Adding film grain

Digital noise is the photographer’s enemy. It’s that horrible, multi-coloured speckling effect that you get when your camera’s ISO is set too high, and it can ruin an image. There are lots of ways to prevent noise, but, carefully applied, adding a touch of film grain can really make an image.

Grain can give your photos an aged, atmospheric appearance, sending your subject back to a time when cars were hand-cranked and film cameras ruled the roost. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to add film grain subtly and effectively for better images.

This picture of a discarded wicker basket in a temple works better in monochrome than it did in colour; the sunlit areas provide much-needed contrast to the subject and the walls, and the shadow cast by the basket is evocative. The finishing touch, though, would be a bit of film grain, giving the photo a slightly aged appearance.

In this tutorial we’re using Photoshop, but the process of adding film grain is fairly standard across most image-editing applications. Photoshop gives you a bewildering set of options when it comes to adding film grain: you can elect to add noise, or add a grain texture to your shot.

Everything is accessed via the Filters menu, but in this case we’re going to use the Filter/Artistic/Film Grain… option, as it’s the right tool for the job.

The layout of the texture dialogue box is easy to get to grips with. The large space on the left (not shown) is occupied by a real-time preview of the changes you’re making to your image. Down at the bottom is a zoom tool, allowing you to view your image either close up, or as a whole.

If you’re zoomed into your shot, you can click on the preview and drag it around to move to different areas. The middle panel provides you with various textures. In this case, Film Grain is already selected, but you can fritter away entire afternoons playing around with the other creative options. Finally, the right-hand panel provides you with the controls for the tool you’ve selected.

These three tools are simple to get to grips with, but the most important thing here, as with most digital editing, is subtlety and a light touch. Grain determines how much grain is added to your image, Highlight Area determines the exposure of your image (adding grain makes your image appear brighter, so use this one sparingly), and Intensity is fairly self-explanatory.

If your image looks like this at any point in the process, you’ve gone too far. Always bear in mind that your digital editing will be far more obvious once your shot is printed, and you should always remember that if your work is glaringly obvious on screen, it will be worse once it’s printed.

As a general rule, you shouldn’t set the amount of grain to be added to more than three. The exact number will vary slightly based on the photo itself and the exact effect you’re reaching for, but the most effective use of the grain tool comes from smaller changes.

It’s also good practice to look at your image both at 100 per cent magnification, and zoomed all the way out, to make sure you’re not making a mess of things.

This is a 100 per cent crop of our image. The red line marks the separation between the “before” and “after” shots. The difference between the two images is subtle, but the final print has a little more atmosphere than the original, smooth-as-silk image. The effect becomes even more effective if you print on matte paper, which can give a monochromatic image even more character.

The final, zoomed out image.