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sharpening video – in camera or after?
hello,
I’ve been playing around with the Detail Level settings in our dvcpro50 camera. It appears that the detail adjustment feature is pretty much the same as Unsharp Mask in AE. Dropping the detail level makes keying greenscreen much easier, since the foreground edges are smoother, and the required image sharpness can be dialed in later in compositing.Now, I’m wondering what you pros do when shooting outside the greenscreen studio, let’s say on set or outdoors. If you’re planning to manipulate the images later, would you prefer to also sharpen them in AE? I haven’t tried doing that in production yet, so I’m just wondering whether that’s as good an idea as it sounds… The way I see it, this would allow for leaving certain areas a bit softer, improving the depth of field, reducing flicker, and making it easier to focus on what’s important on screen. I imagine heavy color correction would be easier as well, with more continuous tones across the screen (not broken by the increased contrast between adjacent pixels, the way Unsharp Masking does).
The only downside that I see, really, is that it takes more time in post to do the sharpening this way. If we’ve got the time, then is there any other reason why we shouldn’t be doing this?
thanks,
Sami -
2 Replies
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Um, I would have thought it would bring out the worst in the compression algo’s. Usually I leave things alone, and use it as is. Esp if I’m removing elements (roto/masks/screening them). After I have all the elements and I need to composite them back together I look at everything and pick a point usually the HARDEST thing to clean up and make everything look like that (unless it’s really crappy and then I pick something just below AMAZING). When I work with matching things to film I usually end up adding a .1 – .3 blur on all DV/photos anyways, so um yeah .. I don’t know if that helps
..::hunz..
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Basically it depends on the project. Both features are doing the same thing, and, in general, I’d choose doing it in post, *if* you have time. It’s free, time wise, to do it in camera, but you don’t have the same level of control. If you have time to experiment, try a handful of different combinations and see what you like best. It’s another tool for the box.
Ralph
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