When using the detail-feature?
 

My little experience right now tells me, that the picture-quality with the detail-setting turned off is just perfect (btw. I'm using a 23" apple cinema display). When I turn it on, it looks just worse. So I can't see a cause to ever turn it on. Do you know a situation, when it can get useful to have that feature?

I was picking up something like noise in areas of even color. I turned Detail On, Level to 0 (which is not the same as Off), Frequency to 30, and Crispening to 20. I'm still playing with the exact settings, but so far it's taken care of the noise and I haven't found any sharpening artifacts yet.

Pete

I never use this "feature".
As Dominic said, with Detail Off it looks perfect. When Detail is on it looks much worse, just like old, oversharpened and artificial hdv video...


Dennis

the problem with "pre-sharpening" in the camera is that it makes compression artifacts worse, and it greatly increases the file size.

So true, sharpening in post (if necessary) works much better.


Dennis

That sounds interesting. I will try that!

I wonder what is the advantage in this if any at all? Detail is artificial no matter what.

In case I wasn't clear in my first post: These settings don't appear to increase edge sharpening (at least that I can see on my less-than-hi-def monitor). They do smooth out areas of smooth color.

I suppose (thinking out loud here) that I could use the skin smoothing settings to do the same thing, but then I'd have to tell the camera what color to smooth.

Pete

I shoot with detail on.
sample here
www.vimeo.com/paulkellett

look at Kiss Me Kate.

Paul

Paul - what detail settings do you use? the videos look good

I think, you can't judge detail-settings by watching vimeo-videos. The resolution is too low, the compression too high.

Chiming in

I agree about detail being off, i remember some examples way back in the sample footage thread and it was like night and day. The biggest problem with detail was sharpening highlights creating that tell-tale contrast ringing.

There's enough native resolution to not need sharpening i think.

I think it's on there for technical comparisons and 'sharpness' tests.

ALthough i am aware there there are a lot of tweakable parameters, perhaps some are useful but i would imagine they'd need changing scene by scene and who on earth is going to test for that.

Does anyone have a real reason for using detail?

Pete do you have an example full frame with the effect you're talking about? In most cases i'd rather have the noise because 8 bit compression isn't really good enough for truely smooth gradients and the noise helps.

cheers
paul

I use detail on,just on with no numbers dialed in.
I've recorded 2 identical clips one with detail on,one with detail off.
I rendered the clips for the web and burnt them to dvd,i prefer the detail on,as did everyone who sat and watched the clips with me.

It's just personal preference is suppose.

Paul.

Generally if you downsample the sharpened source looks more contrasty (looks 'better') and the ringing effect is reduced (i assume you're talk SD DVD and web?)

Im interested in whether there's a benefit to detail during capture for HD resolutions. Sharpening in post is easy and also selective and i can see the reasons for the compression working harder for artificially sharpened edges.

Do you have two full resolution frames from each of the tests to have a peek at? The sharpening effects really depend on what the image is.

many thanks!
paul

Not from the tests,that was ages ago when i first got the cam.
I've got some screengrabs with detail on if you want them posted.

Paul

We'd really like to see them, Paul.

Screengrabs with detail on
 

Armlock is 720/50p
Guy on stage is 1080 50i SP.

I can quite clearly see the false edges due to sharpening, look at any area of high contrast - in the V of the leg top left of frame there's an obvious sharpened edge with the telltale black line. Or the black ringing around the addidas logo.

With this particular image though the areas of contrast are quite low, if you had specular highlights (a watch or something) the ringing off that, for me, would be unacceptable. If you're keying or needing to do something to the image then this enhancement is detrimental as well.

I would personally still choose to shoot with no detail 'enhancement' and have that choice later on should i desire it. I would imagine that post based sharpening is more controllable and better anyway (but of course much more time consuming)

but horses for courses, whatever works best for your own workflow, that's the beauty of all these settings!

cheers
paul

Ah yes i can see it a bit now.

Thanks.

Paul.

Here is a comparison between detail on/off.

regards Dennis

the trouble with this stuff is once you've seen it, then you're always looking for it and you start noticing it automatically!

But i really feel this is one area which screams video to me. I'll have to see if i can dig out some frames of mine with no detail. I find them so much more natural and you can take them into photoshop and unsharp mask them and see the ringing come back in. Try some tests, you may initially think the shots are soft but they're real.

Conversely the vewing public is quite used to heavily sharpened images, from digital stills cameras, compression. Its just a very easy way to create perceived resolution and it's not necessarily wrong either. It's just a personal choice! I always have a battle with the photo processing places to try and get them to not sharpen my photos (usually fail dismally too).

cheers
paul

Dennis : a great example, i much prefer the off setting but i can see people thinking there's more resolution in the left. You can also see the effects of sharpening lens aberations too!

The whole reason I wanted to move on to 1080p was that I was tired of sharpening my 720p footage from my JVC HD100. 1080p is twice as sharp and naturally so. Now that I have 1080p I no longer see any reason to use sharpening. Specially for video release (HD or SD) it is plenty sharp. I find myself adding filter for close ups. What is the point of moving up, spending the extra cash to shoot high-def if you still treat it as DV? DV needs sharpening, full HD does not.

Here are some examples:
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/1.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/2.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/3.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/4.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/5.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/6.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/7.png
http://www.dominik.ws/ex1-detail/8.png

1: detail off
2: level 0, freq 0, crisp 0
3: level -50, freq 0, crisp 0
4: level +50, freq 0, crisp 0
5: level +50, freq -50, crip 0
6: level +50, freq +50, crisp 0
7: level +50, freq 0, crisp -100
8: level +50, freq 0, crisp +100

all with cine3, gamma-level/black/black-gamma 0, matrix off. Used FCPs ProcAmp-VideoLevel at -0.32 for turning super-white to white.

The first one looks best.
The second one already looks like a painting
The third one looks like it has gone through a blur filter.
...


regards Dennis

Agree completely.

Dominik thank you for posting this comparison, a fantastic way to illustrate the pitfalls of detail on this camera.

Interesting that with everything zero'd it's still quite bad, yet set to -50 it's blurry. Where's the 'off' setting then (if there is one)

cheers
paul

Level = -30 should be "zero".


Dennis