When to Manage Grain

When to Manage Grain

The most obvious candidates for grain addition are
computer-generated or still image layers that lack the moving
grain found in fi lm or video footage. As soon as your
shot has to match anything that came from a camera, and
particularly in a large format such as HD or fi lm, you must
manage grain.
Blurred elements may also need grain addition, even
if they originate as source footage. Blurry source shots
contain as much grain as focused ones because the grain
is an artifact of the medium recording the image, not the
subject itself. Elements that have been scaled down in After
Effects contain scaled-down grain, which may require restoration.
Color keying can also suppress grain in the channel
that has been keyed out.
Other compositing operations will instead enhance grain.
Sharpening, unless performed via Remove Grain, can

strongly emphasize grain contrast in an element, typically
in a not-so-desirable manner. Sharpening also brings out
any nasty compression artifacts that come with footage that
uses JPEG-type compression, such as miniDV video.
Lack of grain, however, is one of the big dead giveaways of
a poorly composited shot. It is worth the effort to match
the correct amount of grain into your shot even if the
result isn’t apparent as you preview it on your monitor.