Grain

Here I imported the original photograph into Photoshop CS4. I then added a new adjustment layer by going to:Layer New Adjustment Layer Black & White…

I then added a black and white filter effect to the photograph in order to create a proper grain effect. I set the layer mode to Normal and left the opacity at 100%.

Once the black and white filter is added, I create a new layer.

I labeled the layer “Course Grain” so I know what the layers purpose is. I set the layer mode to Overlay. I think this is going to be a better way to layer the grain over the top

of the original photograph.

I then added some artificial noise to the photograph on the new layer by selecting Filter Noise Add Noise…

I then selected an appropriate level of noise to add to the photo, which is dependent on the resolution of the photo. I then made sure the distribution was Gaussian so it

was more natural, and then selected “Monochromatic”.

I then addeda Gaussian blur in order to make the grain appear to be less artificial than it would without the blur filter. I opened the window by going to Filter Blur

Gaussian Blur.

When presented with the Blur window, I changed the radius of the blur to 1 suitable size, in this case it was was 1.7 pixels. This is dependent on the resolution of the photo

and the effect that you desire.

As you can see, the noise effect has successfully been combined with the blur effect to create a grain effect.

This is the original photograph.

This is the photo with the black and white layer added.

And this is the layer with the grain effect added over the top.

These are my layers. As you can see I have left the background LOCKED so I don’t make any changes to the original photograph. The black and white effect and noise filter are

separated entirely.

This is a close-up of the original photograph.

This is a close-up of the photograph with the B&W effect.

And this is a close-up of the photograph with the grain effects completed.