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Severe artifacts in footage
Greetings,
I’m having a problem with artifacts on a video i’m currently grading and colouring in AECS4 using Magic Bullet Colorista and Looks.It seems that the video I started with has these artifacts embedded, even though it’s uncompressed PAL footage exported from FCP.
Having realised the extent of it after grading, the director is kicking off at me to get it fixed!
Here’s a frame of ungraded video
I’ve given a more intense grade than the one I’m actually using, just to show what I’m talking about. The artifacting appears on the wall on the right the most:
I have tried MB Deartifactor to no avail, as well as masking out background and blurring etc – but this leaves me with a huge amount of roto to do. Grrr….
Can anyone shed light on why this might be happening in the first place, or perhaps how to do something about it?
Thanks,
Ed Giles -
5 Replies
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It looks like this is a combination of banding and compression artifacting. What was the original footage format? Looks like something with 4:1:1 or 4:1:0 color sampling. This is then further exaggerated when converting to B&W, as you’re going from Millions of colors to only 256 levels (or 1024 in 10-bit).
As for an easy fix, I’m not sure there is one.
You could try to isolate that cool-gray and apply some noise and then a small amount of blur.
Adobe CS3, Apple FCS2
[Disclaimer: Sometimes I am an idiot and misinterpret people’s posts. I’m sorry.] -
It sounds like this is present from the original shooting. Its a tough one to deal with without seeing in person. Re vision has a plugin set called “smooth kit” and “noise” that may or may not help you on this.
https://www.revisionfx.com/products/smoothkit/
https://www.revisionfx.com/products/denoise/
SuperNova
Animation & Visual Effects
Scott Novasic
Los Angeles Ca
web:https://web.mac.com/finaleffects -
Dave,
Your response confirms my fears! I believe it was shot on HDV, and it’s interesting to learn of the ‘false economy’ this provides.
I have also been told that this particular scene was not lit very well on the shoot, which might explain a little the under-exposure.
The editor is, sadly, ‘uncontactable’ at this stage apparently – so I can’t enquire of the process he went through.
I’ve asked about any raw footage or other exports made, but this is the only one.
So… I’d better get my Mocha hat on… 🙁
Thanks for the quick, concise and accurate response!
Ed -
Thanks Paul, the original footage was HDV, and I have no access to any more footage/edits than the one I have. Dave LaRonde seems to have nailed it really; I’ve got quite a bit of masking to do to get rid of this!
Cheers for your response,
Ed -
Scott, thanks for the suggestion – they look like interesting tools, and may well help me out with this or other things in future.
Cheers,
Ed
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