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Have you ever recorded a video only to find that it looks grainy and unclear? Grainy video is a common issue, especially when filming in low-light conditions or using a low-quality camera. But don't worry! In this guide, we'll walk you through the best ways on how to fix grainy video and make your grainy footage look clearer using simple methods and professional tool.
Whether you're an editor, content creator, or just someone looking to clean up grainy video, these five easy methods will help you improve video quality effortlessly.
Video grain is a kind of Texture that seems like a silver particle in your visual experience. In the old times, videos were shot with analog cameras, and video grain was a very common and natural thing in videos.
However, with the advancement of technology in the age of digital cameras, we refer to this silver-like texture as Digital artifacts or noise, which has become an unwanted part of digital videography. Nowadays, video grains or noise are a result of certain mistakes in camera settings, lighting conditions, video compressions, etc.
While experimenting with methods of how to clean up grainy videos, you must know what types of grains you might face in any video. Different types of grains are caused by various factors in the video shooting process, equipment, and situations.
🎆Random Noise: This noise can be caused by the abrupt fluctuations of natural light.
🎇Read Noise: This is electronic noise, also known as banding noise. It mostly happens when the camera circuit reads the data from the camera sensor.
🖼️Fixed Pattern Noise: This noise has been generated due to the variation of the individual pixels’ sensitivity in the camera sensor.
📷Digital Camera Grain: It is caused by low lighting, high ISO settings, or other incorrect camera settings.
🎬Film Grain: When the video is shot on film, grains tend to be visible once you enlarge the video image.
🎥Black & White Grain: Old black-and-white videos shot on poor-quality cameras with low specifications have grains or unwanted artifacts.
🪄Luminous Noise: It is caused by appreciating lighting while shooting the video. The way a camera sensor responds to light variations could cause luminous noise. It makes the extra pixel visible and creates a grainy or noisy video.
🎨Color Noise: It is also known as chromatic noise or chrominance, appears as pixels/dots mixed with various colors and contrast. It is mostly seen in the darkest or lightest area of any video.
Before getting into the solution and steps for cleaning up grainy video, you must be aware of the exact reasons for the grain or noise. Knowing the exact reason for the video grain or noise will help you target the specific solution for it.
What causes grainy video
If you're wondering, Why is my video grainy? or Why does my video look grainy?—now you know the main causes! Let’s explore how to fix it.
If you want to know the smartest and easiest solution on how to clean up grainy video, here you will get multiple options to do that with step a step guide. From using high-end AI-powered digital noise reduction tools to multiple plugins, you can try various methods to fix video grains.
Using the AI-powered UniFab Denoise AI, you can remove digital noise or grain with a few clicks and full automation without any complicated and manual steps. The AI algorithms in this tool eliminate digital noise while preserving its lost details and originality.
Best for: All levels, especially when you want automation and the best possible result.
It automatically analyzes each frame of the video, detecting unwanted artifacts and removing them to deliver clear and crisp videos for high-quality streaming on high-end devices. Here are the attractive functions of this tool.
Versatile Video Denoising
UniFab removes any type of video noise—whether caused by high ISO, low lighting, or basic equipment—while restoring fine textures, vivid colors, and essential details.
High-Speed Conversion with GPU Acceleration
GPU acceleration increases video conversion speeds by 60–100%, providing faster results and a smoother workflow.
Accessible to All Users
With an intuitive, AI-powered interface, UniFab is ideal for everyone—from videographers and vloggers to casual users and business owners—allowing high-quality video enhancement without specialized knowledge.
Built-In Video Editing Toolkit
UniFab includes a full editing toolkit with features like splitting, cropping, trimming, sound effect customization, and background noise removal, making it an all-in-one video solution.
Customizable Output Settings
UniFab offers flexible output options, allowing you to adjust format, codec, frame rate, resolution, bitrate, and more, for complete control over your video's final quality.
Advantages of UniFab
✅ Efficient Noise Reduction: UniFab Denoise AI can reduce grain and noise, delivering a cleaner, more polished video.
✅ Detail Preservation: Unlike other tools that blur details, UniFab ensures that key features, like faces and textures, remain sharp and clear.
✅ Smooth, Natural Finish: The tool eliminates grain without over-smoothing the video, maintaining a natural look throughout.
✅ Balanced Highlights: It handles high-light areas well, preventing overexposure, which can be an issue with some other denoising tools.
✅ Overall Quality Boost: While effectively reducing noise, UniFab enhances the overall video quality with improved clarity and sharpness, offering a superior viewing experience.
30-day Free Trial with full feature access!
On your Windows/ Mac PC install & launch the UniFab program, go to "All Features", then choose “Denoiser” Module from "Video AI".
Click the “Add” option to import the grainy video you want to denoise.
Here, you can customize and edit the video using various parameters, such as resolution, quality, codec, format, etc. (You may also retain the default settings.)
Click “Start” to remove digital noise from your selected video.
Using video noise reduction plugins is a very convenient and smart way to reduce digital noise, grains, or any other imperfections from your videos. There are thousands of plugins available on the internet to help you remove any kind of digital noise, including grains, pixels, mosaics, blurs, etc., to make video clearer.
So, while using any video editing software, app, or tool, you can use your required ready-to-use video grain-removing plugins to meet your specific denoising purpose. These plugins are available in both paid and free versions. Here are some common video denoising plugins: Magic Bullet Denoiser, Neat Video, Red Giant, Noiseware, Nik Define, etc.
Reducing the playback window size is a trick for appearing less grainy on your video while streaming. This method automatically minimizes the digital grains, noise, or other imperfections in the video. However, using this method, you cannot permanently remove or repair video grains or noise. These grains will remain on the video, but in a smaller playback window, the video seems less grainy with its small appearance.
Sometimes, using incompatible video players can cause grainy video while streaming. Some video players have been encoded with such an algorithm that can't render certain types of videos that you might be streaming. As a result, you end up streaming video with unwanted grain and noise. In that case, all you need to do is change your video player instead of trying denoising, as there is no noise at all in the video.
To play any high-resolution video, your computer needs a significant amount of resources. So, if you are playing a high-end video in a system with limited Harward capacity, you will end up with grainy video during streaming. So, you should increase your system’s hardware strength to stream any high-resolution video without grain or noise.
Key Takeaways
💡 Useful Tips
If you are struggling with unwanted grains or noise in your video and looking for the best option of how to fix grainy video, you can try any of the above-mentioned methods to get rid of it.
However, if you don't want to get into any complex steps or technicalities, UniFab Denoise AI would be the best option for automatic noise reduction. Using this AI-based tool, you can eliminate digital grain from any video within a second, and your video will be crystal clear for your high-quality, seamless streaming.
A great free app to fix grainy video is UniFab Video Denoise AI, which uses advanced AI to remove noise and enhance video clarity. It offers a 30-day free trial with no watermark, making it the perfect solution for cleaning up grainy footage effortlessly.
Yes, there are free online tools available to remove grain from videos. For a detailed review of the best options, check out our article Remove Grain From Video. It covers free online tools and provides alternative that can help you easily reduce grain and improve your video quality.
To make a pixelated video clear, you can use AI video enhancers like UniFab Video Enhancer AI or Topaz Video Enhance AI to upscale and restore lost details. Adjusting sharpness, reducing noise, and using high-quality playback settings can also help improve clarity. For a detailed guide, check out this article: How to Depixelate a Video.