how to clean video shot with +6dB gain?

[David Roth weiss]

Mariusz,

Unfortunately the old adage, “garbage in, garbage out,” applies in your situation. What’s on tape is the best you’ve got. Your only option is to go the other direction, i.e. to mess up the other stuff to match. Most people never take that route though for obvious reasons.

DRW

[Max Frank]

Boris Continuum has a ‘de-noise’ filter, that kind of smooths the shot out somewhat – give it the illusion of being ‘clean’.

It doesn’t work for every situation, but has helped me on a number of occassionss.

Good luck,

Wayne

[Shawn Bockoven]

Just a thought, add noise to the other video.

[David Roth weiss]

Didn’t I say that about half an hour ago?

[Mark Suszko]

You might try compositing an identical layer that has had some gaussian blur applied, then see what blending between the two at various amounts will do. Might also try playing with the gamma settings. These are just guesses, based on what I’d try to do with a single still image. In FCP, under Compositing drop-down menu, you find a bunch of built-in modes to try. I would go for “guess-and-press”, with about 99 levels of undo;-)

Hey, what’s the worst that could happen? It doesn’t work, and you revert.

[Hans Vernhout]

If you happen to have Adobe After Effects 6.5 in your toolbox as well you could try the Remove Grain effect on your 6 dB footage.

Hans Vernhout
Director / lighting cameraman
The Netherlands

[Kurt Hennrich]

you may try my plugin ‘deGrain’
which is part of my 1z1Tools I am just releasing.
see: https://www.1z1.at/plugins/

the text there is still ragged because of my bad english – sorry, will be fixed soon.
you can download demo and try if it helps with your shot:
the satisfaction will depend on the movements in the shot.

good luck,
kurt

[Walter Biscardi]

I would look at the 3 Way Color Corrector. Crush the blacks, probably by -10 or so to start with and then manipulate it from there. Crushing the blacks straight off will reduce some visible noise. If you can get the colors close, then you may be able to get the noise cleaned up a bit more by using some noise reduction filters.

One other thing to do depending on what the project is, is to make the shot black and white to make it look like you’re doing an effect with that shot.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X

[Mariusz]

Walter,

What noise reduction filters you had in mind?
I do not have AE or Boris Continuum mentioned above unfortunately. I do have a Photoshop , FCP 5 Studio, SketchUp and Keynote. That together would be all my pro applications. Can I use these tools to somehow reduce a grain?
I will try crushing blacks, maybe go for b/w and I will try Kurt’s deGrain filter later today. Thanks a lot for all replies.

Mariusz

[Walter Biscardi]

FCP doesn’t have a great noise reduction filter, in fact I’m not sure it even has one. You would want a third party filter to really help out, but even there, it’s not going to be great with a shot at +6db.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Creative Genius, Biscardi Creative Media
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Now in Production, “The Rough Cut,” https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now editing “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

G5 Dual 2.0, AJA Kona 2, Medea FCR2X