Add a Cinematic Look to Your Footage with Film Grain Overlays

First off what is film grain?

Film Grain or “Movie Grain” is an optical effect referring to the granular or sand-like appearance due to the analog photographic process in photographic film. The amount of film grain texture one will see depends on both the film stock and the definition it is viewed at. Digital cinematography has eliminated film grain traditionally found in film. In digital cameras, the closest physical equivalents of film grains are the pixels. Unlike pixels, film grain does not represent the limit of resolution as film grains are randomly distributed and vary in size.

Why add film grain?

Besides easily achieving that classic or cinematic film look, film grain overlays can fix plastic looking footage which de-noising can cause. Adding film grain texture to your footage can also help reduce color banding when compressing videos for the web, and film grain can increase the perceived sharpness of your image.

“’I can’t stand digital filmmaking, it’s TV in public” ~ Quentin Tarantino