Grain Effect With Film and Digital
The images below show an example of extreme film grain:
-
Rallycross car pictured on an Agfa 1000 RS slide
-
Detail of the same photo
Digital photography does not exhibit film grain, since there is no film for any grain to exist within. In digital cameras, the closest physical equivalents of film grains are the individual elements of the image sensor (e.g. CCD cell); just as small-grain film has better resolution than large-grain film, so will an image sensor with more elements result in an image with better resolution. As film grains are randomly distributed and have size variation, while image sensor cells are of same size and are arranged in a grid, direct comparison of film and digital resolutions is not straightforward.
In general, as the pixels from a digital image sensor are set in straight lines, they irritate the eye of the viewer more than the randomly arranged film grains. Most people will reject an enlargement that show pixels, whereas a grained film enlagement with lower resolution will be acceptable, and perceived as 'sharper'.
The effect of film grain can be simulated in some digital photo manipulation programs, such as Photoshop, adding grain to a digital image after it is taken.
In digital photography, image noise sometimes appears as a "grain-like" effect.
Read more about this topic: Film Grain
Famous quotes containing the words grain, effect and/or film:
“If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you’re making a horror film doesn’t mean you can’t make an artful film.”
—David Cronenberg (b. 1943)