How to fix Grainy or Pixelated Videos?

‘I shot the video from Canon Vixia camcorder in HD 1080p but still get grainy footage and low quality at times. What could be the reason? How can I fix some of my grainy videos?’

This post will guide you on how to fix grainy videos post-production and what you can do before shooting videos to avoid noise or grains in the videos.

Why is my video grainy?

• Videos are shot in low light
• Improper camera settings combination
• Videos shot with lower aperture f-stop number
• Shot in higher ISO
• The camera has a small sensor

How to fix grainy or pixelated videos in Post Production?

Solution 1: Use a Video Editing Software

Post-production, you can fix grainy videos with the help of video editing software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro X, Lightworks, and Avid Media Composer, etc.

Most of these video editing programs have filters to reduce noise and improve video quality. Apply these filters and check if they can reduce the grains in the video.

Solution 2: Use Noise Reduction Video Plugins

If the editing software you are using does not fix grainy videos, noise reduction plugins are the best bet. Plugins are excellent video enhancers on which you can trust. Several free and paid video plugins are available online for various video editing programs.

Plugins like Red Giant Magic Bullet Denoiser or Neat Video are popularly used to repair grainy videos. They reduce digital noise and grains in the videos taken from any source like DSLR, GoPro or camcorders etc.

Solution 3: Video Repair Software can Solve your Problem

A smart video noise reduction software can also help you get rid of grainy videos. There are several online video repair tools available. Before picking one, ensure it is safe to download, supports your video file format and most important is capable to fix grainy videos.

A widely used software that you can trust to fix grainy videos is Stellar Repair for Video. The software has up to 30% faster scanning and repair speed compared to other video repair tools. You can repair the unlimited number of videos of the same or different formats simultaneously. Moreover, you can use Stellar Repair for Video to fix other video corruption issues too such as choppy or jerky, broken, frozen, or flickering issues, etc.

How Stellar Repair for Video can fix grainy videos?

Stellar Video repair is a do-it-yourself tool that has a simple interface, which a layman can also operate. It lets you repair damaged videos saved in SD cards, flash drives, memory cards, hard drives, and HDD, etc. You can successfully remove noise from your AVI, ASF, WMV, MKV, FLV, DIVX, WEBM, MJPEG, MPEG, AVCHD, MTS, MOV, MP4, M4V, 3G2, 3GP, and F4V videos shot from a drone, DSLR, GoPro, surveillance camera, or mobile phone, etc.

It takes three simple steps – Select, Repair, and Save to get rid of grainy videos using the Stellar video repair tool. You can also watch the Preview of the repaired videos before saving them.

Solution 4: Use Adobe After Effects

You can clean up grainy videos in Adobe After Effects using its inbuilt Remove Grain effect. Adobe After Effects is a post-production video editing application that can also do color correction, titling, rotoscoping, or compositing.

How to remove grains in Adobe After Effects?

• Select the layer and choose Effect > Noise & Grain > Remove Grain.
• Adjust Noise Reduction value, the Red, Green, and Blue Noise Reduction values, and Passes value using the Noise Reduction Settings in the Channel Noise Reduction controls.
• Switch the Viewing Mode to ‘Final Output’ to check if the grain is removed.

Solution 5: Reduce the Size of your Playback Window

It’s a kind of hack to avoid watching grainy videos. Decrease the size of your playback window. This reduces the grains and improves video clarity. The workaround can be helpful with online grainy videos, which cannot be saved or repaired.

Pre-Production of Video: How to Avoid Grainy Video?

Irrespective of the camera you are using, before shooting a video always check the light conditions and camera settings to avoid noise and reduce grain.

• Have maximum light in your shot

A good amount of light on the subject while shooting is essential to avoid grain in videos. Natural daylight is ideal. However, when shooting indoors or at night ensure as much light as possible using halogen or incandescent lights.

• Adjust to best camera settings to avoid grainy video

You can shun pixelated videos by keeping a lower ISO, wider aperture, and a shutter speed of double your frame rate. Also shooting in higher resolution will reduce grains in your footage.

• Lower ISO

ISO in-camera measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. Although when shooting in low light, it is necessary to increase ISO.  But you should decide to what extent the noise is acceptable so as not to spoil the overall video quality due to higher ISO.

You are in a better situation if using the latest cameras to shoot in low light. The new cameras have large sensors, higher pixels and are smart enough to produce minimum noise even at higher ISO. Still, it is advisable to follow the thumb rule of maintaining lower ISO to get better video quality.

• Wide Aperture

Keep your aperture be wide open to let maximum light into the camera. Here do not be confused with f-stop numbers. Use lower aperture f-stop numbers such as f/1.4 and f/2.8 to have a wider aperture. Avoid the higher f-stop numbers like f/11, f/16 which refer to small or narrow apertures.

• Shutter speed

Maintain the shutter speed of double your frame rate. If you are shooting at 24fps shutter speed is 150th, for 60fps speed is 125th, and so on.

Conclusion

Shooting in low light conditions or wrong camera settings can lead to grainy videos. No one likes to watch pixelated videos and it is also not always possible to reshoot the new video. It is feasible to fix the issue using Stellar Repair for Video, Adobe After Effects or specialized plugins that remove grains in videos.

So next time you come across grainy videos, do not repent the loss of video quality. Fix it using one of the above methods.

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About The Author

Harsha Alamchandani

Harsha is a technical expert who loves Mondays, technology and is a big time Apple fan. She knows her way around the data loss problems and is always looking for ways to help out people.