Seeking realistic film grain with Photoshop 2006 Nikos K. Kantarakias http://nikant.white-tree.net/ - nikant@dpgr.

gr
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Seeking realistic film grain with Photoshop

Intro

Russell Browns technique for converting a photo in black and white became a favourite workflow
for many (digital or not) photographers to produce b&w photos according to their specific taste.

Problem was, and still might be, reproducing realistic film grain in our photos. Several techniques
where introduced using Photoshop generated noise or even real film scans of grainy films that where
overlaid above our original image. Yet most presented techniques in the experts eye were obviously
Photoshop made.

Another approach of generating near-realistic film grain with Photoshop is presented here intended
mostly for full size digital images that are to be printed. Several real film images where studied in
order to see how grain is distributed over film prints and the following conclusions where made:

film grain is more obvious in midtones and less in shadows and highlights
in shadow areas we see some negative (white grain?) noise
Photoshops generated noise has too small grain size compared with real films grain

With the above conclusions in mind an action set was created for Adobe Photoshop that contains
both the Russell Brown layers for b&w and the grain layers for midtones and shadows-highlights
(separation of the latest is not made with use of luminosity masks).


The action in action

Analysis of all Photoshop action-set steps follows:

(an open digital image in Photoshop is presumed)

Original document is duplicated to a copy and that copy is converted to grayscale.
From that copy a selection is made with Color Range command and midtones selected.
Selection is copied in memory, copy document is closed and selection is copied in a new
layer at our original document.

Russell Browns hue/saturation layers are created one named Film and one named Filter.

A new selection is made with Color Range for midtones at our original document (which is
RGB) and pasted in a new layer.
The latest midtones layer is merged with the midtones layer taken from our grayscale image
and the produced layer is named NOISE midtones.
That combined midtones layer is duplicated and named NOISE 2 midtones
The Add Noise command is used at the NOISE 2 midtones layer with options: 20%,
Gaussian, Monochromatic
Opacity of NOISE 2 midtones is set to 10%
The Add Noise command is used at the NOISE midtones layer with options: 20%,
Gaussian, Monochromatic
Seeking realistic film grain with Photoshop 2006 Nikos K. Kantarakias http://nikant.white-tree.net/ - nikant@dpgr.gr
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The Gaussian Blur command is used at the NOISE midtones layer with Radius 0,5 pixels
The Smart Sharpen command is used at the NOISE midtones layer with options: Settings
Default, Amount 40%, Radius 0,6 pixels, Remove Gaussian Blur and More Accurate selected
Opacity of NOISE midtones is set to 20%

A new selection is made with Color Range for shadows at our original document and pasted
in a new layer.
A new selection is made with Color Range for highlights at our original document and pasted
in a new layer.
A new selection is made with Color Range for inverted midtones at our original document
and pasted in a new layer.
The shadows, highlights and inverted midtones layers are merged together the produced layer
is named NOISE shadows - highlights.
That combined shadows - highlights layer is duplicated and named NOISE 2 shadows -
highlights
The Add Noise command is used at the NOISE 2 shadows - highlights layer with options:
20%, Gaussian, Monochromatic
Opacity of NOISE 2 shadows - highlights is set to 10%
The Add Noise command is used at the NOISE shadows - highlights layer with options:
10%, Gaussian, Monochromatic
The Gaussian Blur command is used at the NOISE shadows - highlights layer with
Radius 0,5 pixels
The Smart Sharpen command is used at the NOISE shadows - highlights layer with
options: Settings Default, Amount 40%, Radius 0,6 pixels, Remove Gaussian Blur and More
Accurate selected
Opacity of NOISE shadows - highlights is set to 10%



Final document contains the following layers from top to bottom:

1. Film
2. Filter
3. NOISE 2 midtones (opacity 10%)
4. NOISE midtones (opacity 20%)
5. NOISE 2 shadows highlights (opacity 10%)
6. NOISE shadows highlights (opacity 10%)
7. Background

In that way we have our favourite Russell Brown layers for the b&w conversion and four adjustable
grain layers with big and smaller grain size to choose.

The above method is not considered as the ideal or final solution to the grain problem but perhaps
as a further step and a start for more ideas.

I have to thank the photographer and Photoshop expert Manos Lykakis (http://www.manlyk.gr/) for
his help, ideas and provided samples that helped me to finish this project.


Seeking realistic film grain with Photoshop 2006 Nikos K. Kantarakias http://nikant.white-tree.net/ - nikant@dpgr.gr
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The above action-set will be available at http://nikant.white-tree.net/pstechniques/ and at
http://www.dpgr.gr/ .
This document in pdf format will be submitted to receive an Electronic Serial Number (ESN) at
http://www.numly.com/ .






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