FCP or AE unsharp mask?

[Craig Meadows]

Most of our work to date has been short form/spots and our workflow has been After Effects centric, sharpening our RED footage in AE. Now I have a long format project I'd like to finish in Final Cut.

AE's unsharp mask works very well for sharpening RED footage. Have not experimented with FCP's unsharp mask much with RED footage to see if it's any better or worse than using AE.

Any preferences?

Thanks!

[ThomtheEditor]

Red footage isn't sharp enough as it is?

[Uli Plank]

No, and it isn't meant to be. Red does no compensation for OLPF in camera, but leaves it to us to decide on sharpening in post.

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

I will use AE un sharp mask .it is good enough

[Shawn Booth]

Unsharp? Or Sharpen?

I've used FCS Sharpen filter a few times with great results, but unsharp? Maybe I'm just not familiar.....?

[Matthew Rogers]

If RED footage isn't sharp enough, then maybe you need to try a different/newer lens. My old Cooke 20-60 is pretty dang sharp when I am looking at footage in 1080p. Or maybe they are trying to sharpen 2k footage to make the 4k a little more--that would make sense. I just am seeing 4k footage that almost needs to be slightly blurred to match the 1080p film stuff that I see in trailers.

Matthew

[Bruce Allen]

RE: the original question... unsharp mask is really simple. There's a decent chance that FCP's implementation isn't completely screwed up. So go for it! I've used it with some success on projects.

Try large radii and small amounts as well for that HDR-style tone mapping effect ;) As long as you preview chunks of footage, looking for aliasing / flicker / motion blur issues - and don't focus overly on how a still frame looks - you'll be fine.


I just am seeing 4k footage that almost needs to be slightly blurred to match the 1080p film stuff that I see in trailers.

Matthew

Matthew, don't try to match that blur. That blur is mostly due to the compression if you're viewing on the web. Or the film print if you're seeing it in a film projecting theatre. Or the DCI compression stuff if you're seeing it in a digital projecting theatre... I do titles, vfx enhancement etc for trailers and very often cringe at how much of the work gets lost ;) The worst thing is how the Apple web codecs tend to also quantize the saturated reds and blues to hell so your work looks more like 6-bit color than 8-bit...

It was a big shock when I started. Even with a film print I realized "wow, after all this, you mean what we see in the end is often only 1.7K or so?" Once you realize this, it does open up some doors. You stop pixel-peeping and start shooting crazy elements on an HV20. You learn to focus more on overall composition and form. So I guess it's good?

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Justin Anderson]

I personally have had terrible experiences with all of Final Cut's video filters, including unsharp mask. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but all the effects seem to produce fine image blocking and side-by-side viewing with after effects filters leaves no comparison.

[BASSAM MSSALATIE]

Unsharp? Or Sharpen?

I've used FCS Sharpen filter a few times with great results, but unsharp? Maybe I'm just not familiar.....?

it will sharp the imgae with limited effect (which you can adjust)

[Bruce Allen]

I personally have had terrible experiences with all of Final Cut's video filters, including unsharp mask. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but all the effects seem to produce fine image blocking and side-by-side viewing with after effects filters leaves no comparison.

Haha, Justin, it is quite likely... I will abandon my earlier attempt at FCP defence ;)

Has anyone else noticed that you can often tell if an editor's reel is done on a FCP / DVD studio pro combo? I look through a lot of peoples' reels and after a while you begin to notice the same blockiness and field errors all the time ;)

Avid isn't immune though. I love the way its default method of making still frames from video strips the fields from the image in a pretty ugly way. Look for it - it even crops up on national commercials / promos quite often...

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com