How to make an image consisting of film grains (using Affinity Photo)?

[Dmitri Rabounski]

Does someone know how to make an image consisting of film grains in Affinity Photo?

That is, we overlay a film grain pattern (scanned from a real photo film) on an image using the Overlay blending mode. In this case, we get just a "pockmarked" image. However we need to have the image CONSISTING of film grains (like any scanned real film image).

If applying Gaussian blur, say, from 1 to 3 px, to the image, the image becomes really consisting of film grains, but becomes very blurry.

Is there another way to make an image consisting of film grains, i.e., looking like a scanned photo film?

Thank you.

[telemax]

I'm not sure that this is exactly what you need, but the Voronoi filter gives the graininess effect at minimal values.

This will only work for photos with a higher resolution.

 

[lacerto]

(...)

[Dmitri Rabounski]

58 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Did you apply the blur to the grain overlay layer only, or on top to all layers?

To make an image consisting of film grain, the following stack of layers is required (from up to down):

2. The film grain pattern (in the Overlay blending mode) with Levels applied to the grain layer (and no anything else, no blur, etc.). The close the black and white sliders to the histogram of the grain layer, the more contrast of the grain pattern. Say, Black = 30 and White = 75 produce a normal contrast, while Black = 35 and White = 70 make the grains more contrast. Sharpening must NOT be applied to the grain pattern. Anyone of film photographers, who watched many scanned film frames can say that a sharpened grain pattern looks poor, differentfrom a natural film grain. Only contrast (regulated using Lavels) does not affect the natural film grain effect. 

1. Background image with Gaussian blur. 

P.S. 24 Mpx (4,000 x 6,000 px) HQ scans of 24 x 36 film grain patterns are available for free from Film Composite.

P.P.S. It seems that two previous persons, who recommended the use of various plugins and other film emulation software, did not understand that I mean. All film emulation software such as DxO, CaptureOne, Nik and others just EMULATE/IMITATE real film grain. Any film photographer looking at the pictures "grained" after the software would say "this is fake". This subject was examined dozens times over the last decade by many professional photographers. Only superimposing a scanned real grain pattern gives a real film grain look. The only problem is how to make such a picture consisting of film grains. Usually, we apply Gaussian blur to the image itself to make it containing NO details lesser than the suprtimosed grains. In such a case we really obtain a grain-constructed image. A lack is the loss of sharpness, in contrast to real scan of film.  Therefore, I asked the Affinity Photo community on the mentioned subject: is there another way to make an image consisting of the overlayed scanned film grain pattern?

[Dmitri Rabounski]

5 hours ago, Lagarto said:

One possibility might be using the (free) NikCollection plug-in SilverEfex Pro that has ISO and film-specific grain settings... The screenshots are from the commercial DxO version but the free Google version should have pretty much the same features. I have now idea how realistic film grain this filter can produce, though.

 

13 hours ago, telemax said:

I'm not sure that this is exactly what you need, but the Voronoi filter gives the graininess effect at minimal values.

Dear Lagarto and telemax,

It seems that you, when recommended the use of various plugins and other film emulation software, did not understand that I mean. All film emulation software such as DxO, CaptureOne, Nik and others just EMULATE/IMITATE real film grain. Any film photographer looking at the pictures "grained" after the software would say "this is fake". This subject was examined dozens times over the last decade by many professional photographers. Only superimposing a scanned real grain pattern gives a real film grain look. The only problem is how to make such a picture consisting of film grains. Usually, we apply Gaussian blur to the image itself to make it containing NO details lesser than the suprtimosed grains. In such a case we really obtain a grain-constructed image. A lack is the loss of sharpness, in contrast to real scan of film. 

Therefore, I asked the Affinity Photo community on the mentioned subject: is there another way to make an image consisting of the overlayed scanned film grain pattern?

[NotMyFault]

19 minutes ago, Dmitri Rabounski said:

To make an image consisting of film grain, the following stack of layers is required (from up to down):

It seems you are already the absolute expert regarding this topic. And all others (including myself) did not get the essence of your issue / question. It would help if you could provide

• An example document containing the layer stack you described 
• An example showing the resulting image you want to achieve (maybe created with other apps)

I still don’t get what the issues is:

• The blurring of the scanned image (but you describe this as “required” - no alternative allowed?)
• Something else?

[Old Bruce]

From my decades of working with Black and White I would say you may have to roll your own. Grab a film camera load it with some film. Aim at the sky, no clouds just blue sky, focus close so as to be certain you are not photographing a bird or a plane. Over exposure and normal exposure and under exposure will give different amounts of grain so do so in 1/3 EV stops. Process the film in what ever developer you want, do this several times varying the development time by 12% as this will also cause different amounts of grain. Repeat with different film developers. Repeat with different films.

Lord knows how much money has been spent. Going from my experience you should expect to use at least 6 film types and at least 6 developers multiplied by the three or four development times and again by a couple of different dilutions. Couple of hundred rolls of film...

You now have a set of film grain negatives, scan them at high resolution and use as you want to. Be aware that film grains are aligned randomly and your negatives with the real grain are not going to be random, they will reproduce the same pattern every time you use them.

Just be aware that the film grain although real will still look fake because in reality the grain in an actual photograph of an actual subject is not going to be smooth, the developer will work on the areas of the film that are over exposed more aggressively than the areas that are underexposed, there is a change in how the grain goes from light to dark, it is not the same size. There is a subtle difference that overlaying a real film grain is not going to replicate.

[lacerto]

(...)

[walt.farrell]

35 minutes ago, Dmitri Rabounski said:

P.S. 24 Mpx (4,000 x 6,000 px) HQ scans of 24 x 36 film grain patterns are available for free from Film Composite

If scans of film grain are already available, why do you need a way of creating them in Affinity Photo? Can't you just use those?

There must still be something about your question I don't understand.

[Dmitri Rabounski]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

If scans of film grain are already available, why do you need a way of creating them in Affinity Photo? Can't you just use those?
There must still be something about your question I don't understand.

Yes, we use real film grain scan. We use Affinity Photo to superimpose the scan over photo images and then somehow making the images consisting of the scanned grains (how to make is the subject of my question).

[Dmitri Rabounski]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

From my decades of working with Black and White I would say you may have to roll your own. Grab a film camera load it with some film. Aim at the sky, no clouds just blue sky, focus close so as to be certain you are not photographing a bird or a plane. Over exposure and normal exposure and under exposure will give different amounts of grain so do so in 1/3 EV stops. Process the film in what ever developer you want, do this several times varying the development time by 12% as this will also cause different amounts of grain. Repeat with different film developers. Repeat with different films.

Lord knows how much money has been spent. Going from my experience you should expect to use at least 6 film types and at least 6 developers multiplied by the three or four development times and again by a couple of different dilutions. Couple of hundred rolls of film...

You now have a set of film grain negatives, scan them at high resolution and use as you want to. Be aware that film grains are aligned randomly and your negatives with the real grain are not going to be random, they will reproduce the same pattern every time you use them.

Just be aware that the film grain although real will still look fake because in reality the grain in an actual photograph of an actual subject is not going to be smooth, the developer will work on the areas of the film that are over exposed more aggressively than the areas that are underexposed, there is a change in how the grain goes from light to dark, it is not the same size. There is a subtle difference that overlaying a real film grain is not going to replicate.

This is absolutely true. I glad to see a person who understands the problem in the core. Thank you. Of course, the unique tonal distribution of each individual film negative produces its unique grain pattern. Even more, when applying Dodge & Burn to the scanned image, we change this individual grain pattern as well. Another problem of digital images is that they all are smooth (to within the digital noise), while the superiposed real grain pattern is the same for all them. This is the evil that you have to put up with digital photography.

Also, as a matter of fact that we should apply a blend curve (Blend Option) to the scanned grain layer so that the grain affect is very small in the shadows, maximum in the middle tones, and decreases to the highlights. In this case we will have a similar grain effect to the grain effect in scanned film negatives.

Thank you very much, Old Bruce, for the reply and your understanding of other sides of the problem.

[Dmitri Rabounski]

1 hour ago, NotMyFault said:

It would help if you could provide

• An example document containing the layer stack you described 
• An example showing the resulting image you want to achieve (maybe created with other apps)

I still don’t get what the issues is:

• The blurring of the scanned image (but you describe this as “required” - no alternative allowed?)
• Something else?

The Levels applied to the grain layer:

Gaissian Blur 1.5 px applied to the image:

The image before the Gaussian blur applied (100% view). It looks merely "pockmarked" because the grain layer is merely superimposed on the image (in the Overlay mode). This is NOT the look of a scanned film negative:

The image after the Gaussian bur applied. Now, the image consists of grains (it is seen everywhere including the borders of tree branches), but looks blurry:

[h_d]

I really am no expert, but...

If you are using one of the free film grain images from the site you quoted above, how are you converting it to greyscale? (The originals are RGB and at 72dpi.) Are you matching the resolution and size of the film grain image to the resolution and size of the photo before compositing? Are you viewing the composite at 100%? You're applying a Gaussian Blur Effect rather than a filter, and not preserving Alpha, so there will be vignetting. You're also applying multiple effects and adjustments to the base image. Are you perhaps over-cooking it? You're simulating the film grain, but what about the paper grain?

Unless you upload your .afphoto document, with all adjustments, effects and layers in place, it's really hard for anyone to tell what (if anything) you might change to improve your results. 

Personally I would simplify things. I downloaded the Ilford HP5 sample and converted it to Grey/16 using a Greyscale D50 ICC profile. I then opened an RGB image, ran the same greyscale conversion, downsampled it from 180 dpi to 72. I then cropped the film grain image to the same dimensions as my base image (5184x3888). Then I combined the two images.

I then applied a Levels adjustment to the film grain image, nothing too drastic:

and set its blend mode to Soft Light (because experimentation suggested to me that Overlay gave too harsh a result).

Before:

After:

Both the above were grabbed at 100%. The forum software will probably mush them a bit. 

Whether you, or I, or anyone thinks this is a correct representation of true film grain is totally subjective. 

Original RGB:

Layers panel:

I've attached the full .afphoto document in case you're interested.

But ultimately, the only way to get film grain is to shoot b/w film, process b/w film, print b/w film. Manipulating a digital original is a simulation, however you do it, and the 'realism' of the result is subjective.

 

 

film grain.afphoto

[Dmitri Rabounski]

On 7/23/2021 at 11:00 PM, h_d said:

If you are using one of the free film grain images from the site you quoted above, how are you converting it to greyscale? (The originals are RGB and at 72dpi.) Are you matching the resolution and size of the film grain image to the resolution and size of the photo before compositing? Are you viewing the composite at 100%? You're applying a Gaussian Blur Effect rather than a filter, and not preserving Alpha, so there will be vignetting. You're also applying multiple effects and adjustments to the base image. Are you perhaps over-cooking it? You're simulating the film grain, but what about the paper grain?

Unless you upload your .afphoto document, with all adjustments, effects and layers in place, it's really hard for anyone to tell what (if anything) you might change to improve your results. 

Personally I would simplify things. I downloaded the Ilford HP5 sample and converted it to Grey/16 using a Greyscale D50 ICC profile. I then opened an RGB image, ran the same greyscale conversion, downsampled it from 180 dpi to 72. I then cropped the film grain image to the same dimensions as my base image (5184x3888). Then I combined the two images.

I then applied a Levels adjustment to the film grain image, nothing too drastic:

I do actually the same as you do (with minor differences):

1. I enlarge the original image (+ all correction layers that appeared due to tonal development) to the required size, say, to 60 x 80 cm at 400dpi.

2. I apply Gaussian blur to the background image as a FILTER (the Gaussian blur option on my screenshot was showed only because it is impossible to show both the layer and the filter at the same time).

3. I enlarge the film grain image to the same size as the image (60 x 80 cm at 400dpi) along the short side.

4. Then I copy the enlaged film grain image to the file of the image over all development layers.

5. I also apply a Vibrance filter as a sub-layer to the film grain layer (or, optionally, to the entire image over all other layer), where I set up Saturation to - 100 that makes the film grain layer (or the entire image) free of colour. It is also possible to decolourize the film grain image in the way as you said, of course.

6. Then I switch off all lower layers, so that only the film grain layer is visible.

7. Then I apply Levels over the film grain layer. Because you see only the film grain layer (all other layers are switched off), you see the histogrsam of only film grain (it looks like a very high peak somewhere at the centre of the histogram). Setting up the Levels (say, 35 and 70), I choose the required contrast of the grains. Then I move the Level layer as a sub-layer to the film grain layer.

7. Then I switch on all the development layers and the background layer. That is all.

Concerning the paper grain pattern. I does not play any role, because its very small granulation. In general, we apply film grain to an image only if the film grain is very large so that it plays an important role in the art work itself, that is, only when the proto image should consist of large grains. In all other cases film grain is unnecessary.