How to Fix a Grainy Photo

What Causes Grainy Photos

Grain (digital noise) appears when a camera sensor amplifies its signal to compensate for low light. The higher the ISO setting, the more noise. Phone cameras are especially prone to grain because their small sensors need aggressive amplification in anything less than bright daylight. Night shots, indoor photos, and concert images are the usual suspects.

Luminance Noise vs. Color Noise

Luminance noise looks like a grainy film texture — random bright and dark speckles. Color noise shows up as blotchy patches of incorrect color, especially in shadow areas — you'll see random red, green, and blue dots that shouldn't be there. Most grainy photos have both types. AI denoising handles each differently: it smooths luminance speckles while correcting color noise patches, keeping the underlying detail intact.

Common Grainy Photo Situations

• High-ISO shots from low-light indoor scenes
• Phone photos taken in dim restaurants or bars
• Night photography and cityscapes
• Concert and event photos with harsh mixed lighting
• Old camera photos with heavy sensor noise
• Photos that were brightened too much in post-processing

Keeping Detail While Removing Grain

The hardest part of denoising is telling the difference between noise and fine detail — both are small, high-frequency patterns. Aggressive noise reduction wipes out both, leaving a waxy, plastic look. AI denoising has a major advantage here: it understands what real textures like skin, hair, and fabric look like, so it can remove the random grain pattern while preserving meaningful detail.

Tips for the Best Denoising Results

For moderate grain, 'remove the noise' works well. For heavy grain, try 'strongly reduce the grain while keeping detail.' If the result looks too smooth, follow up with 'add back some texture' or 'keep more skin detail.' For portraits, 'reduce noise but keep skin texture natural' prevents the plastic-skin look. Process denoising before any sharpening — sharpening amplifies grain.