Film Grain Overlays . . . a trick for getting better 4K with anamorphic from your 1080p camera?

B3Guy

Hi, All! now that I have an anamorphic lens on the way, I've been brainstorming about ways to maximize the final quality (and resolution) of my future films. with anamorphic lenses, especially those of the 2X variety (like my Kowa), you gain wonderful cinematic qualities like wider aspect ratios and stretched OOF areas. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of some resolution. I'm pretty set on maintaining full vertical 1080p, which means I must stretch out horizontally by 2X and crop off the sides for 2.39:1, causing my resolution to be half as sharp in that dimension.

How to improve on this situation? Some thoughts:

My first thought was sharpening. I tried to find out if there are professional ways to sharpen horizontally only, but couldn't find any really good info on the subject. If anyone has done this successfully, I'd love to hear about it.

Then today, though I was not initially thinking about improving resolution, I was looking into film grain effect solutions. The most realistic film grain effects are done by overlaying real scanned film footage (usually static footage of a grey card) overtop of your digital footage in overlay composite mode (or something similar). There are (I think) a few free 1080p clips if you hunt around, but nothing higher res. Since I maintain 1080p vertically but exceed it horizontally, I would need a higher res film grain file so as to not compromise quality.

This is the point in my logic where the lightbulb went on . . . use 4K film grain overlay to "add" resolution (or the appearance of extra resolution) to 1920x1080 clips! Sure, the footage is still 1080p, I know. But the film grain dancing around at 4K will say otherwise to your eyes. It won't look sharper, or like it is resolving more detail . . . but it will be higher res, and it will LOOK it . . . rather than just looking like upscaled 1080p.

Is my logic sound? It makes sense to me. Has anyone tried anything like this before?

Sangye

"Sharpening horizontally" doesn't make any sense. If it's possible (and I'd be surprised if anyone has bothered to make a plugin that does), it'd just look really bad, and might cause weird aliasing effects.

The idea of using 4K film grain is interesting, though. Obviously it isn't adding any detail, but it may "trick" viewers into thinking that they're seeing more detail. Please post your findings if you try this. I'd also check into plugins for upres'ing footage. I believe Boris FX and Red Giant both make plugins that do this. I know that InstantHD by Red Giant does a pretty good job of scaling SD and 720p footage to 1080p, so I assume there's a similar solution for scaling 1080p nicely up to 4K.

Oedipax

Well-done post-grain definitely can add the feeling of more resolution/detail, in my experience. It can even add a little sense of greater latitude in your clipped shadows and highlights. You don't want to push it too far or it starts to feel really cheesy, but I've been pleased with this for some projects, depending on the desired look.

Can't speak to how it would work for a 4K upscale, but it seems worth a shot. I know it's helped match 720p60 stuff (already pretty damn good on the GH2, admittedly) with 1080p24.

robmneilson

I shot this on the GH2 with 2x anamorphic lenses and overlaid cinegrain:

It definitely helps hide the lost resolution in blowing up and cropping. And since I used a dirty film scan it helped even more.

I later shot this one, and used a standard 35mm 160 ASA grain

Oedipax

@robmneilson, Hobo Menace is great! Really well done on every front, not just the visuals.

One question, how did you go about doing the focus pulls? Was it one person turning both lenses or did you have two people?

Edit: Nevermind, I see on Vimeo you were using the squarefront Lomos that can dual-focus. When you said 2X I just assumed Kowa, nevermind ;)

robmneilson

Thanks for your kind words

And yeah, the lomo round/square fronts make it much easier to focus.

In the past I was on a shoot where he attempted some long focus pulls and had a person each focusing the lens, but we never got quite good results.

Next time I'm out shooting a project with these I'll see if I can use red giant instant HD with good results!

Macalincag

Free alternative

Download this 4.5k Black & White 35mm Film Scan: http://byscuits.com/grain-tm400.png

Load it up in AE using it's native resolution for your composition settings.
Set your workarea/time -navigator for as long as you want the clip to be.
Set a "position" keyframe at the beginning and end of it.
Open up Window > Wiggler. Make sure "Position" is highlighted in your Comp. pane or else Magnitude won't be accessible.
Set frequency: 24 (or w/e FPS you want), Noise type: Smooth, Dimension: All the same, Magnitude: 20-40 (higher for more randomness) -- Then Apply
RAM Preview it if you wish...
Open the Renderer > Output Module Settings.
Format: DPX sequence.
Check "Resize", Lock Aspect Ratio -- Resize to 2048 -- Resize Quality: High (height will automatically change accordingly) [Can't resize to HD right away or black edges will be visible due to Wiggling]
Check "Crop" -- Top:143 -- Left:64 -- Bottom:142 -- Right:64. Final Size should read 1920 x 1080.
Render it out.

You should now have a resized 4kish film grain you can overlay for HD material. Grain will be finer and subtler than actually cropping an HD portion out of it.

Oedipax

@robmneilson, thought of one other question - were you able to monitor an undistorted image, or did you just work off the LCD? Did you mark it up for the eventual crop on the sides?

robmneilson

For the hobo menace I had a small Sony monitor, which was sadly not unsqueezed. However I found with tests that the 4:3 overlay is basically a good rough safe zone for the framing after blowing up the image to fit in the 2:40 ratio.

For TV casualty I finally had a proper monitor that would do the unsqueeze.

Sangye

@robmneilson That was hilarious! You nailed the vintage era look, feel, and tone. This is one of the most impressive GH2 productions I've seen.

robmneilson

Thanks! Makes me wish I kept around my GH2 for a b-camera. I miss it on so many shoots!

Sangye

Just curious, what're you shooting on now?

robmneilson

Jumped ship to the FS-100, which I adore. If only it was hackable....

Oedipax

@robmneilson, one last question - what monitor was it? A friend of mine bought the DP6 and we assumed we would be able to use the custom settings for unsqueezing it, but it glitches out before you get close to 3.56:1. We had to settle for something closer to 2.39:1 which was nice but still stretched quite a bit vertically.

robmneilson

btw if anyone wants to mess with a 2x anamorphic mts file to see if the overlay, sharpening etc works. I've uploaded a short clip here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pgmd6w

From an unhacked GH2 with 75mm lomo roundfront.

robmneilson

It was the sony CLM-V55 (I think thats the model #). Then I went to the DP1x which had the 2x unsqueeze, and now over to the TV logic. I'm surprised the DP6 doesn't do it, since it was no problem with the DP1x!

B3Guy

@Macalincag, there is a very good thread for this on our forum, one user posted up some sort of simplified code version for this. I've never used AE, but this sounded simpler than the "wiggle" method.

" CODE: SELECT ALL x = random(0, -(thisLayer.width-thisComp.width-anchorPoint[0])); y = random(0, -(thisLayer.height-thisComp.height-anchorPoint[1])); [x,y]

remember to set the quality switch for the grain layer to 'Draft', so you don't get any smearing from positioning on half pixels.

"

B3Guy

@robmnielson Thanks for the .mts, I'll certainly be testing some stuff out with it until I get my anamorphic. I'll keep you in the loop.

B3Guy

Ok, here are two 100% grabs from FCP. (Thanks to @robmneilson for the footage).

The file was converted to ProRes422HQ via ClipWrap, then dropped into a 4000x1674 (2.39:1) sequence for the same codec settings as the clip. (my old copy of FCP only goes up to 4000, so no 4096, sorry.) I stretched the footage out from 2X, then scaled it up from 1080 to 1674 vertical (313X scale approx.) zoomed in to 100%, it is very obvious that the footage has been scaled both ways.

Then the magic started. I dropped a 4679 × 3119 film grain PNG file in the track above the footage, scaled to 100% (pixel-to-pixel with my 4000x1674 frame). See for yourself, but I think this is pretty brilliant. The grain brings the footage right up into 4K. To my eyes, it appears as if it was shot at 4K, just with a softer lens or with a softening filter in the matte box.

B3Guy

The film grain effect composited in here is a bit strong in terms of contrast, but that's to make visible just what it is doing. Under most circumstances, I personally would at least halve the contrast of the grain overlay. It could be quite subtle and still increase perceived resolution.

Mark_the_Harp

@B3Guy Any chance of just attaching the photos here? Don't want to join yet another forum just to see them!

Cheers

@robmneilson I loved your Hobo video - have commented on Vimeo.

Macalincag

@B3Guy

That's where I originally learned how to do this and it was also originally discussed in this thread here: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2627/film-grain#Item_11

That forum suggests a 1080p crop, not scaling from 4.5k > 1080p- so the grain isn't as "fine", which is a more pleasant look if you ask me...

They are also using Wiggler, btw.

driftwood

Terrific look and feel @robmneilson - this is a great example.

robmneilson

Thanks guys, glad to be of service...and I hope you discover a better method than what I've been doing so I can steal your knowledge!

B3Guy

@Macalincag IMO, part of the benefit of shooting anamorphic is achieving wider aspect ratios while maintaining at least 1080 vertical lines of resolution. The method I used here would be for delivering your final in 4K. If you're going to have your final product at 1080p crop, then yes, do it all at that resolution, including the grain. I for one will be keeping copies of all my future anamorphic projects at full 1080p vertical (and whatever horizontal the project is subsequently at depending on aspect ratio), and this little trick will easily mask the "halved" horizontal resolution that occurs when anamorphic footage is stretched out.

And if I ever want to do a project in 4K, (it is coming, youtube supports it already) . . . I know now that my GH2 supplies me with a 4K image via this method that I am very satisfied with. That's what all of this is about for me . . . doing more for less. The more tricks like this I figure out, the more options I have for making my art look how I envision it, the more options I have for producing better work.

Sometime this week, I'm gonna try a bit of sharpening on the footage before applying the grain. I feel like there's a negative vibe towards sharpening footage, but in reality the right amount and type of sharpening can actually improve resolution a bit. And the grain overlay should then work to hide any hints of sharpening pretty good (this is my hope).

Macalincag

@B3Guy

Oh, I thought you wanted to go 4k to HD, not the other way around. My bad.

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