Grain Tutorial

This tutorial can be used for at least three things:

1. to add texture to a picture to camouflage or disguise that the picture has unwanted texture
2. to add a subtle texture to any picture
3. to add grain to skin

The presets for the texturizer filter can be used to accomplish the first and second. If you have an old photo (or any photo) that has unwanted texture/grain, and if by attempting to eliminate this texture via the blur/dust & scratches filters you find the photo is too soft, then consider going as far as you can with blur tools without obliterating the detail and then add texture via the texturizer filter in some way so as to camouflage the unwanted grain that you couldn't eliminate with the blur tools. The presets will work well here, but you can make your own texture maps that work even better.

The way I like to use the texturizer filter is to add skin grain. (Old photos are often too soft and you'll find this trick handy, not only to add skin grain, but also in cases where you just want to tighten the look of the photo without resorting to the sharpen tools. This is especially handy when a photo already has a lot of unwanted artifact that would only get worse when using Unsharp Mask.)

Start by creating a new file in Photoshop that is 100 by 100 pixels, rgb, and filled with white. Now add some noise and then save the file as a .psd file and name it something like skin.psd, and save it in a folder you can easily access. (Make sure to save it as a .psd photoshop file.) The file should look like the one in the example.

In this example, I've used a picture of woman's face to demonstrate how nicely this filter works to add skin grain. The photo on the left has been deliberately blurred. In this example I wanted to add skin grain to the woman's skin only. I selected the skin via Select>Color Range, although any selection method would do.

Next, with the skin selection active, go to Filter>Texture>Texturizer. In the drop down menu choose Load Texture. Navigate to the folder where you saved skin.psd and click it. It will now become the texture map.

Play with the sliders in the texturizer dialogue box and then click OK. Be careful here if using this effect for skin; if the effect is too strong then fade the filter via Edit>Fade Texturizer (for ps 6).

The last thing you should do is add a touch of noise. A very small dose will do. If the noise is too prominent, then fade it via Edit>Fade Noise.

The photo on the right shows what it should look like (Click on image to see full-sized). The effect is somewhat subtle-looking, but that's good. If you consider the photo on the right came from the photo on the left, and without any sharpening whatsoever, then it's easy to see the possibilities here. Not only does her skin now have some attractive grain, but the photo is tighter-looking.

A limitation to this technique of adding skin grain is that the file you are working on needs to be quite large and the lighting needs to have contrast. If the file is too small then the grain will look strange; in this case it would be better to use only noise. If the lighting is flat, then you wouldn't normally see much skin grain. You can see this if you look at a friend in various lighting conditions. There needs to be healthy lights and darks hitting the skin. It's also useful to examine the grain on the skin of models in fashion magazines and cosmetic ads to see how the light hits the skin and accentuates the appearance of skin grain.

If you have a tutorial relevant to photo restoration, retouching, or manipulation, please email me with details and we'll either publish it here or link to it.

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