Adjust the Grain Size

When you adjust the grain size, especially when you are trying to match grain, look at an area of intermediate brightness.

The grain in dark areas sometimes appears larger than in bright areas because of bottom clamping. Since the Add Grain operator produces grain of uniform size for all luma values, it is better to first match the size with an intermediate luma value and then to boost the low luma control points by increasing their gain. This produces extreme clamping and results in a visually larger grain size for dark areas. The low luma control points are the left-most control points in the granularity curve.

To adjust the grain size:

1. Show the Add Grain controls.
2. Enable Exclusive to show the selected channel as grayscale. For more information about the channel buttons and Exclusive button, see Apply the Add Grain Operator.
3. Disable Proportional below the Radius X and Radius Y fields to adjust the channels independently.

You can apply changes to all channels simultaneously by enabling Proportional, but adjusting each one individually is far more accurate.

4. To change the horizontal size of the grain, drag the appropriate Radius X field for the selected channel.

The range of values is from 0 to 100.

5. To change the vertical size of the grain, drag the appropriate Radius Y field for the selected channel.

The range of values is from 0 to 100. Usually, the Radius X and Radius Y fields for a specific channel are the same or quite close.