How to reduce gradient jumps

[John Kaley]

In AE: Effect/Noise&Grain/Noise
Season to taste.

[Mark Gin]

Why should random noise help in this case?

I don’t have AE on this station but I have used Gimp’s “HSV nosie” on the frame I sent here.
The result is a little grainy image (that would also create a harder job for the encoder) – the imaged is still posterized well:
https://img843.imageshack.us/img843/1353/mvi0911dnxhd00011162.jpg

[John Kaley]

Noise will help blend the gradients together, but it require too much “noise”. You also may want to have a look at “Magic Bullet DeNoiser”.

[Tom Nelson]

I would consider this to be more of a banding issue. GenArts’ Sapphire effects has a DeBanding plugin that could take care of them – you can download it for free for three weeks before you have to pay the $2800 to keep it.

Tom Nelson
Videographer/Editor
Essex Television Group

[Joseph W. bourke]

Hi Mark –

You don’t say in your post whether the banding is in your original T2i footage, or whether it’s being introduced in post (which I assume it is). If it’s not in the original image, you may want to change the color bit-depth settings in your AE project, if that’s what you’re using. You have the option of using 8, 16, or 32bpc (bits per channel), and this can have a great effect in reducing gradient banding. Check out this info from Adobe:

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS81984DEB-D195-4822-9A06-EA0D00A0ECC7.html

If you look at Todd Kopriva’s info at the bottom (and you’re using CS5), there’s specific info on reducing gradient banding in his link.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com

[David Johnson]

You might also search the COW for many detailed tips on reducing banding such as grain and adjusting individual color channels … has come up very often over the years in the After Effects forum.

[Mark Gin]

Great plug-in! Seems to be not too filtered and has good edge preserving (at the right settings of course).
Thanks!

[Mark Gin]

Hi Joe,

My footage comes from the t2i with Technicolor CineStyle picture style.
https://www.technicolor.com/en/hi/cinema/filmmaking/digital-printer-lights/cinestyle
It passes Technicolor’s LUT in AE and then I add edge enhancement.

I changed it to 16bpc and the result is great! Unfortunately, final encoding will pass through 8bpc.

[Mark Gin]

Hmm, good idea.
I haven’t done this before because I didn’t know the anomaly’s name. 🙂
Great stuff can be found here

[Joseph W. bourke]

Hi Mark –

You may want to think about changing your workflow a bit and shooting your T2i footage Neutral, then doing the FX pass in 16 bit in After Effects. I think you can pretty well approximate the in-camera presets in AE, and get them looking squeeky clean, then output to 8bit if you have to. I’m hoping someone will weigh in here who knows a bit more about the DSLR workflow. I have a T2i, and always shoot in Neutral, then so any FX work in post with AE.

Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com