You tend to think of Lightroom as an image cataloguing program with some image-editing tools thrown in, but actually Lightroom 5 can do many of the jobs that Photoshop can. It’s especially good at building effects from a series of different adjustments – and you can then save these effects as a preset you can […]
Film grain, and how to get it
Film grain is caused by the random clumping of silver halide grains (black and white) or dye clouds (colour film) – the individual grains or colour spots are too small to see. Film grain looks very different to digital noise – many photographers use film grain simulation filters and tools.
Grain is one a film characteristic that was largely unpopular at the time, but is now considered an intrinsic part of that film 'look'. The noise created by digital camera sensors is not the same at all, so we have a strange situation where we're trying to create digital images which are as noise-free as possible, then adding old-style analog 'grain' effects in software.
Digital 'grain' is now rather good. The Grain effect in Lightroom is very authentic-looking, even down to the erosion of hard edges by grain 'clumps', and Capture One Pro offers a grain effect as a standard processing choice. A fine patina of grain, whether it's real film grain or digitally induced, gives fine detail a subtle texture that's often missing in 'straight' digital images, and helps makes photographs look more natural in a way that's hard to explain.
Naturally, grain effects are a standard feature in film simulation plug-ins and other 'analog' effects tools.