The difference between grain and noise.

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

Thanks,
Ron

wrote in message

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

Thanks,
Ron

Here is my understanding. Your opinion will vary. Everyone is entitled to their own stupid opinion.

Grain is a film issue. Noise is a digital issue.

The sensor in a digital camera is of course an electronic device. It generates a certain amount of noise. The signal from the sensor is analog. It is then converted to digital. The ISO (ASA for us olde folks) setting is the gain setting for that analog signal. Higher ISO means more gain. More gain means the noise is also amplified. If the light is low, then the signal (light) to noise ratio is low, and the noise will become more noticeable.

Some cameras do better than others in dealing with this noise issue.

The bottom line is, use a fast lens and a low ISO setting.

There are programs available that do a fairly good job of masking noise.

Ok guys, flame away.

On Apr 29, 8:48 pm, "Rudy Benner" wrote:

wrote in message

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

Thanks,
Ron

Here is my understanding. Your opinion will vary. Everyone is entitled to their own stupid opinion.

Grain is a film issue. Noise is a digital issue.

The sensor in a digital camera is of course an electronic device. It generates a certain amount of noise. The signal from the sensor is analog. It is then converted to digital. The ISO (ASA for us olde folks) setting is the gain setting for that analog signal. Higher ISO means more gain. More gain means the noise is also amplified. If the light is low, then the signal (light) to noise ratio is low, and the noise will become more noticeable.
Some cameras do better than others in dealing with this noise issue.
The bottom line is, use a fast lens and a low ISO setting.
There are programs available that do a fairly good job of masking noise.
Ok guys, flame away.

Hi Rudy,
When did it change to ISO? Why did they decide to change it? And grain is simply a non-issue for digital cameras - good to know.

Thanks,
Ron

In article
,
"" wrote:

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

"Grain" refers to the maximum resolving power of film. It is a literal term; film is sensitive to light because it contains tiny grains of silver halide, which change when they are exposed to light. Smaller grains of silver halide mean higher image sharpness but also lower light sensitivity. The more sensitive a film is, all other things being equal, the more grainy the image is, because the larger the grains of silver halide are.

Digital cameras do not have grain by definition; they do not use grains of silver halide. They do have noise--unwanted analog noise from the sensor.

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

On Apr 30, 2:06 am, tacit wrote:

In article
,

"" wrote:

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

"Grain" refers to the maximum resolving power of film. It is a literal term; film is sensitive to light because it contains tiny grains of silver halide, which change when they are exposed to light. Smaller grains of silver halide mean higher image sharpness but also lower light sensitivity. The more sensitive a film is, all other things being equal, the more grainy the image is, because the larger the grains of silver halide are.

Digital cameras do not have grain by definition; they do not use grains of silver halide. They do have noise--unwanted analog noise from the sensor.

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all athttp://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

I know that some of the high mega pixel point and shoot cameras have little tiny sensors while the dSLR have, sometimes, fewer mega pixels but relatively large sensors. I wonder if there is a distortion analog between that and the size of the silver halide? Anyway thank you for the explanation. Someone on a forum was describing a digital photo as grainy and I didn't know what to think.

wrote in message

What is the difference between grain and noise? Do digital images have both? Do both terms mean the same thing in the contexts of film and digital?

With a print from film, grain is seen as the space between grain clusters and it is BLACK.
In digital, noise is WHITE on the image.

They are truly very different in appearance and character.

"Rudy Benner" wrote in message

Grain is a film issue. Noise is a digital issue.

[...] More gain means the noise is also amplified. [...]

Pardon the snips, Rudy.

So with digital have Gain and with film we have Grain? Just R difference. :)

wrote in message

When did it change to ISO? Why did they decide to change it?

American standards dropped for International standards.
It's the New World Order thang.

In article
,
"" wrote:

I know that some of the high mega pixel point and shoot cameras have little tiny sensors while the dSLR have, sometimes, fewer mega pixels but relatively large sensors. I wonder if there is a distortion analog between that and the size of the silver halide? Anyway thank you for the explanation. Someone on a forum was describing a digital photo as grainy and I didn't know what to think.

The individual sensor elements correspond (roughly) to pixels in the image. It's actually a little more complicated than that, because with most digital cameras each individual sensor captures only one color channel of a pixel, and the other two color channels for that pixel are made up by interpolation; but pared down to its simplest, you can think of the individual sensor elements as corresponding to individual pixels. That's closer to the truth than trying to think of them as grains in conventional film, anyway.

The person who referred to a digital image as "grainy" probably ment that the image appeared coarse, like one would expect with grainy film, not realizing what the term "grainy" actually means.

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

On Apr 30, 7:54 pm, tacit wrote:

In article
,

"" wrote:

I know that some of the high mega pixel point and shoot cameras have little tiny sensors while the dSLR have, sometimes, fewer mega pixels but relatively large sensors. I wonder if there is a distortion analog between that and the size of the silver halide? Anyway thank you for the explanation. Someone on a forum was describing a digital photo as grainy and I didn't know what to think.

The individual sensor elements correspond (roughly) to pixels in the image. It's actually a little more complicated than that, because with most digital cameras each individual sensor captures only one color channel of a pixel, and the other two color channels for that pixel are made up by interpolation; but pared down to its simplest, you can think of the individual sensor elements as corresponding to individual pixels. That's closer to the truth than trying to think of them as grains in conventional film, anyway.

The person who referred to a digital image as "grainy" probably ment that the image appeared coarse, like one would expect with grainy film, not realizing what the term "grainy" actually means.
--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all athttp://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Thanks.

"Pico" wrote: (clip) In digital, noise is WHITE on the image.

They are truly very different in appearance and character.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then why do my noise reduction programs give me control of both luninance noise and color noise?

"Leo Lichtman" wrote:

"Pico" wrote: (clip) In digital, noise is WHITE on the image.

They are truly very different in appearance and character.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then why do my noise reduction programs give me control of both luninance noise and color noise?

I don't own any noise reduction, almost never done any noise reduction except to learn the trick what what noise reduction does etc.. and I have seen quite a few samples of many well known noise reduction plug-ins, and I have never impressed with any of them.

I didn't care to study them hard enough to see more detail besides some just blur some color's, some blurs about the whole image etc. and most of them turning the image into plastic look. I never like noise so except some events I have to shoot ISO 1600-3200 with no flash, I just learn to accept and live with the noise, and since those ain't important so I never care to fix the noise problem.

With the important photo, I always take double and extra shots, so if I run into one with noise (like once a moon the flash doesn't fire) then I just trash it.

"Leo Lichtman" wrote in message

"Pico" wrote: (clip) In digital, noise is WHITE on the image.

They are truly very different in appearance and character.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Then why do my noise reduction programs give me control of both luninance noise and color noise?

Leo, I should have written that noise is colored - I wrote white to contrast the two mediums. (White, of course, is of colors.)