles in an emulsion. The noise pattern tends to obscure detail rather than define detail. The pattern is superimposed over the image, not the source of the image.

A common mistake [made by the author many, many times], is to think that film grain is the image-forming element. Many Kodak and Fuji publications, including much of the popular photographic literature (magazines), commonly make the mistake of referring to fundamental film particles as film grain. This further propagates the imprecise usage of the term.

Although this information may seem archaic, the scientist in me found it to be very interesting because it helped me understand how I should better approach adding digital grain to an image.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I think the most important thing is that adding grain should be the very last thing you apply to a fully processed image. It helps to think of your edited RAW (or JPEG) file as the “fundamental image particles” (in the digital world it is actually the pixels making up the image) and the grain as a noise artefact being superimposed on top of it. The end result is that you obtain a digital image that has more of a film like rendering to it.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

In Lightroom you are able to add grain in the “Effects” module and the adjustment sliders consist of  “Amount”, “Size”, and “Rougness”. When adding grain into the mix, I usually toggle between the “1:1” and “FIT” to look at the changes on a magnified and overall level. This ensures image quality does not deteriorate to the point where you lose fine detail. Size and roughness play a major role in this and amount impacts the overall effects of both. As with all my processing, I just adjust the sliders around until the end result is something I am looking for. In the week of playing around with this process I like Amount:50, Size:20, Roughness:20 for moderate grain and Amount:50, Size:20 Roughness:50 for a more distinct look. Some other things to note are that:

  • Grain is more noticeable in the darker areas of a photo, especially the mid-tones (or “clipped”/”faded” blacks).
  • Grain is also more evident in out of focus areas.
  • Increasing the grain deteriorates image quality especially in subjects with fine detail such as hair or eyelashes.
  • It helps to look at film images to help understand what looks natural.
  • When noise reduction is not set to 0, the effect of adding grain is diminished.
  • If the image was shot at a high ISO, you probably do not need to add additional grain.

Image Samples

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Again, I have only been experimenting with this for a short period of time so the information I presented here should be taken with a grain of salt. Some may think it is silly to strive for a good digital camera with a nice sharp lens only to ruin the output with the addition of grain, but I have definitely had fun playing around with it. I am sure film photographers out there would say “just shoot film”. For digital photographers who haven’t used the medium however, working grain into your aesthetic can a step in the right direction. Anyone else out there add grain in their post processing workflow?? I’d love to hear your thoughts/tips in the comments section =)

– Sam

adobe grain images lightroom
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Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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