Give your videos an organic ‘film’ look with these free film grains.

Adding grain to your digital video is a great way to give it an organic film look. It’s surprisingly hard to find free grain downloads, so we’ve scoured the net and created a collection of the best free grain we could find. If you know of any more free film grain resources please share in the comments below. According to their respective sites, all of the grains featured in this list are 100% clear for you own use in commercial or personal projects.

Check the Premiere Pro website and the capture card manufacturer’s website for troubleshooting resources. Most of the supported capture cards install a settings file (preset) that you can select in the Premiere Pro New Project dialog box, in the Load Preset pane.

1. FREE Film Grain Overlays

Our very own Shutterstock Tutorials has recently released 5 FREE film grain overlays for anybody wanting to add texture and warmth to their video. The best part about this pack being they were all captured with real film cameras using real film stock. The process of adding them to your footage is throwing them over the footage and changing the Blend Mode to overlay. Here’s a tutorial breaking down the simple process.

2. Holy Grain

Holy Grain has free film grain that you can use on any project without citation. Unfortunately the overlay is only about 5 seconds long. If you want to use the free Holy Grain for an extended amount of time you will need to loop it. You can also purchase 35mm film grain at 4K resolution from Holy Grain’s website.

3. Vegasaur

Like Holy Grain, Vegasaur is a website that sells various plugins and products for filmmakers to use as assets in their productions. Thankfully for us, part of their strategy is giving away stuff for free. Download a free 35mm film grain overlay from their site.

Premiere

Vhs Effect Premiere Pro Preset

4.Grainzilla

Grainzilla is a well designed filmmaking site that features a few variations of film grain outside of simply black and white. Here you can download a few tools including grain, vintage film looks, and 4K letter box frames – all free. Like the previous websites you can purchase more grain for an additional fee….are you seeing a trend here?

5. 7DBlue

No tricks here, just a great 35mm film overlay for free courtesy of 7DBlue. From 7DBlue’s Vimeo video you can find links to download the grain. You can use these grains an any production for any reason commercial or personal. 7DBlue stated that they have found the best results when changing their transfer modes to soft light or overlay, but soft light usually does the best.

6. VisionCOLOR

Vision COLOR offers over 2GB of 35mm film grain overlays for free to anyone who wants it. The only stipulation is you have to like them on Facebook. The free pack comes with grain from both 35mm and 16mm film. The pack also includes some film burns and light leaks for your compositing pleasure.

7. FilmLooks

If you are looking for cheap film grain than FilmLooks is the place to go. FilmLooks has a wide variety of plates to use, from scratched film to grunge. Instead of giving away 35mm film for free, FilmLooks is giving away 8mm film overlays instead. Pretty cool if you are wanting to get the old-timey vintage projector look. You can also find some other really cool freebies here as well.

8. Natums

Surprisingly enough what looks like an ordinary Tumblr post is actually a mecca of links to some pretty awesome free resources. Natums has scanned free film grains, light leaks, digital effects, and VHS effects free to use in any project. In the post you will find direct links to Natum’s Dropbox where you can download the plates for free. While you’re there take a glance at the various filmmaking free download links as well.

9. VFX Footage

In what can only be described as one of the best Vimeo channels of all time, VFX Footage is dedicated to giving away free downloads. Here you will find film grain, footage, abstract shapes, and reveals. All for this is 100% free to use, but of course donations are graciously welcomed.

10. MTS Films

MTS Films is the personal website of Matthew Scott. From his download page you can get free 4K 400ISO film grain. There is also a great collection of free RAW RED footage for your editing pleasure.

11. After Effects

You may or may not already know this but Adobe After Effects has a really great film grain effect called “Add Grain”. In the effect you will find presets that are designed to emulate popular film stocks. But be warned, the “Add Grain” effect in After Effects takes a toll on your computer so be prepared to wait for long rendering times if you use this effect. You can download a free trial of After Effects from Adobe’s website.

All of these downloads, except for #10, are designed to be used with a blending mode in your favorite compositing software.

Bonus: Authentic Film Grain

If you want to add real film grain to your project, check out Emulsion — a collection of 4K film overlays from RocketStock.

Know of any other great places to find film grain overlays? Share in the comments below.