Grain

Grain is the part of film a LUT cannot carry. Color and tone can be matched with a LUT. Grain cannot, because it is spatial and it changes every frame. On a real negative it also tracks exposure and differs by layer. The Grain tab renders that texture over the finished image and, when Bind Image to Emulsion is on, softens the picture toward the resolution the emulsion would have given it.

What the stage does

Grain is the last stage. It works on the finished image, after the print and after halation, so the texture is built from the picture the audience would see. The stage generates a grain field from the stock and gauge you pick, weights it by the brightness of each pixel so the shadows carry more than the highlights, and applies it per dye layer. With Bind Image to Emulsion on, it also softens the image with a blur scaled to the grain.

This stage does not read the Negative tab. It has its own Film Stock menu, and its gauge is separate from the one on the Halation tab. The Lab tab’s Process control switches Silver Halide Mode on once, the first time you pick a silver-retention process, to match the grain to a bleach-bypassed print.

Film Stock and Film Gauge

Film Stock picks the grain chemistry: Kodak Vision3 50D, 250D, or 500T. The stock sets the baseline size and amount of the grain and how it sits in each layer. Slower is finer. This menu is independent of the Negative tab’s stock, so you can pair any negative rendering with any of the three grain structures. The Film Look presets choose both as part of the recipe, and the two do not always match.

Film Gauge sets the frame size the grain is scaled to, from 8mm to IMAX. Smaller gauge, bigger grain relative to the frame, because the same emulsion is covering less area. Switching a look from Super 35 to Super 16 makes it visibly heavier without touching anything else. Set it once, the same as the Halation tab’s gauge, unless a look calls for the two to differ.

Emulsion Intensity and Grain Size

Emulsion Intensity (%) is the master amount. The default is subtle, felt more than seen at delivery size. Raise it for visible grain and keep going for heavy grain. It scales the grain in all three layers together and does not change its size.

Grain Size scales the physical size of the dye clouds relative to the stock’s own. Below the default the grain is finer than the stock’s own, above it coarser. Gauge and size compound: a coarse setting on a small gauge is a lot of grain.

Layer controls

Red Weight, Green Weight, and Blue Weight scale the grain in each dye layer on its own: the cyan layer for red, the magenta layer for green, the yellow layer for blue. Green carries much of the perceived detail; the stock presets give blue the most grain. The three weights have no effect in Silver Halide Mode.

Layer Separation sets how independent the three layers’ grain is. At the bottom of the range the three layers share one noise pattern, so the grain reads as a single density texture, though the layers’ strengths can still differ. At the top each layer has its own structure, the organic color grain of a scanned negative. The midpoint is the default, and most looks sit near it.

Tone controls

Highlight Grain sets how much grain survives in the highlights. The stock’s own behavior is the midpoint: grain reads most in the shadows, so highlights are quiet. Raise it and the grain persists into the bright end. Lower it and the highlights clean up further.

Shadow Grain sets how much grain the shadows carry beyond the stock’s own. Raise it for harsher shadow grain, like an underexposed negative brightened in a scan. The midpoint is the stock as scanned normally.

Generational Loss and Scanner Noise

Generational Loss softens the image the way another optical generation does. At the bottom of the range it adds nothing. Raise it for the softness of a release print, and further for a duplicate. It softens whether Bind Image to Emulsion is on or off.

Scanner Noise adds fine electronic noise that grows toward the highlights, where the negative’s own grain has gone quiet. It is on by default at a low level. Turn it fully down for a projected-print texture that never went through a scanner.

Silver Halide Mode and Bind Image to Emulsion

Silver Halide Mode switches the grain engine from soft color dye clouds to sharp, monochrome silver crystals. It applies neutral density grain without desaturating the image underneath, so it is the right grain for a black-and-white stock and for a bleach-bypassed color print, where the silver is still in the film. The Lab tab’s Process control turns it on the first time you choose a silver-retention process. You can switch it off again, and the plugin will not force it back.

Bind Image to Emulsion softens fine detail with a blur scaled to the grain size, so digital detail finer than the grain is eased away. It is on by default. Switch it off to keep the source sharp. Generational Loss still softens if it is up.

Opacity, Enable, and Quality

Opacity blends the complete Grain stage against its input, including the emulsion softening. Enable takes the stage out. Neither changes how the grain is generated.

Quality also sits on this tab. It sets how halation and grain are rendered for the whole plugin, including how finely they are sampled and the brightness a highlight needs to trigger halation. It is one of the three master controls. Overview covers when to use Extreme and when to grade at High or Performance, and Performance & Backends covers what each setting costs and how the plugin picks a render backend.

Controls

Working with grain

Judge grain at delivery size and at speed, not on a paused frame zoomed in. Motion changes how much grain you perceive, so a still can mislead in either direction. Judge it on a mid-grey and on skin, where it is most perceptible, rather than on a black or a highlight.

Set the gauge first, then the stock, then Emulsion Intensity. Reach for the layer and tone controls when the grain is the right amount but the wrong character.

Keep Bind Image to Emulsion on while you judge, then compare it off. Check whether the grain blends with the image or reads as an overlay on sharp detail.

For film texture over your own color pipeline, switch Negative and Print off and leave Halation and Grain on, or start from the Halation + Grain Only look, which does that for you. The texture still tracks the brightness of your graded image.

What the Grain tab cannot do

There is no sharpening here. Bind Image to Emulsion and Generational Loss only ever soften. If the source needs sharpening, do it before the plugin.

The grain does not respond to Push/Pull. The Lab tab’s Push/Pull reshapes the negative’s tone and color only. Raise Emulsion Intensity to match a push.

The stage does not remove noise from the source. Digital noise in the footage is grained over, not replaced. Denoise before the plugin if the source needs it.

Next: Lab covers push and pull, layer coupling, and the bleach-bypass and cross-process menu.