The ending sequence in Chapter 2 and the opening sequence in Chapter 18 were both assembled from multiple sources. I picked the best frames from each, then ran them through Topaz Project Starlight several times to AI upscale them to 1080p. In some cases, I slowed the footage down to 20% speed to give the software more time to process each frame.
After creating that upscaled 1080p footage, I went through again, selected the strongest frames, and ran the remaining ones that needed work back through Topaz Starlight, this time setting it to one second per frame to really let it work. In a perfect world, I’d give every frame that treatment, but the free version of Starlight limits us to 300 frames (12 seconds) per upload and only 3 uploads a week. That’s about 36 frames if you’re doing the full one second per frame method.
You might catch a hint of ghosting if you really scrub through it frame by frame, but during normal playback it holds up great as all the worst offenders have been fixed. In another year or two, the tech will probably make this kind of thing effortless, but for now, this is about as clean as it gets without paying to process this footage.
That said, I’m really happy with how both of these sequences turned out, and I can’t wait to share the rest of this project when it’s ready.
Here is a before/after example of what Topaz Project Starlight is doing to the footage from the first shot of Chapter 18.
And here’s a before/after example of why you let Topaz process a frame for a full second (24 frames) versus the three frames it was originally fed:
3 Frames (Slowed Down to 20% Processing Pass)
24 Frames (Final Processing Pass)
