How did Jim do this?

[Julio Quintana]

There have been a couple of threads lately on "De-noising" footage. Jim was able to do this 10 months ago: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14182

Can someone please explain how to do this? All of my ISO 2000 stuff looks terrible and I can't figure out how to get it cleaner.

These guys definitely know what they're doing: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27668&highlight=de-noise

Kaya, can you explain how you did that in 20 seconds?

Thanks,
Julio

[Etienne Caron]

You could try the RevisionFX denoise plugin for FCP:

http://www.revisionfx.com/products/denoise/

There is a demo version. You could try to do some test. Denoising for still picture could look very nice, but mix with movement, it could be hell...

[Julio Quintana]

Thanks for the reply. I'll give it a try. But in Jim's post, he says he "opened in RA! REDspace and made absolutely no corrections whatsoever."

And Kaya said he made his adjustments in 20 seconds. Can someone explain?

[paul engstrom]

there's a pretty good denoiser in After Effects

p

[Matt Gottshalk]

http://www.neatvideo.com/examples.html

[Daniel Browning]

All of my ISO 2000 stuff looks terrible and I can't figure out how to get it cleaner.


Are you sure it's ISO 2000? If one or more of your channels is underexposed (e.g. blue in Tungsten light), then the ISO is effectively higher: it could be ISO 6400!

The most important factor in noise is the total amount of light in all three channels. If your raw histogram is bunched on the left in even just one channel, noise will result. That's why the same ISO 2000 in some conditions (e.g. daylight) will look fine, whereas ISO 2000 in other conditions (tungsten) do not.

ISO 2000 with good histograms (all three channels bunched up on the far right) can be better than ISO 320 with bad histograms.

[Jannard]

Are you sure it's ISO 2000? If one or more of your channels is underexposed (e.g. blue in Tungsten light), then the ISO is effectively higher: it could be ISO 6400!

The most important factor in noise is the total amount of light in all three channels. If your raw histogram is bunched on the left in even just one channel, noise will result. That's why the same ISO 2000 in some conditions (e.g. daylight) will look fine, whereas ISO 2000 in other conditions (tungsten) do not.

ISO 2000 with good histograms (all three channels bunched up on the far right) can be better than ISO 320 with bad histograms.

Very accurate post. Underexposure will generate more noise than anything. High ISO, underexposure under tungsten and... you are in a big hole.

Jim

[Donald G]

The most important factor in noise is the total amount of light in all three channels. If your raw histogram is bunched on the left in even just one channel, noise will result. That's why the same ISO 2000 in some conditions (e.g. daylight) will look fine, whereas ISO 2000 in other conditions (tungsten) do not.

ISO 2000 with good histograms (all three channels bunched up on the far right) can be better than ISO 320 with bad histograms.


Great Advice, Tried it, and it works. But seriously...Why in the world couldn't someone from The Red Team explain it this simply? C'mon, I have to wait months for someone at Red User to explain it like this?? Ridiculous.

[Liam Hall]

Great Advice, Tried it, and it works. But seriously...Why in the world couldn't someone from The Red Team explain it this simply? C'mon, I have to wait months for someone at Red User to explain it like this?? Ridiculous.

Do you expect the chef from the Chinese take-out to tell you how to use chopsticks?

[Jannard]

Great Advice, Tried it, and it works. But seriously...Why in the world couldn't someone from The Red Team explain it this simply? C'mon, I have to wait months for someone at Red User to explain it like this?? Ridiculous.

That's what this forum is all about. What is ridiculous is thinking that we read and respond to every post every day. Sorry, but most of us are working every day and night trying to build the new system, support our customers... all with a handful of people.

BTW... we use real (and full) names here.

Jim

[Brent J. Craig]

Julio, I think you need to ask yourself why you are shooting at 2000 ISO!

Someone trying to shoot something in a professional manner would never resort to such extreme ISOs without a very very good reason. Maybe it's a hidden camera for a sensitive part of a doc, or maybe you're the only one who could see the second gunman. Other than that, you gotta light what you shoot!

If you find yourself needing more than 500 ISO for most things, you're doing it wrong.

[Donald G]

That's what this forum is all about. What is ridiculous is thinking that we read and respond to every post every day. Sorry, but most of us are working every day and night trying to build the new system, support our customers... all with a handful of people.

BTW... we use real (and full) names here.

Jim

First of all, JANNARD, Donald IS my real name and you may address me by it. Besides, I don't see you using your last name. But before you ask, yes I know EXACTLY who you are, And YES I use the RED all of the time.

Second, while no one expects you to respond to every post, how about your people adequately respond to a Phone call (on hold listening to that STUPID BRAIN loop....geez), return an phone call (HA! Good luck!) email, (NEVER HAPPEN, NEVER WILL), You know JANNARD, that kind of thing. Maybe you might want to stop some of your people from "working day and night" on these "new systems" and proplerly explain just how the OLD SYSTEMS work. Which contrary popular belief JANNARD, does not always happen. Maybe an instruction manual might help....

In any case, You only seem to respond well to praise and not CRITICISM. Sorry king, but somebody had to have the stones to tell tell you....and I got 'em.

Donald G

[Julio Quintana]

Okay, guys. I really appreciate the responses. And Jim, I know you're really busy, so it's always a privilege to get your input.

Just for the record, I never shoot at anything but 320 iso, but I've had several people swear to me that my camera is awesome in low light situations, so I'm trying to figure out how they're doing it.

I shot two tests at 2000 iso, one tungsten, and the next daylight. I exported the jpegs straight out of Redcine then resized them for uploading. I don't see the daylight photo being substantially better. Any ideas how to deal with footage like this?

[Jannard]

First of all, JANNARD, Donald IS my real name and you may address me by it. Besides, I don't see you using your last name. But before you ask, yes I know EXACTLY who you are, And YES I use the RED all of the time.

Second, while no one expects you to respond to every post, how about your people adequately respond to a Phone call (on hold listening to that STUPID BRAIN loop....geez), return an phone call (HA! Good luck!) email, (NEVER HAPPEN, NEVER WILL), You know JANNARD, that kind of thing. Maybe you might want to stop some of your people from "working day and night" on these "new systems" and proplerly explain just how the OLD SYSTEMS work. Which contrary popular belief JANNARD, does not always happen. Maybe an instruction manual might help....

In any case, You only seem to respond well to praise and not CRITICISM. Sorry king, but somebody had to have the stones to tell tell you....and I got 'em.

Donald G

Mr. Donald... both of my names are on every post, if you bothered to look. And you just earned a pass into outer darkness. Have a nice trip.

Jim

[Julio Quintana]

Jim? Come back!

[Jannard]

Okay, guys. I really appreciate the responses. And Jim, I know you're really busy, so it's always a privilege to get your input.

Just for the record, I never shoot at anything but 320 iso, but I've had several people swear to me that my camera is awesome in low light situations, so I'm trying to figure out how they're doing it.

I shot two tests at 2000 iso, one tungsten, and the next daylight. I exported the jpegs straight out of Redcine then resized them for uploading. I don't see the daylight photo being substantially better. Any ideas how to deal with footage like this?

Did you measure the light output of both daylight and tungsten sources to make sure they are outputting the same amount of light? Can you post the histogram of each without any correction? Details of light sources?

Thanks,

Jim

[Brandon Fraley]

First of all, JANNARD, Donald IS my real name and you may address me by it. Besides, I don't see you using your last name. But before you ask, yes I know EXACTLY who you are, And YES I use the RED all of the time.

Second, while no one expects you to respond to every post, how about your people adequately respond to a Phone call (on hold listening to that STUPID BRAIN loop....geez), return an phone call (HA! Good luck!) email, (NEVER HAPPEN, NEVER WILL), You know JANNARD, that kind of thing. Maybe you might want to stop some of your people from "working day and night" on these "new systems" and proplerly explain just how the OLD SYSTEMS work. Which contrary popular belief JANNARD, does not always happen. Maybe an instruction manual might help....

In any case, You only seem to respond well to praise and not CRITICISM. Sorry king, but somebody had to have the stones to tell tell you....and I got 'em.

Donald G


...whoa

[Zakaree Sandberg]

First of all, JANNARD, Donald IS my real name and you may address me by it. Besides, I don't see you using your last name. But before you ask, yes I know EXACTLY who you are, And YES I use the RED all of the time.

Second, while no one expects you to respond to every post, how about your people adequately respond to a Phone call (on hold listening to that STUPID BRAIN loop....geez), return an phone call (HA! Good luck!) email, (NEVER HAPPEN, NEVER WILL), You know JANNARD, that kind of thing. Maybe you might want to stop some of your people from "working day and night" on these "new systems" and proplerly explain just how the OLD SYSTEMS work. Which contrary popular belief JANNARD, does not always happen. Maybe an instruction manual might help....

In any case, You only seem to respond well to praise and not CRITICISM. Sorry king, but somebody had to have the stones to tell tell you....and I got 'em.

Donald G


RUDE..
unfortunately rudeness doesnt bode well in this industry..
PS. open your eyes and do some research rather than whining and acting helpless. you want an instruction manual? go download it from red.com.

[Kyle Presley]

Bad attitude if I've ever seen one. No service for Donald...

[Jannard]

This was done with a curve and very light NR. The shot is under-exposed.

Looks light in Safari... pull to Photoshop.

Jim

http://www.redgrabs.com/up/1237838574.jpg

[Julio Quintana]

Hey Jim. I did not measure the light sources. I just basically set the camera to 2000 iso and adjusted exposure by looking at the monitor. The first is a 100w equivalent CFL bulb (tungsten balanced). It's REALLY yellow. The second is just daylight coming through a bedroom window at around 5pm.

According to the histograms, they are both crazy underexposed, but isn't that the point of using 2000 iso?

[Jannard]

Using ISO 2000 is a good idea ONLY if you have no light available AND it gets you to proper exposure. If you are still under-exposed, you will get noise. Tests to see what makes a difference need to be done the same way... same amount of light, same type of lighting fixture (bare bulb, soft box, etc.) otherwise you never know exactly what does what. What really matters in getting noise free images is light... enough of it.

Jim

[Julio Quintana]

Wow, Jim. Yeah, that does look a lot better. And that was you just messing with a 1k jpeg. I assume you did that in Photoshop? So the same technique could be applied to motion footage in After Effects?

[Zakaree Sandberg]

denoised

[James T Mather]

Neatvideo is pretty slick - this was done with an out-of-the-box basic preset (maybe a tad oversharpened I'll grant you but even with somewhat low-end-of-the-curve density it's pretty amazing what it can do) - it's only filtering the center of the image btw (demo version) - you can see where it hits a wall of noise.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2615/nestvideo.jpg

http://www.reduser.net/forum/%5Burl=http://www.imagehosting.com/%5D%5Bimg=http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2615/nestvideo.jpg%5D%5B/url%5D

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2615/nestvideo.jpg%5D

[Julio Quintana]

Using ISO 2000 is a good idea ONLY if you have no light available AND it gets you to proper exposure. If you are still under-exposed, you will get noise. Tests to see what makes a difference need to be done the same way... same amount of light, same type of lighting fixture (bare bulb, soft box, etc.) otherwise you never know exactly what does what. What really matters in getting noise free images is light... enough of it.

Jim

I see. So if I turn up the iso on the camera, my histogram should show that the image is properly exposed. Makes sense.

[Jannard]

Wow, Jim. Yeah, that does look a lot better. And that was you just messing with a 1k jpeg. I assume you did that in Photoshop? So the same technique could be applied to motion footage in After Effects?

If you get caught with footage with this much noise... you can de-noise in AE. Just save yourself some grief and bring enough light to your next shoot. :-)

Jim

[Julio Quintana]

Holy crap. Zakaree, that looks fantastic. Can you share how you did that?

James, that is definitely a lot cleaner. A little plastic looking, but still impressive.

[Julio Quintana]

Thanks Jim. It's always awesome when you get involved in a thread. I really appreciate it.

[James T Mather]

James, that is definitely a lot cleaner. A little plastic looking, but still impressive.

Yes its a pretty good program for holding some sharpness and managing to denoise somewhat. You can denoise and sharpen to taste (that was the basic "kill all noise/sharpen most" preset)

[Cüneyt Kaya]

i always try to light for the red...i use asa 2000 just when there is no choice.

ergo, i denoise 1 out of 100 shots.

[Christian Edwards]

RUDE..
unfortunately rudeness doesnt bode well in this industry..
PS. open your eyes and do some research rather than whining and acting helpless. you want an instruction manual? go download it from red.com.
well said :)

[Paul Leeming]

Couple more cleanup options using original posted JPG and the NeatVideo one:

http://www.visceralpsyche.com/misc/web_images/nestvideo_visceralpsyche_modded.jpg

http://www.visceralpsyche.com/misc/web_images/Daylight_visceralpsyche_modded.jpg

I've actually ADDED some grain to these shots among other things. The point is that the right sort of random grain actually adds perceptual sharpness and when moving like film, imparts a certain "organic" quality to what would otherwise look "video-like".

Main thing in de-noising is to get rid of pattern grain like vertical lines, blotches of colour etc.

Above shots done in Photoshop btw, but similar tools exist in the motion world to do all of the above.

HTH

Paul

[Julio Quintana]

Very cool, Paul. Has kind of a "Sky Captain" feel to it.

[AntonyCASAFilms]

BTW... we use real (and full) names here.


Said without a hint of irony.

[Roberto Lequeux]

First of all, JANNARD, Donald IS my real name and you may address me by it. Besides, I don't see you using your last name. But before you ask, yes I know EXACTLY who you are, And YES I use the RED all of the time.

Second, while no one expects you to respond to every post, how about your people adequately respond to a Phone call (on hold listening to that STUPID BRAIN loop....geez), return an phone call (HA! Good luck!) email, (NEVER HAPPEN, NEVER WILL), You know JANNARD, that kind of thing. Maybe you might want to stop some of your people from "working day and night" on these "new systems" and proplerly explain just how the OLD SYSTEMS work. Which contrary popular belief JANNARD, does not always happen. Maybe an instruction manual might help....

In any case, You only seem to respond well to praise and not CRITICISM. Sorry king, but somebody had to have the stones to tell tell you....and I got 'em.

Donald G

ROFLMAO!!! Instead of whining like a little baby it might be better to use the search function, or download the manual. Looks like someone will have to rent the new one.

BTW, no balls if you don't include your last name. What an asshole.

[JanneJansson]

denoised

Damn good!
Please share your magic touch!!

[Eki Halkka]

Here's my attempt, After Effects noise reduction applied to shadows only:

http://eki.pp.fi/digivideo/Daylight_Eki_no_ccor.jpg

The same, with some color correction:'


http://eki.pp.fi/digivideo/Daylight_Eki_ccor.jpg

The result would be better when working on an image sequence instead of a single frame - some motion aware inter frame noise blending would probably do the shot good...