Science · 6 pages · 12 min
How film grain differs from digital noise
Grain is clumping in the emulsion, while digital noise is a wobble in a count of electrons.
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From the opening
Film grain differs from digital noise because grain is the pattern of silver or dye clumps that made the record, while digital noise is variation in a count the sensor made. One is structure in the material, and the other is uncertainty in a measurement. The opening covers silver clumps versus electron counts, why dark digital frames speckle, and a rescan repeats only the grain.
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Inside
- Silver clumps versus electron counts
- Why dark digital frames speckle
- A rescan repeats only the grain
- A software overlay is neither cause
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Silver halide grain and film granularity
- Photon noise and read noise in a digital sensor