About deinterlace and sharpening.

[Martin Labelle]

Hello
When I apply the deinterlace my videos loose the sharpen that I had put before.
Should I sharpen after or before deinterlace?
and please don't give me a link for a book sold at amazone.

[Boyd Ostroff]

When you use regular deinterlacing in FCP, you are throwing away 50% of the data (every other scan line). That's why it no longer looks sharp. Try using a "smart" deinterlacer such as Dvfilm Maker: http://www.dvfilm.com/maker/ or Joe's Filters: http://www.joesfilters.com/

There are other plugins and programs for this as well. Smart deinterlacers attempt to preserve more detail by treating the static and moving parts of the image differently. You can download free trial versions and see what you think.

[Martin Labelle]

Thank you for the smart answer.
I had never heard of that, I will try it and give you feedback in a few days.
encore merci

[Robert Lane]

Martin,

Be careful of any sharpening of interlaced material. Sharpening video is harsher than on images from still cameras because you're dealing with such low resolution, comparatively.

Especially if your final output is to DVD I would make a test track first and then see how the sharpened image looks on final output (TV screen) you may find the edge artifacting to be unattractive.

Use sharpening very cautiously and keep in mind, you cannot make a blurry shot sharp; if you start out with mud the best you can hope for is murky water.

[Martin Labelle]

Thank you Robert
I don't do sharpen for blur image but for adding strenght: more vivid, presence(don't know how to say in english)
In french unsharp of photoshop is called accentuation and its a word that show what I do the images.
Also its not for dvd its for webtv, but I did not know it ws so important on dvd.
I wish Final cut had a smart sharpen like photoshop cs3.

[Robert Lane]

Originally Posted by Martin Labelle

I don't do sharpen for blur image but for adding strenght: more vivid, presence(don't know how to say in english)

In that case I would not sharpen at all, instead learn to use your 3-way Color Corrector and make things more saturated or, enhance contrast if need be. Those 2 things alone will do far more than sharpening ever would.

Sharpening in video should never be used unless for special effect or, to help fix a bad clip (but only in minor adjustments); it should never be applied like it would in Photoshop, as I say the effect in video is much more harsh and unappealing.

Try using color correction first, I think you'll find the results much more appealing especially for web.