[Jim Arco]

My guess would be VHS?

If that’s the case, you may need to use a noise reduction tool to help with the chroma noise. AEs Effects > Remove Grain works well, although a bit slow on even the best system.

Be careful with any sharpening since the original seems to have some edge-enhancement. There is also some ghosting to the right of the girl (and other objects) in the image that will become a lot more obvious if you try to sharpen the image.

Not sure what the anomoly around the neck area might be. If it only occurs on a few frames at a time, the “frame restorer” project should help.

I’ve worked with quite a bit of older footage and it ultimately comes down to how much time, effort, and skill can be devoted to it. It will probably never look as good as something shot with today’s technology but you can usually make it look quite a bit better.

Jim
Colorburst Video

[Jim Arco]

Chris’ project files can be a real timesaver when working with lower-quality footage.

If, like me, you hadn’t ever used AE’s shy layers, you might be puzzled when Chris refers to more than one layer in the “auto repair flicker project.” Just hit the shy layer switch above the timeline and all the layers will appear.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

I’ve been asked (on and off the board) what I am working on or what I am trying to do. Here’s the story:

I’ve been learning Dan Margulis’ techniques from his tutorials called “There Are No Bad Originals” and “Picture Postcard Workflow.” I got turned onto his ideas during his presentations at Photoshop World in September and found the outcomes absolutely amazing. I think Dan comes from a print background and uses a lot of “apply image” and curve tweaking in his strategy. Some of my underexposed, muddy, mediocre still images now look like the proverbial “picture postcard” (well a LOT better anyway.)

A few days ago, it occurred to me that I could apply some of his techniques to video. Video workflow in Photoshop can be a bit cumbersome and things like a motion mask are beyond my PS skills, if they are even do-able in PS. So I decided to try to ‘translate’ the concepts to After Effects where my skills are a bit better.

My initial experiments in AE are giving me pretty good outputs, but my process is quite cumbersome. That’s what led me to ask the question “What is the equivalent of ‘apply image’ in After Effects?”

In an effort to learn exactly what each step does, I’ve been working a step at a time in Photoshop and then trying to accomplish the exact same look in AE. But a 1-for-1 equivalent to apply image would be the simple answer.

I’ll continue to explore this using some of the ideas suggested here. Then I’ll post what I learn.

Jim

BTW – I think you can also find Margulis’ tutorials on Kelby Training. They’re several hours long and not for the faint of heart, with occasional excursions into things like L-a-b color, which probably can’t be implemented for video.

[Jim Arco]

OK, I’m running out of superlatives. I think this might really be the magic “make it look better” button.

I like the idea of auto-tree mode – great for the pan-past-the-window stuff I often get. Is it always on, or have I missed the switch? (Not sure if I’d ever need to have it off.)

Saturation compensation was a good addition and makes a big difference for some low-end footage where the auto-whatever circuits drop the saturation in extreme exposure conditions.

Looks like all user adjustments are in the MASTER CONTROL SLIDERS. Not sure I understand the purpose of the ‘shift channels’ and ‘channel combiner’ filters in the ‘exposure repair’ comp.

The “nit-picking complaint” department:
The gamma clamp seems a bit fussy to me – still occasionally needs tweaking for very low-light stuff.

Needs a reset-to-defaults button for when I really get the adjustments messed up.

…and it needs a smack-the-cameraman button for those really shaky shots.

jIM

[Jim Arco]

You could do it with a dolly shot and an aerial shot, then composite with the postcard image.

But I’d bet most of this was done in post. Start with a wide-shot of the person in bed and use the AE camera zoom (or even scale tool) for the zoom. The cityscape could be done using the same technique by panning around a still picture. You might need to separate out two or three layers of the image to simulate 3d (‘Ken Burns effect.’) Then the same thing with the postcard image. There’s a bit of motion blur and lens flare mixed in there.

I’d probably start with the postcard and then work backwards on the building, then the “dolly shot.” The whole comp looks like it is converted to a grainy black-and-white.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

Chris,

Over the last 8-years or so, I have honed my After Effects skills quite a bit. Some folks have said I can take a blank tape and, with enough time, improve it to come out with a pretty good looking image. (OK that’s an exaggeration.)

I’ve thrown some REALLY noisy, very dark footage at your project and it handled all of it well. I’m not ready to retire completely yet because somebody is needed to ocasionally set the gamma clamp lower.

But have a beer on me for some really clever work here. It’s very close to the magic make-it-look-better button that people think is built into the software. Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing your efforts. It will save ME a lot of time.

Jim

[Jim Arco]

“…it doesn’t use gamma, it uses like huge blocks of black…”

I’ve got some really old stuff – EIAJ, VHS, 3/4-inch, and even 1-inch, but I’ve never seen what you’re referring to. Can you post a sample somewhere?

Thanks for the timecode info. There have been third-party tools that would display or burn-in the file’s original time/date. But I never guessed that this was one of those places where there were “plenty of standards to choose from.”

[Jim Arco]

Definitely would benefit from some frame-smoothing. I tried it on some old VHS footage (shot in low light with an old camcorder, so the footage was …uhm, well, …junk!)

I would sometimes see frames that flashed or had significant color difference from the rest. My guess is this is due to noise in the video. You might want to try blurring the layer that is used for the ‘averaging.’

It is certainly going to save me a lot of time/effort. I’ll have a bit more time this weekend to really try this out and let you know what else I discover.

[Jim Arco]

“….makes you wonder, why didn’t adobe make this plugin 10 years ago…”

I have never understood why there has never been a real simple “white balance” tool plugin OR

Why there is no “display the embedded timecode/date?”

…some patent/copyright issue maybe?

[Jim Arco]

Chris,

I continue to be impressed with the clever solutions you come up with to solve what seems like the very problem I am currently working with.

This one works amazingly well. I have to admit, I am having a bit of difficulty understanding exactly HOW it works. I am guessing there is some expression that refers to the ‘gg’ comp, but I haven’t found it yet.

In any case thanks for another great solution.

Jim

Any chance you could add a tool to even out the exposure variations as the camera’s auto exposure tries to track changing light levels?