Reducing color noise with Neat Video in After Effects

[Bob Prichard]

Suggestions on how to set up camera to avoid color noise would be helpful.

[Walter Soyka]

See the Building a Good Noise Profile tutorial:
https://www.neatvideo.com/tutorial-Neat-Video-Building-Good-Noise-Profile.html

You may choose to isolate the sky via keying or masking to restrict the noise reduction to that area.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Bob Prichard]

For shooting landscapes, we use the sun.

You may have heard about this type of lighting.

The sun is the center of our solar system.

Is this lighting OK for reducing color noise?

[Bob Prichard]

Thanks, Walter.

Very helpful reply.

[Walter Soyka]

[Dave LaRonde] “I think the more appropriate question is, “How should I have set up my camera to avoid the possibility of chroma noise?” Anything else is applying Band-Aids to a situation that could have been avoided much earlier.”

Dave raises a great point here. I specialize in post, so I never have the luxury of shooting it right in the first place and thus have become quite adept at applying Band-Aids.

Bob, what are your camera’s ISO and gain settings? Which gamma curve on the FS700 are you using (important as this apparently changes the effective ISO, and important as this defines whether you will have more shadow or highlight detail)? Have you experimenting with different settings to see which gives you the cleanest results?

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Neat video is a cool plugin, but sometimes I find the result to be too smooth making the image look “photo-shopped”. I used AE’s own Reduce Grain plugin with good results. I guess the trick is not to eliminate the noise completely but to reduce the intensity. It may help using one layer with any noise reduction plugin set for the smoothest output you can get and then a second with the saturation reduced and Levels applied to it to crush whites and blacks a bit. Then you can play with the opacity of the layer on top (reduced noise one).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Bob Prichard]

Thanks, Ted. Great suggestions. We try these.

[Bob Prichard]

As I said in the OP, the noise is most noticeable in the sky.

The sky is the blue area above the landscape.

I don’t know if it is in sun or shade–what do you think?

Do we need to bring in banks of lights to illuminate the sky?

[Bob Prichard]

Where does it say in the OP or any of my posts that I relied on auto exposure?

Do you read posts before you reply to them?

[Bob Prichard]

Walter,

I have the camera set to ISO 500, which is the base ISO, and the gain set to 0db. The gamma is ITU709.

I wonder if the gain toggle switch on the side got bumped up to High, which is +18db while I was shooting?

Are the camera settings recorded with the footage, and if they are, how do we access them?