Grain with grit,
not noise.
Digital noise looks like a sensor failing. Film grain looks like the world recorded. Cineon models the texture of HP5 and Tri-X — including the bite of a push — so your black-and-white work carries the weight of the emulsion.
Try it for free. No credit card required.
Loved by 12,000+ photographers — and counting
Why the grain has weight
Black and white with teeth.
Silver-halide grain
Grain that records the world — not sensor failure.
Cineon models the chemistry of HP5 and Tri-X: crystals reacting to light, grain that grows with exposure and bites in the shadows. It's the texture that makes documentary work feel true, not a noise overlay sitting on top.
Infinite, reorderable chains
Dial the grit, in any order you want.
Push processing is part of the language of reportage. Stack exposure, contrast, and grain into a chain, reorder it, and tune it until a frame reads like it was pushed two stops — heavier grain, harder contrast, deeper blacks. Save it as a preset and it's yours.
Fast, browser-native
Work a whole roll without leaving the tab.
Drop a strip of scans, flip through them, and see your look applied instantly. No external app, no render queue — just you and the frames, the way contact-sheet editing should feel.
Results
Shot once, processed forever.
The honest comparison
Cineon vs. the usual suspects
From street & documentary shooters
Frames that carry the weight of the emulsion
“Every digital 'film grain' I tried looked like noise. Cineon's Tri-X actually bites in the shadows. It reads like a print, not a slider.”
“The push look is the killer feature. Tri-X at 1600 grit, no developer, no smell.”
“HP5 contrast and grain in a browser. I edit contact-sheet style, fast.”
“Grain that grows with exposure instead of floating on top. That's the whole game.”
“My documentary work finally looks like the prints I grew up on.”
“No app to launch between rolls. I flip through a strip and the look is just there.”
“Deep blacks, hard grain, real weight. It respects the medium.”
Pricing
Pay for the craft, not the subscription trap
7-day free trial. No credit card required.
CINEON Pro
$12.41/mo billed annually
- Unlimited exports (JPG, PNG, TIFF)
- Full access to all film emulations
- Grain, halation, dirty matte & more
- Multi-image strip processing
- Save & share custom presets
- All future in-browser features
Lifetime
Pay onceYours forever. No renewals.
- Everything in Cineon Pro
- All future in-browser features
- Locked-in early-supporter price
Your frames deserve grain with grit
Built for photographers who know the difference between grain and noise. Get in early and put a frame through Cineon.
7-day trial. No credit card required.
- 1.
All effects in Cineon run on the iGPU and GPU via WebGPU — including halation, film grain, exposure, bloom, and color science tools. A modern browser with WebGPU support is required: Chrome 113 or later, or Microsoft Edge 113 or later. Firefox and Safari do not yet support WebGPU and are not supported.
- 2.
Cineon runs entirely in your browser — no software to install, no files sent to a server. Your photos stay on your device at all times.
- 3.
Minimum setup: 8 GB RAM and a graphics chip with WebGPU support — such as an Intel Iris Xe, AMD Radeon RX 5000 series, NVIDIA GTX 1060, or Apple M1. For comfortable editing of large RAW files and HDR images, 16 GB RAM and a dedicated GPU — such as an NVIDIA RTX 3060, AMD RX 6700 XT, or Apple M2 Pro — are recommended. Apple Silicon Macs (M1 and later) run Cineon exceptionally well.
- 4.
Every effect in Cineon is processed at the highest internal precision available — the equivalent of a 32-bit professional editing workflow — so there is no quality loss between effects, no matter how many you stack.
- 5.
HDR photos are supported natively, including files from iPhone (HEIC), professional cameras (TIFF), and high-end scanning workflows (OpenEXR). Standard JPEG, PNG, and WebP files are fully supported as well.
- 6.
Export is available in TIFF 16-bit and TIFF 32-bit — lossless formats accepted by Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Photo, and other professional software. JPEG, PNG, and WebP export is also available for sharing and web use.
- 7.
Our Film Grain models the actual chemical behavior of silver halide crystals in photographic emulsion — the same underlying science published in peer-reviewed imaging research — rather than applying a simple texture overlay. The result is grain that responds to light, shadow, and color the way real film does.
- 8.
Optical Engine simulates the physical behavior of real camera lenses, including how light bends through glass at different wavelengths. The colored fringing, focus falloff, and bokeh shape you see are derived from ray-by-ray calculations — not artistic presets.
- 9.
Processing speed depends on your computer, the resolution of your photo, and the number of effects active. A draft preview at reduced resolution is always available while the full-quality result is being calculated in the background.
- 10.
Some multi-threaded performance features require a browser context with cross-origin isolation enabled. This is active on cineon.app and has no impact on how you use the app.
- 11.
Cineon is designed for desktop use. A screen width of at least 1280px is recommended for the full editing interface. Mobile browsing is supported for account access and light previewing.