Trip to the coast.

[Starclassic]

I may have added a bit too much grain. Please share your thoughts.

[PhilMW]

Yeah, It's a bit too grainy for my taste. Otherwise, everything looks great!

[Scott Free]

The amount of grain added is purely a matter of personal preference... its neither right or wrong. However, there does seem to be a lot of nasty artifacts, and that can be attributed to having too much grain. The compression process when uploading the file to YouTube or Vimeo can cause this issue for sure!!

I've tested this several times and actually found that I prefer no grain. If you are using the grain to mask the artifacts, then maybe try a noise reduce filter and try to shoot at the lowest ISO possible..

[Starclassic]

Thanks for the advice guys. I have uploaded a new video with no grain.

I did use Neat Video noise reducer plugin prior to adding grain. Should I add grain before I reduce noise? May I add that I film on a Canon 600D at 1344x504 and upscale to 1080p via Video Enhancer. I export as h.264 with VBR pass 2 with 75 value for target bit rate for web upload. Maybe to large of an upscale is creating artifacts? All in all, I'm somewhat pleased with the quality. Please let me know if I can do anything to enhance the quality. Cheers

[PhilMW]

I agree with Scott Free that it is a personal aesthetic preference, and I do like the grain, but like I said, it was just too much for my taste. I also love the quality. It's impressive that it scaled up that well.

As for adding grain, do it after you reduce the noise, otherwise the noise reduction will reduce the grain as well...unless you're going for some sort of effect (I'm not sure what that would really do other than soften the image).