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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

adding grain in post

David Dominguez

David Dominguez

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hey guys,

We are almost finished shooting a student film with our schools scarlet and i am absolutely blown away with the image this little guy produces. (i never want to touch a dslr again :)).
The only problem is that the image may be too clean, and sharp. We originally wanted to shoot the film on 16mm for its "grungy" look, but were unable to because of the processing cost.
Can anyone point me into the direction of a particular post grain package that they feels mimics real film grain? Also, there was one or two shots that i had to push too ISO 1600 due to how dark the image was. Do you guys think that will be difficult to cut smoothley with a shot that was at ISO 800?

thanks in advance!
 
Here are a few grain packages with samples:
http://matthayslett.com/film-look-with-red-footage/

CineGrain is the highest quality but also really expensive. If your finishing in 1080 then you have quite a few options. I chose Gorilla Grain for 1080p, and CrumblePop for 4K since I didn't want to spend $1500+ on CineGrain.

For the 1600ISO stuff, use noise reduction to clean it up to better match the 800ISO stuff. Then add the grain on top of that. It depends on how the rest of the film looks whether the 1600ISO stuff will match in the end. Usually the colors are the most telling in high iso stuff cause it looks slightly different and doesn't respond to cc as well.
 
I should have the 4K Cinegrain files here next week and will setup some tests with them.

Because I hate posting grain tests on sites like vimeo and youtube, contact me if you are interested in getting 1080P ProRes or DNxHD.

Also, if you have suggestions for what kind of footage you'd like to see them applied to, let me know. One of the interesting things I have found about applying these grain layers is getting contrast setting on the grain layer correct for the type of footage you are overlaying it on. I'm curious to see how the 4K files handle.
 
Man. I should really package up and sell my grain profiles. I've got a few dozen from over the years all scanned at 4K and 6K no less. Derp.
 
Well I for one at least would be really interested in checking those out Phil.

@Steve. I hadn't heard that about the contrast, could you elaborate a little more on what you've found?
 
Phil Holland said:
Man. I should really package up and sell my grain profiles. I've got a few dozen from over the years all scanned at 4K and 6K no less. Derp.
Click to expand...

6K! Holy hell Phil.
 
I use nukex regrain. Allows grain matching, also r/g/b separate controls ... with options of doing slightly different grain strength on high/medium/low gamma. Also will match to a known grain for a standardized look. Comes with a bunch of the standard grains so if you don't have anything, you can run off of those presets.
 
Lliam Worthington said:
Well I for one at least would be really interested in checking those out Phil.

@Steve. I hadn't heard that about the contrast, could you elaborate a little more on what you've found?
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You can control the grain strength, how it sits in with the footage etc by using FX on the grain layer itself. And for more stylized effects I suppose you could also use different composite modes.
 
Matt Ryan said:
6K! Holy hell Phil.
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16-bit log DPXs from a Northlight Film Scanner. Let me see what I can put together. These are used at a couple studios out here. I have some good ones we made for fun somewhat recently.
 
Phil Holland said:
16-bit log DPXs from a Northlight Film Scanner. Let me see what I can put together. These are used at a couple studios out here. I have some good ones we made for fun somewhat recently.
Click to expand...

Nice, your the man! Gotta be quite an expense to scan at 6K.
 
I find that no plug-in or grain effect can match overlaying real film scans over the image. The grain generators out there, at least all that I have tried including nuke, look like just noise or something. The other advantage of using a real film stock scan is that it changes your image's tonality to match more that stock.
 
Most of my working life I have spent trying to get rig of grain and people have spent huge sums on contraptions to get rid of it. Now we are trying to add it back in again.......
 
Dave Blackham said:
Most of my working life I have spent trying to get rig of grain and people have spent huge sums on contraptions to get rid of it. Now we are trying to add it back in again.......
Click to expand...
Fine grain or even "gritty" grain has never bothered me, in fact I like it. It's video noise that I have a problem with.
 
Speaking of grain Andrew, I just found 25 rolls of 16mm film which I shot in 1999 when I was shooting a doc about the tornado which devastated the downtown area of Little Rock. I got busy and had to put this doc aside and forgot all about it. I was cleaning out stuff last week and bam! I'm like, where the hell did all this Vision 250D & 500T come from? Then I remembered. I'll have to send it off as my lab & telecine are long gone, but I'm really interested to see how it looks.
 
David Dominguez said:
The only problem is that the image may be too clean
Click to expand...
So you should have spent more time on the production design.
David Dominguez said:
, and sharp.
Click to expand...
So you should have used a different lens.

David Dominguez said:
Also, there was one or two shots that i had to push too ISO 1600 due to how dark the image was
Click to expand...
.. not due to your team's inability to properly light the scene?


I buy the use of post-grain when you actually want grain (for the texture or that it serves the story etc), but it makes me cringe when people use it to try and cover up poor choices and then blame it on the camera. Yes, OK, I may be fanboi'ing a bit, but come on.
 
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