Working With Added Or Matched Grain; Adjusting The Tones Of Added Or Matched Grain - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

Digital video footage shown using three variations of Add Grain effect
Note: The actual grain of your image may vary from the film presets, because of factors such as exposure and scanning
resolution.
You can use the Add Grain effect's controls to do the following:
•
To reproduce the grain of a particular film or photographic stock, choose the film type from the Add Grain effect's
Preset menu in the Effect Controls panel.
•
To adjust the intensity and size of the applied grain and introduce a blur, adjust the Tweaking controls group for
the Add Grain effect in the Effect Controls panel.
•
To modify the color of the added noise, adjust the Color controls.
•
To define how the color value of the generated noise combines with the color value of the underlying destination
layer at each pixel, choose a Blending Mode in the Application controls group.
•
To define how much grain is added to each tonal area in your image and the midpoint, adjust the Shadows,
Midtones, Highlights and Midpoint values in the Application controls group.
•
To animate the added grain, adjust the properties in the Animation controls group.
•
To apply the effect to the entire image, choose Final Output from the Viewing Mode menu.

Working with added or matched grain

The Add Grain effect creates new grain or noise in an image by building the grain from nothing or by basing the
grain's properties on presets. The Match Grain effect also creates new grain in an image but by matching the grain in
a different image. Both effects share several controls in the Effect Controls panel that let you control the new grain's
color, tonal range, blending mode, and animation properties.

Adjusting the tones of added or matched grain

The precise grain pattern present in any frame of film isn't uniform throughout the frame but may depend on the
tonal values of the content at each pixel. For instance, in chemical film grain, the sizes of the silver halide crystals
actually vary with the exposure level.
The Add Grain and Match Grain effects let you reproduce these subtle changes in grain patterns across areas of your
image or sequence, using the Shadows, Midtones, Highlights, and Midpoint controls in the Application controls
group. These controls let you define how much grain is added to each tonal area and also to each channel in the
image. For example, you can add more grain to overexposed areas of the blue channel to give an image of sky a
grainier look.
You can use the Application controls group for the Add Grain or Match Grain effect to do the following:
•
To define how much grain is added to each tonal area in your image, adjust the Shadows, Midtones, and Highlights
values.
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 363
User Guide