Do you add grain to digital images?

Just wanted to see a cyber show of hands from those that add grain

(the effect at least) to color digital capture images. Also, from

those that scan film, and do not remove the grain.

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I hear alot of film purist who claim that they do not like the

plastic look of digital capture, and have read of people that add

grain to DSLR files.

The only time I ever added grain was when I added my brother-in-law to a group photo. I needed to add grain to match the look of the film background.

 

I've deleted the grain from many skies in scenic shots of scaned film images. If there are no clouds I replace the sky with a blue gradient.

No I remove film grain or digital artifacts with a vengence. Although such doesn't seem to bother many, I dislike seeing those aberatations on my or others prints.

 

I shoot 4x5 Provia. Images I intend to print get 300mb Tango scans. So scans are a bit more than 2000 pixels per inch which shows up as little grain on the output. In photoshop my aim is to reproduce the natural experience recorded on my transparencies with good fidelity of which film grain or oversharpening artifact are unnatural. Thus am careful to not magnify it in Photoshop by too much sharpening. To that end I usually create tedious masks for sky or other even colored portions of landscapes since such are the most likely areas for grain and digital artifacts caused by sharpening to appear.

 

...David

 

www.davidsenesac.com

I love film grain. I will miss film grain. Film grain adds depth and character to an image...in my opinion of course. I've tried adding it digitally, but it's an ugly substitute. If someone ever invents a photoshop plug-in that honestly & realistically recreates the look of pushed film (color and b&w), I'll call that person a genius...Of course, it'll probably never happen because I'm undoubtedly in the minority.

Love adding grain! I have discovered Grain Surgery to be the most efficient way of doing this because it has presets to mimick actual film grain.

I add grain to most of my pix - it's particularly effective when accompaied with nice

light.<BR><P>

 

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<img src= "http://pages.sbcglobal.net/b-evans/Images15/QueTal%20Web/image/

handy.jpg">

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Nice B!

I add grain in both B/W and color, although less with color, for things that will be printerd and/or shown on the web. Stuff for publication gets no grain, but that doesn't get sharpening either. Sometimes I selectively add grain to certain parts of the image.<p>

 

<center><img src="http://www.spirer.com/NY2004/images/subgirl2.jpg"><br><i>Subway Rider, grain added, Copyright 2004 Jeff Spirer</i></center>

yep<br><br><center><img src="http://tssullivan.net/images/pidgeonsflight.jpg"><br><br>untitled, 2005, tssullivan</center><br><br>

Hey, this website looks like it has a great way to put grain into a photo. He has a photo of grain that he puts on top of the digital photo.

 

http://194.100.88.243/petteri/pont/How_to/n_Digital_BW/a_Digital_Black_and_White.html?page=5

 

-James

I did it with this photo which started out as a Vevlia slide. I use the "photo grain" filter is CS2.<div></div>

Nice work guys.

Yes. Most excellent images... Time for me to experiment with grain again.

Here it goes, just to make a picture with natural grain available...<div></div>

Anyway, what I dont understand about these discussions is: why the hell do you want to make your digital images look like film? Use film for that case. I mean, if these were paintings, I would not use watercolour and then expect my work to look like an oil painting... digital has its own characteristiques and A LOT of posibilities. Why not explore them instead of trying to make it look like something else... Am I missing something?

Perhaps because to many people digital is a work-flow solution and the look of film is the desired end-result.

So far it hasn't worked well for me. I've tried adding rice and whole-wheat but it just covers up my photograph. What am I doing wrong? ;-)

There are three things I add noise (and grain is noise) to images for.

 

1) To cover up enlarging an image too much such that it goes soft and loses the crisp detail of digital. Then, emulating the soft and fuzzy look of celluloid work. To those who deny the soft and fuzzy look, take a look at the billions of mini-lab shot with low quality fixed-aperture cameras out there. The noise in those shots is the only thing that hides that nothing is in focus (the camera hit one spot and the enlarger blurred that away. ;o)

 

2) Subtle shifts in critical focus. Critical focus is demarcated not just by the loss of blurriness but also by the existence of tiny specular highlights and tiny shadows. By selectively adding noise to an image you can shift critical focus by a small amount allowing you to make eyes appear in focus rather than just the nose and etecetera.

 

3) To emulate Tri-X in a B&W shot. I still like the classic grain of Tri-X over the modern less grainy films in a B&W image.

 

As to the purists, if you ask them to explain photography in terms of photons they get all emotional and start talking about celluloid rather than exhibiting a modicum of knowledge about the physics that make photography the art of graphing (i.e. -graph) photons (i.e., photo-). There are those who do understand the physics and still choose film, but they tend to say they prefer it and do not spout Luddite attitudes about digital capture not being real (as if celluloid capture were real either ;o). It is best to ignore the purists, they are either ignorant of the matter or moronic fanatics (the first is the benefit of the doubt, the latter is the loud ones).

 

my $0.02,

 

Sean

For me, as I said above, digital should innovate and not just emulate. If you want good digital B&W, take a look at this <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/2333815&size=lg" >example from the PF of Scott Eaton</a>. The tones are beautiful (I think the whole picture is). The picture has no grain, but nothing about it is bohring.</p><p>

<b>Sean:</b> If you disqualify any opinion that differs from yours then you will be the worst fanatic (to use the same word) ever... Gladly, photography is much more than just "physics", and if you want to reduce grain to a simple noise artifact then you have not learned that... Moreover, even analog photographers can use B&W films where you are not likelly to see the grain.</p><p>Regards, Alejandro (Physicist) :-)

<I>Anyway, what I dont understand about these discussions is: why the hell do you want to

make your digital images look like film?</i><P>

 

I'm not - I could care less what film "looks like." I am trying to evoke a particular feeling and

mood, though.

i wouldn't add grain to Scott's shot either. It's the kind of shot I would have used (when I did a lot of nature stuff) Panatomic-X in Microdol-X 1:3 AND probably in medium format also. Today i would shoot that with the digital and not add grain. "Street" is a different story...I "see" in my mind's eye, probably 75% of what I shoot WITH grain in it when I shoot it.

<b>Sorry if I offended you Brad</b>, it was certainly not my intencion. You have a beautiful homepage and, by looking at it, I can see what you mean by "certain mood"... I actually agree with you in the sense that everybody needs to find their own style. The only reason why I do not shot digital is because I have not bought a digital camera yet. But even with analog cameras, I not always use grainy films.

No offense taken, Alejandro - just wanted to explain my motivations.

Alejandro,

 

I have no issues with those that prefer to use celluloid. My issue is with the ignorance or moronic fanaticism of those who claim digitally captured photos are not real photos. These people are ignorant of the fact that a photo is made by taking any photosensitive media and recording the influx of light onto it and then processing that captured data to produce output. Those who deny that it is the capturing of the influx of light onto photosensitive media are either ignorant (never took physics on college or never went to college) or they are moronic fanatics who will never get it.

 

Remember, to call a person ignorant is not an insult, it is just a fact. I am severely ignorant of 17th century Norwegian poetry and I find no insult in being called ignorant of it. There is no insult in calling someone who is ignorant of physics ignorant of the subject either.

 

What I am talking about here is a place called science and engineering where opinion is not of value. Science and engineering are about constructive approaches (note approaches not answers) that allow us to predict the behavior of the physical universe. I have little use for the opinion of those who claim photons have nothing to do with photography and that it is the celluloid that defines it. These people are ignorant of simple things like tintypes which existed as photographs long before celluloid.

 

This is not to say that feelings and opinions have no place in all this, that is where art stems from. But opinions have no place in a technical understanding of the tools. I could care less how many opinions one can find that say there is no such behavior as gravity. I could care less about ignorant or moronically fanatical opinions that say you have not captured the influx of incident light on a photosensitive media unless you use celluloid (tintypes or digital do this too).

 

To say that opinion does not matter in physics is not fanatical, it is factual. The last thing I want is someone's opinion in designing the brake system for a car, I want facts (i.e., How much stopping force will be generated)?.

 

There is absolutley nothing fanatical about discounting opinion where facts are needed. This does not mean opinion has no place in science, but said opinion tends to have value on the theoretical forefronts where theory cannot fully explain observed phenomena.

 

In short, I do not disqualify any opinion that differs from mine, but I have no use for opinions put forward as facts either. The difference between the ignorant and the fanatical moron is that the ignorant are willing to learn.

 

enjoy, :o)

 

Sean (mathematician)

In the digital domain, texturing is an art unto itself, and grain is but one type. Did you know that you can add texture with custom brushes in Photoshop?