Add film grain to a photo

Grain is small by nature: at the size a photo is shown on a phone it is barely there, and fitted to a stage it vanishes. So this stage opens on the grain family and its note tells you to press Fit for the 100% view, where grain is what it really is.

Grain opens on Overlay, where mid-grey counts as nothing, so the specks push contrast both ways instead of fogging the photo. Each grain is drawn from a fixed grid of numbers, so the pattern you see is the pattern you save.

1. 1Open the photo. It stays in this tab.
2. 2Pick a grain. Fine, medium, pushed or silver. It covers the frame on Overlay.
3. 3See it at 100%. Press Fit in the toolbar to switch to 1:1.
4. 4Size it. Grain size on the Blend tab; Another pattern changes the seed.
5. 5Save. The grain is drawn again at the saved size, never enlarged.

Grains

Fine, Medium, Pushed, Silver.

Controls

Grain size, pattern seed, strength, mode.

Opens

Overlay, 35–40%.

Pattern

Hash-addressed cells: 600 px and 6000 px are the same pattern.

Saving

PNG, JPG or WebP. JPG softens fine grain; PNG keeps every speck.

• Grain is the same strength everywhere; it is not weighted towards the shadows the way some film is.
• JPG at low quality smooths grain away. Save as PNG, or JPG at 90 or more.
• Grain cannot add detail a photo does not have.

Which mode does grain open on, and why?

Overlay, at about 35%. Mid-grey is Overlay's nothing, so the specks lighten and darken equally and the photo's overall brightness hardly moves.

Is the texture a downloaded image?

No. The grain is generated in this tab from a fixed grid of numbers — no stock file, nothing to licence.

Will it look the same at full size?

Yes. The grain is drawn again at the saved size from the same grid, so it is the same pattern at full resolution, not a small tile stretched.

Why can I not see the grain?

Because the stage is showing the photo shrunk to fit. Press Fit to switch to 100%; grain lives at that size.

• Light leak overlayNine drawn leaks for film and 80s looks, each opening on Screen with its tint control first.
• Vintage overlayDust, scratches, film burn, paper, edge fade and sepia, each on the mode that adds only its own age.
• Add a texture overlayOpens the drawn-texture shelf first: light leaks and film grain, with hue, strength and blend beside the stage.
• Using leaks and grainWhy a leak at full strength looks like a mistake, and how texture layers stack into a film look.