What a pretty ring. :) I'm not sure how I feel about the grainy effect, especially without seeing the non-grainy alternative. I used to seeing this on black & white photos or muted tone photos of nostalgic-looking scenes. It seemed fitting on your photo of the smoke stack, for instance. But when I first saw this, I wondered if you had used a really high ISO, until I read your comment. But, I do notice some pretty pastel reflections in the ring itself. Are those real, or a byproduct of the added grain? Those colors are a nice touch.

You're right, the grain does look a bit like it's due to a high ISO. That's probably because I didn't want to add too much grain. But maybe I should have added a slight bit more to distinguish it from noise. :)

As for the grain on the smoke stack photo, that's actually not grain. It's the noise coming through as a result of the conversion I used from color to black and white, as pointed out to me by someone on Usefilm (see here). I had never really thought about the difference before, but now it's much clearer to me. Definitely something to keep in mind as I learn more!

And finally, with regard to the pastel reflections, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Are you talking about the bits of pink in the ring? If so, they're not a by-product of the grain. They're in the original, so I'm guessing they're a reflection of the orange shirt I was wearing. (Oops!) I hadn't noticed them before, but now I'm thinking I'd better be careful when I lean in close to my subject, especially if said subject is a shiny object!

So this has grain, and the other pic had noise? I have no idea what the difference looks like but now I'm curious to see for myself. :) (And yes, I was talking about the bits of pink.)

~xlnt use of the grain here!~