The Movie Effect?

Hi guys! I am a complete Photoshop novice, although eager to learn!

If anyone can please help me out; I would really like to learn how to make a regular digital camera photo look like a still from a film.

Digital camera photos look super clean, and film stills look a bit dirty and grainy and have a certain texture to them that I just can’t replicate. I know the look of films comes largely from how they are lit, but I am sure it’s possible to give a regular photo that film effect.

I am not familiar with all the techniques in Photoshop but I have tried altering the contrast and adding the ‘film grain’ effect but it just makes the image look a bit dirty. Maybe I haven’t played around with it for long enough.

If anyone can give me some advice, or point me in the direction of any good tutorials I would appreciate it.

I have included links to a digital photo and a film still to illustrate my point (p.s. I don’t own the copyright for any of these images I just found them on google.)

Digital Camera Pic
http://photography-on-the.net/1DmarkII/markIIfiles/HV8O2549_small.jpg

Movie Stills
http://filmstills2.netfirms.com/fightcl1/fight09.jpg

http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/gallery.aspx?photo=117760&gallery=1145#photos

Thank you very much for your help!

Just use the add noise filter I guess?

Without better references, I can't provide much help.

My suggestion is first, instead of playing with contrast, color correct the image. This will make a big difference...giving rich colors and sharp contrast. Second, use unsharp mask to sharpen the image a bit, which will also give it a bit of texture. Finally use the noise filter to add a small amount of grain to either a seperate layer or one of the channels.

That should get you closer to film-quality image.