Moment is launching another video-focused app for iPhone and iPad Tuesday that lets you edit and color footage as well as create video presets or “looks” for use on social media or Moment’s other video app, Rtro.
The app is called Grain, and based on my experience with it in beta form, it seems to offer a lot of video settings to get lost in. Grain breaks its editing options into three categories: color, effects, and overlays. Color has a variety of preset filters to start with, like LoFi, 35mm, or Blockbuster, which you can then further customize with adjustments to color temperature, brightness, or saturation.
Effects and overlay presets work similarly. You can add film grain, light bleeds, blurs, VHS effects, faux film stocks and fine-tune them with granular controls. Grain also offers gestures to add or remove filters, but I quickly forgot they were an option.
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As someone who is at best an amateur videographer, the amount of control you can have over an individual video clip can be daunting. Luckily, Grain is designed for as much or as little experimentation as you want. You can produce something interesting just by selecting a color filter and a video effect without diving into menus for fine-tuning. (Though you could arguably just as easily do too much that way.)
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Video presets you create can be saved for later use or exported as a LUT (Lookup Table) for use in professional desktop software like Adobe Premiere Pro. Grain can also send your presets to Moment’s other video app, Rtro, if you prefer your modified presets to the filters Moment sells.
The catch with Grain is that to get all of the features, you have to be willing to pay. Grain charges $4.99 per month, $29.99 per year, or a one-time payment of $69.99 to unlock advanced color editing tools, unlimited video length, and the ability to export LUTs and overlays. Otherwise, you’re stuck with the basics, and the novel ability to send filters to Rtro. Moment also plans to bundle subscriptions to Grain and Rtro for $6.99 per month or $39.99 per year if you like both apps enough to pay.
