Why can't photos be grainy?

I often find pepole commenting on pictures saying that there are too many grains

in the picture. However, I actually find many grainy photos very attractive. As

long as it does not affect the photos ability to tell the story, why do we need

to care so much about grains?

Why? Well, that depends on to whom you refer. Some people care when the noise interferes with the detail and becomes a problem in the image. Some people care because they're pixel-peepers who see technicals and not photos. Some people care because they're critically evaluating pictures and they notice those kinds of things. Some people simply prefer "clean" pictures. Art is, as it turns out, subjective.

Thank you Marshall. That is helpful. For a moment I thought I must be an outlier. Then, a further question is, shall we deliberately avoid shooting grainy photos when technology is not an issue?

Some people have a fairly rigid set of aesthetics and cannot appreciate anything that strays outside their perception of "normal."

Those of us who could only get available light pictures at night with high-speed color films like GAF 500 and Ektachromes have a great tolerance for "grain" (film) or noise (digital).

 

You can actually buy plug-ins for Photoshop that will simulate the grain of specific films of the past, so you can be sure that somebody must like the look.<div></div>

Depends. Generally, i like some grain in BW photos and, or even noise (god, did i just say that?) as perfectly smooth just doesnt look right to me. When shooting color, a little bit is generally ok IMO, though noise certainly is not.

I often like grainy images. It depends which ones. I've always liked the ones from Georges Seurat.

Grain is Good!

Exactly! At one time grain was a fact of life. Now it is a technique. So why can't photos be grainy? No reason in the world if that's what you want. Ralph Gibson's work uses grain to great advantage. I'm not so sure John Sexton's work would be as effective if it was all grainy though.

Grain is not a problem, noise is a problem to me, especially color noise which I find generally very ugly. In film photography grain was a fact of life and the effect was often quite attractive and desirable (particularly b&w) but with digital photography grain was replaced by digital noise. If i want to have grain in my digital photo, i usually shoot the photo with the lowest ISO i can to avoid noise as much as possible then i add grain with filters in PS.

I'll admit that I've had some difficulty adjusting to accepting digital noise (luminance and chroma), but have seen some photos that were not only very good despite the noise, but a couple that were perhaps better because of the noise. Obviously this is highly subjective.

 

Heh... wonder how long it'll be before photographers begin to debate the noise characteristics of digital cameras in the same way we do b&w film grain, bokeh and other trivia. Yup, I can see myself in 10 years...

 

"Ahh, the D2H. Now that was a dSLR with some fine noise. The combination of rounded luminance noise at 1600 combined with greenish chroma noise, compounded by the sensor's IR response... yup, those were the good ol' days."

I'd rather play around with noise than add digital grain.

I think Lex has definitely got it. I can see the Photoshop CS8 plug-ins for the Canon 10D at top ISO now....!

Depends on what you want artistically. Some pictures look better with lots on grain/noise, some don't. You're the artist, you decide.

...of the beach or seed markets. ;-)

I'm with those who say grain is good.

 

P.G. Wodehouse once wrote that when someone writes about golf, they ought to start off by saying what there handicap was. My point being, have a look at the portfolio of whoever gives the critique, from what you see you can decide how credible you think their comment is.

 

Having said that, all photographers have their personal tastes and you can't please everyone.

 

P

What's grain...what's grain got to do with. What's grain but a second long exposure....

 

Sorry about that..just couldn't get the tune out of my head. :)

 

A persons brain will accept or reject an image. Often, sometimes, unfortunately, another end will respond.

As much as I like the grain, say of a crop from Tri-X, and occasionally miss it in digital photography, I'd acknowledge it's just something that came with film. Also, grain seems more desirable in black and white, than with color, for me.

 

Adding grain digitally seems somewhat like embossing wood "grain" in plastic. Anyway,

 

Do any of the digital grain adding filters actually map the tones to the "grain" itself, or is the grain just overlayed on the image? In practice I suspect the difference would not be that noticeable, but just curious.

The reason that so many people don't like grain is that they grew up in the digital world and

are used to rarely seeing it. It's like growing up listening to CDs instead of LPs: surface noise

is just not tolerated by younger people, regardless of how good the recording is. Also, there's

a frenzied hand-wringing about digital noise.

 

Personally I don't mind grain, depending on the subject matter. Sometimes it's expressive,

and sometimes it ruins the photo.

Header on apug.org site:

 

"That is called grain. It is supposed to be there." -Flotsam

 

/Clay

Grain is an art form of its own , There are some people that just seem to have a natural gift working with grain. I have always liked grainy shots of the forest , Fog and B/Ws. For me to see great photos like that is just mystical .