Cleaning up a car on a street in a wide shot.

[Jack Hilkewich]

If it is ok to have the car in the shot then definitely do the plate thing. It is much easier to do. If you have some footage that has a muted color like grey in it and it’s relatively still, the cut out a mask in the shape of the plate over the grey area then use that as your grain source and lay it over your plate pic (or if you can shoot it on video that’s even better). Try different blend modes or keys to get the grain to match. The area is small and if you blur it out a bit and keep the colors muted it shouldn’t draw that much attention to it. The action in the foreground should draw the viewers eye away anyways.

Good luck!