Grain as external matte or timeline overlay

[Tom Evans]

Is it any difference between adding the external grain as an external matte or adding it to a top layer in edit mode with the overlay mode? 

[Orash Rahnema]

Not sure about adding It as an external matte, i never do it.  i Guess the down side is that you have to add It clip by clip. 

If added as an overlay lavel you Just Need to make sure that the grain doesn't lift and change the contrast of your grade. 

Usually so called scanned grain do that. 

I have made a grain clip in nuke and exported raw to avoid that. (When i don't use davinci grain that is more then enough most of the time)

[Jussi Rovanperä]

I just use the Resolvefx grain...

[Dylan R. Hopkin]

No difference adding scanned grain in overlay: External Matte vs adding it to top video track in Edit using same transfers mode.

External matte is easier since you can enable looping, instead of duplicating scanned grain clips manually in Edit timeline.

But checkout FilmConvert, great grain! 

[Mike Leisegang]

Good advice and choice of Grain, external matt the road to go.

 

 

[Sam Gilling]

Do it as a timeline node, avoids creating a messy timeline in the edit page and means you don't have to add to every clip's node graph. 

[dermot.shane]

i often run it in groups, but being from the film era, i know the grain of Fuji500t has next to zero to do with the grain of Kodak 50D...  so i often group by 50 / 160 / 500 to match the scene

 

usualy i'll run one of many grain pass i made about two decades ago in Flame using it's match grain to match to the grain in the scans of a grey card

[Aaron Rosapepe]

I'm finding the matte method to work quite nicely. Experimenting with it on this grade with footage I shot on the C100 MKII. Pretty happy with the results so far but I would like to explore some other methods mentioned here as well.

[Aaron Rosapepe]

Anyone here have experience with Cinegrain products?

 

http://www.cinegrain.com/texture

[Sam Gilling]

5 hours ago, Aaron Rosapepe said:

Anyone here have experience with Cinegrain products?

http://www.cinegrain.com/texture

I like them but have also found most of them are very heavy handed, I tend to use their lightest 35mm grain sample and even then take the contrast down on it so it's not as strong. Very happy with the results though. 

Edit: was able to look it up; the one I most often use is "35mm_64D_Fine_Gentle". 

Edited January 17, 2018 by Sam Gilling

[Dylan R. Hopkin]

We’ve had Cinegrain for a number of years. Been a while since I used it though.

There is a lot to choose from.

Maybe it’s time to revisit them B.)

[Marc Wielage]

Remember that you can color correct the composited grain, and that will affect the intensity... all the way from almost invisible to very harsh. Just a slight gamma adjustment or a custom curve can do it. I tend to use one of the middle Cinegrain selections when I want to do something subtle. 

One interesting tip I heard in LA: I know of a colorist who uses 16mm grain on the outside edge of a circular mask, and 35mm grain on the inside. I think that's a little extreme, but if it works for him, I'm not going to tell him he's wrong. You can make an argument for composited grain with a vignette in some cases.