Graininess in a photo can completely ruin its appeal. The grainy appearance eliminates the detail of your image and prevents the colors and textures from appearing clearly. As such, it is essential to remove graininess from your photos whenever it emerges. What exactly causes graininess in your photos? It can be caused by bad lighting during the photography session. It can also be caused by a camera lens that has low capability. Thankfully, we can remove graininess from your photos in the post-processing phase of professional photography. Here is how to remove graininess from photos without photoshop.
What exactly is grain, and how does it end up in your photos?
At FixiPixi, our photography experts confirm that grain is another noise word. You may be taking photos in locations where the light is of medium or low amount. In such situations, the sensor on your camera can automatically intervene to increase your photos’ amount of light. Whenever this occurs, a grain emerges in the resultant photo. It impedes the Clarity of your pictures and prevents viewers from enjoying the detail of your images. Here are the reasons for the grain in your photos.
An ISO setting that is too high
If you set a very high ISO on your camera when taking photos, it increases the chances of grain emerging in your photos. A rule of thumb in photography is that the higher the ISO, the higher the grain cases appearing. Adjusting the ISO helps us to improve the Clarity of images when taking photos in low lighting. Unfortunately, when the ISO is too high, it increases the risk of grain in the resultant photos.
Low lighting in your photos
Light is a very important factor when taking photographs. For this reason, photographers employ sophisticated lighting equipment in their photoshoots. Whenever the light is not sufficient enough, the photos are negatively affected by grain.
The type of camera being used to take the photos
Cameras come in many shapes, sizes, and budget levels. The most affordable cameras are considered low-budget. While they can take good photos, the resultant images are highly likely to have negative characteristics such as grain. The low-quality lenses and shutter controls result in unnecessary light flooding your images. On the other hand, high-budget cameras employ sophisticated mechanisms to control lighting and grant you perfect pictures.
When the sensor is too small
Every camera has a CMOS sensor that can be large or small. Also known as the CCD sensor, it may be too small to help take perfect images. Devices such as smartphones and SLR cameras contain small CMOS sensors that take grainy photos. To avoid this, it is necessary to take photos using a large CMOS sensor because it has millions of light-sensitive sections that accurately capture and record image data, resulting in grain-free photos.
Here is how to fix grainy photos without Photoshop
Can you fix grainy photos without having to use professional software such as Photoshop? Yes, you can! We can accomplish this for you at FixiPixi by using alternative, newbie-friendly digital tools to fix grainy photos. An outstanding example of such a tool is PhotoWorks.
PhotoWorks is a great software that you can use to fix grainy photos because it does not require you to interact with complicated settings to get the job done. Here is how you can use it to fix your grainy photos.
- Begin by installing PhotoWorks in your computer system
- Launch the software and load your grainy photo using a simple drag and drop method
- Navigate to the ‘Tools tab’ and tap on it to activate the ‘Noise Reduction menu.’ Select this menu, and you will get the required Panel.
- Upon activating this menu, PhotoWorks will automatically zoom into a section of your grainy photo so that you can see the effect as you proceed through the editing process.
- Identify the ‘Amount slider’ and drag it back and forth to smooth your image. PhotoWorks will automatically remove the grains from your photo.
- After removing the grain to your satisfaction, the image will be a little bit blurry.
- Navigate to the ‘Enhancement tab’ and change the ‘Clarity settings’ by dragging sliders back and forth
- After achieving a desirable level of Clarity, save your image.
In just a few steps, PhotoWorks helps you to fix grainy photos without photoshop. It is particularly user-friendly because each correction step simply requires a click and drag process. We can use this software to retouch images or resize them for you!
How can you avoid grainy photos during a photography session?
We have found that preventing the emergence of grain in your photos is better and easier than fixing them later. Find a suitable ISO level that fits your photography session. Adjust the ISO level according to your specific photography session. Low levels of ISO, such as 200 or 300, normally result in the lowest grain levels, while high levels of 3200 and beyond usually produce high amounts of grain. Make an effort to keep the ISO as close to 100 as possible.
Sometimes, you may find yourself in a low light situation where an ISO level of 100 is not going to be enough. If you find yourself here, adjust the aperture and then the shutter speed to 1/60 without a tripod to automatically result in a low ISO. You can also use special photography lights such as strobes or flash units to increase ambient light. Also, set your camera to calculate the areas with low levels of light so that it does not over-extend your image to the dark areas. These strategies will help you to avoid grain in your photos.
Conclusion
Grain ruins the quality of your photos to a large degree. It prevents important details from being visible and masks the richness of colors in the image. We have explained how to fix grainy photos without photoshop above for you. Since prevention is better than cure, we have also demonstrated how to prevent the emergence of grain in the first place. Follow our guidelines to get clear photos every time!