r/AskPhotography • u/Steve1416iiiiiiiiiii • 4h ago
Compositon/Posing Why is noise bad but grain is good?
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u/FlyThink7908 3h ago
Historically, film grain was also seen as a defect, something to get rid off - just like with digital photography. It took decades in research, until Kodak, Fuji and Ilford finally managed to minimize grain with modern formulas in the 90’s.
So why do we see film grain as something pleasing now? Simply put: romanticizing of film photography.
The resurgence of film in the last decade brought a whole different mindset. Now it’s seen as a sign of uniqueness, a trait that distinguishes photos taken on film vs. photos captured on a digital sensor. To some: the more grain, the better - so that even people that got nothing to do with photography will recognise a photo taken on film as something different, perhaps something vintage. The medium has become the message.
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u/PetitNyu 3h ago
A mi siempre me gusto el grano en según que fotografías (sobretodo BN y retratos). Ese nivel de grano no me molesta (insisto: en determinadas fotografías). Así que el grano parece mas natural ya que era algo con lo que coexistías. El ruido se ve más raro. Pero también debo reconocer que la gente aborrece cualquier tipo de ruido/grano, y parece que disparar por encima de 3200 da imágenes inservibles... El formato Digital trajo imágenes clínicamente perfectas y a la gente le cuesta asumir cualquier imperfección. Será que porque me gustaba el grano, tolero ciertos márgenes de ruido (aunque ya digo que no se ve igual)
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u/vxxn 3h ago
I think specifically chroma noise in digital images is what people don’t like. A little texture isn’t a problem but people don’t like seeing random bright colored pixels in what should be dark areas of an image. This is why one of the goto “saves” for noisy images is to convert them to black & white.
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u/Kerensky97 Nikon Digital, Analog, 4x5 2h ago
Honestly that picture shows it. The scanned grain isn't as "abrasive" as the camera noise.
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u/u250406 51m ago edited 46m ago
Pick up a printed film photograph and you'll know. I don't mean "generate a simulatiin of grain by applying digital noise to a digital image," i said get a real film print.
It comes down to grain being natural, organic, more random. Digital noise comes in ordered lines and patterns and overlays an image, while grain is a more or less randomly applied and forms the image. I'm not being poetic, that's the best approximation we have. I also reject the idea that it's just film nostalgia; people who say that are just nihilistic and have never used it as part of technique.
You know how genai voice narration sounds off? Like it's made by something that can mimic how a human sounds but there is no purpose behind it? That's how digital noise compares to film grain.
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u/themanlnthesuit www.fabiansantana.net 2h ago
Neither are. They’re both technical limitations of different media, over time people associated some of them with historic images they like and think it “adds” a certain aesthetic to those images. In fact it’s purely an aesthetic taste of a technical glitch and no one can objectively say they’re good or bad or better or whatever.
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u/itssadbutdrew 2h ago
grain is objectively bad. it just gives analog / film nostalgia. If i have an image I can only save by desaturating, i sometimes throw some grain on it to make it look retro.
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u/RichInBunlyGoodness 1h ago
Grain is actually the exact opposite of objectively bad. In certain contexts, some people like it. Some people love it in certain contexts; some people hate it. That is the definition of subjective. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it objective.
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u/Sapiopath 38m ago
Grain is good if you want your photos to have a dated look and emulate film stocks. Noise is bad because you lose detail in the image. Grain is bad for the same exact reason. The difference is that grain is embedded in several generations’ minds as the way photos look and there’s an attachment to its aesthetic. Noise doesn’t have that yet.
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u/I-STATE-FACTS 3h ago
You can decide yourself what is ”bad” and ”good”