Chroma noise & color grading

Till Krueger · January 28th, 2004, 02:00 PM

Paul...so you're also in SF? maybe we can compare notes at some point.

i just ordered the HD10U and got an RMA to return my HD1...Helen, i hear you when you replied to my concern about in regard to seeing whether i can live with the edge enhancements or not (you said you couldn't)...now i am biting the bullet as well...the camera is so close to being awesome, but the EE is a thorn in my eye, and seriously impairs my enjoyment of this beautiful piece of equipment.

so as far as the clips go, i'll upload a few to my server, and send you Helen, and you Graeme the links by the weekend...i don't want to stress the download allowance too much, so i'd have to send it to the two of you only, unfortunately...unless someones else is also actively trying to resolve this issue (David?)...but i am sure most already have plenty of problematic footage on their harddisks.

on we march.

Elvis Deane · January 30th, 2004, 01:35 AM

Has anyone tried NeatImage (http://www.neatimage.com/index.html) to clean up noise? I've used it on some stills, and it does a great job and isn't too slow. If you were to convert a shot into a sequence of images, create a profile from one image, and then batch clean the entire sequence, it might reduce the noise quite a bit.

The demo only lets you batch process one or two images, so its a bit hard to know for sure how it would work on moving pictures.

Helen Mets · January 30th, 2004, 12:51 PM

I checked the web page and I must say it looks promising (as well as affordable). It also seems to be able to mask the compression artifacts to some extent, which is great.

Thanks for the info!

David Newman · January 30th, 2004, 01:13 PM

NeatImage does look like cool software. It does seem to potentially reduce luma detail a little, and it would be a pain to process a lot of video sequences, but for the price it would might be the trick for short sequences.

My own filter developement work is still progressing. Here is the latest example. http://members.cts.com/crash/d/dan/temp/Bride.jpg

Paul Mogg · January 30th, 2004, 01:42 PM

Those are very nice results David, I wish something like this was available for FCP or AE.

Paul

Till Krueger · January 30th, 2004, 02:14 PM

Neat Image has been a life saver so many times over the years...it's really an incredible tool, especially on high ISO noise reduction...haven't tried it for the chroma noise yet, but if you say that it'll do that as well, then it would be a good alternative.

the results you posted, David, are really, really nice...i just upgraded to the HD10U (received it 1 hour ago...away with the EE ugliness of the HD1, YES!), and my pocket book is a bit strained for the month...but the Aspect HD plugin is on my short list of things to get for this summer's production...it would just be such a HUGE help to edit in real-time, AND have chroma noise taken care of in final rendering with your plug...go, David, GO!

Helen, have you gotten some clips yet? i brought up all of the test clips i shot in the past week last night, and i think there's a few good examples...i did struggel a bit with MPEG Edit STudio, though, trying to do everything natively as .m2t ...i'll cludge my way through, though, and will figure it out.

Paul St. Denis · February 2nd, 2004, 01:06 PM

Graeme,
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (google cache, the original was down when I tried it)

Seems to describe a simple algorithm for chroma noise reduction.

I am going to take a stab at my first filter, any resource for FXScript that you can suggest?

Graeme Nattress · February 2nd, 2004, 01:37 PM

I've got my chroma-noise plugin working as part of my G DVNR plugin from Set 1. I needed to update it anyway, so I thought I'd put it into the updated version. It's working a little different from VirtualDub, so it'll be worth trying to see if it works better or worse. Nicely, you can limit it to work on a certain colour....Drop me an email, Paul, so I can send you the plugin to test.

Graeme

Paul Mogg · February 3rd, 2004, 11:29 AM

Graeme, not sure if you got my email. Can we buy and download this new chroma plugin (I'm assuming it's for FCP) from your website? I would really like to try it out.

Thanks

Louis Grimaldo · February 3rd, 2004, 02:58 PM

I would love to have a chroma noise filter for FCP. I have been shooting a movie on the HD10u and I have a few takes that suffer from bad chroma noise. I am thinking of selling my Mac and buying a PC just so I can use the chroma noise filters. If there is a good possibility that a chroma noise filter for FCP is coming within the next two months then i will keep my Mac and FCP. So how about it Graeme?

Heath McKnight · February 3rd, 2004, 03:17 PM

Louis,

My theory would be to keep the Apple; things are coming out all the time, and I wouldn't doubt there is something on the way. It may already be there, whether built into Apple or as a plug-in.

heath

Graeme Nattress · February 4th, 2004, 07:47 AM

If you want to test the plugin, drop me an email and I'll send it to you graeme@nattress.com I don't want you to buy it until I know if it does the stuff you need it to!

Graeme

Paul Mogg · February 5th, 2004, 02:51 PM

Graeme,
I tried the chroma noise plugin briefly yesterday and got some really excellent results! I was able to get rid of most of the chroma noise in some pretty extreme examples. However I really don't know what I'm doing with the settings yet . I just used the "spacial chroma noise reduction" section of the plugin, with the "spacial chroma amount" set to 1 and the "chroma blur" set up high. I used the color focus and it's color picker to select the color I wanted to process from the canvas. I had the "select similar colours amount" set to 38. (is this selecting more range of colors with a higher setting or less?)
Also, should the "colour samplng" setting be set to "4.2.0 P" for the HD1OU footage?
Would you have a guide to all theses settings by any chance Graeme? or some sample settings that you'd recommend as a starting point?

What would be an incredibly useful addition would be if you could see in the canvas or viewer what color range you were focusing on, much as you can do with FCP's 3-way color corrector, where it will show you a black and white image where the white areas are those you have selected to act upon with the color corrector, this is probably asking for too much but it would be sooo useful.

From what I see so far, this is a wonderful plugin Graeme and I think it will take care of 90% of the color noise problems with this cameras footage, which is a huge boost. Of course you'll have to process it on a scene-by-scene basis to get the best results I would imagine.

Thank you very much for doing this.

Graeme Nattress · February 5th, 2004, 03:07 PM

Thanks Paul!

The plugin is still beta, and hence no instructions yet, but your feedback is appreciated.

Increaseing the "Select Similar Colours" selects a greater range of colours, and yes, I can display this on screen. I had it working this way in a diagnostic mode while developing it, so it should be easy to add it back in. 4:2:0 P would be right for the HDV, although at the moment, it's not doing anything different from 4:2:0 I, and indeed, I may not need to make them different due to the way that FCP works, thus there might just be a 4:2:0 setting in the future. The good thing is, that there is the "side effect" of having your chroma upsampled at the same time as it's getting noise reduced.

Graeme

Mark Jervis · February 5th, 2004, 07:01 PM

David Newman was kind enough to give me a beta version of the chroma filter to test out and after having it for about an hour here are the preliminary results. I have posted 3 sets of comparison shots using the Chroma Filter. 2 Sets have been highly oversaturated to exagerate the chroma. Tell me what you think about the results and if you would like an example or have some footage you want tested please let me know and I'll be glad to test it. Also, if you like the results, please compliment David and his team for such great work.

http://www.viproductions.tv/hd10/hd10shots.htm

January 30th, 2004, 01:35 AM	#32
Elvis Deane New Boot Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Oakville, Ontario Posts: 15	Has anyone tried NeatImage (http://www.neatimage.com/index.html) to clean up noise? I've used it on some stills, and it does a great job and isn't too slow. If you were to convert a shot into a sequence of images, create a profile from one image, and then batch clean the entire sequence, it might reduce the noise quite a bit. The demo only lets you batch process one or two images, so its a bit hard to know for sure how it would work on moving pictures. __________________ Elvis Deane! www.astoundingadventures.com

January 30th, 2004, 12:51 PM	#33
Helen Mets New Boot Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Tartu, Estonia Posts: 11	Neat Image I checked the web page and I must say it looks promising (as well as affordable). It also seems to be able to mask the compression artifacts to some extent, which is great. Thanks for the info!

January 30th, 2004, 01:13 PM	#34
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	NeatImage does look like cool software. It does seem to potentially reduce luma detail a little, and it would be a pain to process a lot of video sequences, but for the price it would might be the trick for short sequences. My own filter developement work is still progressing. Here is the latest example. http://members.cts.com/crash/d/dan/temp/Bride.jpg __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

January 30th, 2004, 01:42 PM	#35
Paul Mogg Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: San Francisco CA Posts: 386	Those are very nice results David, I wish something like this was available for FCP or AE. Paul __________________ Paul

February 2nd, 2004, 01:37 PM	#38
Graeme Nattress RED Problem Solver Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 1,365	I've got my chroma-noise plugin working as part of my G DVNR plugin from Set 1. I needed to update it anyway, so I thought I'd put it into the updated version. It's working a little different from VirtualDub, so it'll be worth trying to see if it works better or worse. Nicely, you can limit it to work on a certain colour....Drop me an email, Paul, so I can send you the plugin to test. Graeme __________________ www.nattress.com - filters for FCP

January 28th, 2004, 02:00 PM	#31
Till Krueger Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Francisco Posts: 26	Paul...so you're also in SF? maybe we can compare notes at some point. i just ordered the HD10U and got an RMA to return my HD1...Helen, i hear you when you replied to my concern about in regard to seeing whether i can live with the edge enhancements or not (you said you couldn't)...now i am biting the bullet as well...the camera is so close to being awesome, but the EE is a thorn in my eye, and seriously impairs my enjoyment of this beautiful piece of equipment. so as far as the clips go, i'll upload a few to my server, and send you Helen, and you Graeme the links by the weekend...i don't want to stress the download allowance too much, so i'd have to send it to the two of you only, unfortunately...unless someones else is also actively trying to resolve this issue (David?)...but i am sure most already have plenty of problematic footage on their harddisks. on we march.

January 30th, 2004, 02:14 PM	#36
Till Krueger Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Francisco Posts: 26	Neat Image has been a life saver so many times over the years...it's really an incredible tool, especially on high ISO noise reduction...haven't tried it for the chroma noise yet, but if you say that it'll do that as well, then it would be a good alternative. the results you posted, David, are really, really nice...i just upgraded to the HD10U (received it 1 hour ago...away with the EE ugliness of the HD1, YES!), and my pocket book is a bit strained for the month...but the Aspect HD plugin is on my short list of things to get for this summer's production...it would just be such a HUGE help to edit in real-time, AND have chroma noise taken care of in final rendering with your plug...go, David, GO! Helen, have you gotten some clips yet? i brought up all of the test clips i shot in the past week last night, and i think there's a few good examples...i did struggel a bit with MPEG Edit STudio, though, trying to do everything natively as .m2t ...i'll cludge my way through, though, and will figure it out.

February 2nd, 2004, 01:06 PM	#37
Paul St. Denis Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Stony Brook NY Posts: 169	Graeme, http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8 (google cache, the original was down when I tried it) Seems to describe a simple algorithm for chroma noise reduction. I am going to take a stab at my first filter, any resource for FXScript that you can suggest?

February 3rd, 2004, 11:29 AM	#39
Paul Mogg Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: San Francisco CA Posts: 386	Graeme, not sure if you got my email. Can we buy and download this new chroma plugin (I'm assuming it's for FCP) from your website? I would really like to try it out. Thanks __________________ Paul

February 3rd, 2004, 02:58 PM	#40
Louis Grimaldo Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Tampa Posts: 26	I would love to have a chroma noise filter for FCP. I have been shooting a movie on the HD10u and I have a few takes that suffer from bad chroma noise. I am thinking of selling my Mac and buying a PC just so I can use the chroma noise filters. If there is a good possibility that a chroma noise filter for FCP is coming within the next two months then i will keep my Mac and FCP. So how about it Graeme?

February 3rd, 2004, 03:17 PM	#41
Heath McKnight MPS Digital Studios Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Palm Beach County, Florida Posts: 8,531	Louis, My theory would be to keep the Apple; things are coming out all the time, and I wouldn't doubt there is something on the way. It may already be there, whether built into Apple or as a plug-in. heath __________________ My Final Cut Pro X blog

February 4th, 2004, 07:47 AM	#42
Graeme Nattress RED Problem Solver Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 1,365	If you want to test the plugin, drop me an email and I'll send it to you graeme@nattress.com I don't want you to buy it until I know if it does the stuff you need it to! Graeme __________________ www.nattress.com - filters for FCP

February 5th, 2004, 02:51 PM	#43
Paul Mogg Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: San Francisco CA Posts: 386	Graeme, I tried the chroma noise plugin briefly yesterday and got some really excellent results! I was able to get rid of most of the chroma noise in some pretty extreme examples. However I really don't know what I'm doing with the settings yet . I just used the "spacial chroma noise reduction" section of the plugin, with the "spacial chroma amount" set to 1 and the "chroma blur" set up high. I used the color focus and it's color picker to select the color I wanted to process from the canvas. I had the "select similar colours amount" set to 38. (is this selecting more range of colors with a higher setting or less?) Also, should the "colour samplng" setting be set to "4.2.0 P" for the HD1OU footage? Would you have a guide to all theses settings by any chance Graeme? or some sample settings that you'd recommend as a starting point? What would be an incredibly useful addition would be if you could see in the canvas or viewer what color range you were focusing on, much as you can do with FCP's 3-way color corrector, where it will show you a black and white image where the white areas are those you have selected to act upon with the color corrector, this is probably asking for too much but it would be sooo useful. From what I see so far, this is a wonderful plugin Graeme and I think it will take care of 90% of the color noise problems with this cameras footage, which is a huge boost. Of course you'll have to process it on a scene-by-scene basis to get the best results I would imagine. Thank you very much for doing this. __________________ Paul

February 5th, 2004, 03:07 PM	#44
Graeme Nattress RED Problem Solver Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 1,365	Thanks Paul! The plugin is still beta, and hence no instructions yet, but your feedback is appreciated. Increaseing the "Select Similar Colours" selects a greater range of colours, and yes, I can display this on screen. I had it working this way in a diagnostic mode while developing it, so it should be easy to add it back in. 4:2:0 P would be right for the HDV, although at the moment, it's not doing anything different from 4:2:0 I, and indeed, I may not need to make them different due to the way that FCP works, thus there might just be a 4:2:0 setting in the future. The good thing is, that there is the "side effect" of having your chroma upsampled at the same time as it's getting noise reduced. Graeme __________________ www.nattress.com - filters for FCP

February 5th, 2004, 07:01 PM	#45
Mark Jervis Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Savannah, GA Posts: 66	David Newman was kind enough to give me a beta version of the chroma filter to test out and after having it for about an hour here are the preliminary results. I have posted 3 sets of comparison shots using the Chroma Filter. 2 Sets have been highly oversaturated to exagerate the chroma. Tell me what you think about the results and if you would like an example or have some footage you want tested please let me know and I'll be glad to test it. Also, if you like the results, please compliment David and his team for such great work. http://www.viproductions.tv/hd10/hd10shots.htm