Regraining Comps with Resolve’s Ultra Noise Reduction Tool???

Can you harness a Noise Reduction tool to add film grain? You bet.

This Insight demonstrates a surprising new use of the DaVinci Resolve Ultra NR tool (introduced in Resolve 19) – not to remove noise, but to bring grain back. If you’ve ever struggled with regraining a layer or an element after compositing, this approach might change your workflow.

Counterintuitive and simple

Every so often, you discover a trick that feels like it should have been obvious, and this is one of those.

To really sell a composite, you have to make sure the grain of the added elements matches the grain in the plate. We’ve been doing this with the Film Grain tools in Fusion and Color Page. These tools are generally good, but sometimes they don’t produce great results. Then, an unconventional idea struck…

“I’ve been using the Fusion Grain as well as the Resolve Color Page Grain for this, and they’re okay. They can tackle a lot of shots, but sometimes there’s some grain patterns that are just impossible to simulate with these grain tools. So this ultra noise reduction method is almost virtually guaranteed to produce perfect match every time.”

Igor Riđanović, Colorist

In this Insight, we’ll walk through a streamlined method of extracting and reapplying existing grain using the Ultra Noise Reduction feature in Resolve 19.

Yes, you read that right—we’re using noise reduction to help with grain matching. Sounds counterintuitive? It is. And it works.

You’ll see how this tool can help you surgically isolate the grain from your original plate and overlay it onto a clean comped-in element, resulting in a perfectly matched grain fingerprint that shines even under isolated RGB channel scrutiny.

It’s fast, GPU-friendly, and surprisingly simple once you grasp the logic.

Pre-requisites

Heads up: You will need basic Fusion skills to follow this Insight. Below, I’ve linked to Insights, which should help you get started if you’re new to Fusion.