Reducing noise

[Clair Popkin]

Hey I was wondering what settings/techniques you all use to reduce the noise in the blacks and dark areas, I seem to always have noise/grain even with out any gain, I have been playing around with the master ped and seeing what happens lately to try and change it- Any tips or techniques would be appreciated- Thanks!

[Phil Rhodes]

Reducing master ped (or any of several other black-level-related controls) will ordinarily reduce apparent shadow noise at the expense of crushing areas where it appears to solid black. Black gamma or similar controls can often crush the blacks without affecting the rest of the image.

 

Eventually you will get diminishing returns on this sort of chicanery, however. As you crush blacks you are effectively stretching out other parts of the image to fit, resulting in more noise in those areas. Costs you precious dynamic range, too.

 

P

[Guest Glen Alexander]

Reducing master ped (or any of several other black-level-related controls) will ordinarily reduce apparent shadow noise at the expense of crushing areas where it appears to solid black. Black gamma or similar controls can often crush the blacks without affecting the rest of the image.

 

Eventually you will get diminishing returns on this sort of chicanery, however. As you crush blacks you are effectively stretching out other parts of the image to fit, resulting in more noise in those areas. Costs you precious dynamic range, too.

 

P

 

phil, after 56XX posts why are you still "basic" member? :lol:

[dan brockett]

Hey I was wondering what settings/techniques you all use to reduce the noise in the blacks and dark areas, I seem to always have noise/grain even with out any gain, I have been playing around with the master ped and seeing what happens lately to try and change it- Any tips or techniques would be appreciated- Thanks!

 

 

Hi Clair:

 

I have seen some pretty amazing results from Raylight MXFX http://www.dvfilm.com/MXFX/index.htm

 

If you want to reduce grain with HVX footage, this is the hot tip. Sorry, don't have links to the demos but you can find them if you scrounge around on the DVX User website. It really works quite well. This is a viable solution until the HPX-170 is available. HPX-170 uses same chipset as HVX-200a, which many users are claiming is MUCH less noisy than original HVX, someone said HVX-200a at +9dB gain is slightly less grain than older HVX at 0dB.

 

Good luck,

 

Dan

[John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen]

The other solution is to light your dark areas too, lifting them a bit on set, and then bringing them down if you want in post. (Be sure to use very soft non-directional light, or it could look unnatural. You don't want a motivated source, just a bit "lighter" darks).

Edited June 1, 2008 by John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen

[Tim O'Connor]

The other solution is to light your dark areas too, lifting them a bit on set, and then bringing them down if you want in post. (Be sure to use very soft non-directional light, or it could look unnatural. You don't want a motivated source, just a bit "lighter" darks).

 

 

 

 

Do you use Final Cut Pro? I do and I've been editing for a long time but I'm now getting more into modifications in post. Could you say

how to bring the dark areas down in Final Cut Pro? Is there a way to do so without also bring the entire picture down?

 

Thanks.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

3 way color corrector in FCP will allow you to do this marginally;

aside from that, in studio 2 you could throw a curve on via apple color, and set exactly where you want your blacks/whites to start rolling off; but the render time can be a pain! (for color).

 

Granted, though, all these solutions will bring other areas down, just in varying degrees, ya know? The black level in color correctors also will bleed into the middle-range, and the middle into the whites; ya know? It's some fine tweaking from time to time.