Optical filters remove things. The sliders in your editor allow you to manipulate the process of converting to B&W without removing anything (unless you want them to). Removing things just limits your options. Better to stay with the full palette.

The colour sliders seldom have a major effect. Most of the time they're for tweaking things like foliage, although they can have a significant effect on the sky and other large areas that consist mostly of one colour. The heavy guns in B&W conversion are the contrast slider and the Whites, Highlights, Shadows, Blacks and Brightness sliders. Texture modifiers can also be significant depending on the content.

Another alternative is for the OP to import them into an editor that can convert the raw files and then export them as tiffs or DNGs but downsizing them to 2300 pixels on the longest edge. The resolution won't be the same as the raw file but everything else will be preserved, such as colour depth and bit depth. Editing the exported tiff or DNG files will be the same as editing the raw files except for the difference in resolution.

My guess is that the problem with digital noise is its smallness and also its contrasty nature. Grain can be larger and greyer.

The Grain tool in the Effects section in Lightroom gives a fair bit of control over the applied grain. It possibly doesn't need anything more complicated than that.

Again I don't know exactly what look you're going for but I'd say that grain will give you a better starting point and possibly more options for controlling its appearance.

In the Effects section in Lightroom you can control the amount, size and roughness of the grain. I don't know exactly what look you're going for but those three adjustments should be able to give you what you want. Sharpening, denoise and contrast/clarity would also be an option.
.

Too extreme? Doesn't have to be.

(Download)

Noise is pixel-sized but grain can be larger. I also suspect that noise has to be fairly high contrast before it becomes noticeable but grain could be more moderate contrast-wise.

The main difference between low res and high res is the smallness of the detail that can be captured. If you upsize a low res image the edges will be made smoother but the upsizer can't replace microdetail that was never captured in the first place.

However, you need to ask "When is that important?". The answer is that most of the time it won't be important. Making larger prints is one of the times when it will be important. Doing a lot of cropping is another such time. But in just about any other situation, 20MP is more than enough and upsizing will be a waste of time. For example, viewing on a 4K screen, 8.3 MP is all that you need so 20MP is more than adequate.

If you're printing large enough for the microdetail to be significant, an upsized image won't have the same level of microdetail that a high res image has, but unless you're comparing the two side by side you won't miss microdetail that you don't know is missing. The important thing to avoid with upsizing is jaggedy edges and that's exactly what upsizers are designed to avoid.

I can't tell what you've done but I suspect that soft grain might be more pleasing to the eye than anything that is described as "noise". It would also keep the nostalgic film lovers happy.

All done without the use of a safety-net (i.e. Dehaze).
.

(Download)

I thought about the video possibility but wouldn't that be recorded as a video file and not individual frames?

Sounds like you're on continuous shutter release (the high speed option H).

After I posted I realised the possible ambiguity so I posted THIS to clarify. It makes it clearer that if you import the raw file into NX Studio it will apply the Picture Control adjustments by default unless you cancel them. It's also possible to see the exact adjustments used and to readjust if wanted. That stands in contrast to the jpeg file which has the Picture Control adjustments baked in and it is then compressed so it's not possible to return to the raw file from the jpeg.

Use Quote Reply ↓ under the post that you want to reply to. That way we'll know who you're responding to.

The above applies if you import the raw files into NX Studio. If you go with the Picture Control profile that will be applied by default, the sharpening will be very basic and not as good as the sharpening that even a basic photo editor is capable of applying. The more advanced editors will do a much better job.

The SOOC jpegs have the Picture Control adjustments baked in to them and it will be impossible to do a perfect job of reversing them. The same applies to any WB adjustments that were applied in-camera. If you're anticipating any major WB adjustments (due to funny or mixed lighting), raw is a must.