Real film grain instantly makes digital footage feel more cinematic — it adds texture, hides the "too clean" digital look and ties a grade together. Here's the free way to do it in DaVinci Resolve using scanned grain plates.
A grain plate is a video clip of real, scanned film grain on a neutral gray background. Grab one from the free film grain packs in the directory — several are scanned from real 35mm and 16mm stocks in 4K.
Drag the grain clip into your Media Pool like any other footage.
On the Edit page, place the grain clip on a video track above your footage. If your timeline is longer than the plate, just duplicate the clip along the track.
Select the grain clip, open the Inspector, and change Composite Mode to Overlay. Because the plate is a neutral gray, only the grain texture shows through. Soft Light gives a subtler version of the same effect.
Lower the grain clip's Opacity in the Inspector until it feels organic rather than noisy — usually between 20% and 50% depending on the plate and how filmic you want the image.
Add grain on top of your finished grade — on real film, grain lives in the print itself, so it should sit over the final image. If you're still building your look, start with a free PowerGrade or a free LUT, then finish with grain.
Yes. The overlay method works entirely in the free version — you only need a grain plate clip and a composite mode. The built-in Film Grain OFX effect is Studio-only.
Scanned plates come from real film stocks, so the grain structure, size and movement are organic instead of procedurally generated.
Grain goes on top of (after) your finished grade, so it sits over the final image the way it would on printed film.