Color matching and prediction: color correction tool v1.3 released! — Page 18

Colek said:

DrDre said:

Colek said:

Hello,

I would want to really thank you for this great software  you made here, it will help me a lot in my future projects.

As I presume, I could use it to color correct deleted scenes to match the movie from other source, is that right (the color prediction correction)?

I would need to extract whole movie into .jpg and color correct them frame-by-frame using this, yes? For best results I propably should use new color correction model for each scene?

I tried it quickly with this movie I have been wanting to color correct and work on for a very long time now, but considering the colors it was really tough work for me. Your tool will really help me a lot :)

Source (horrible red tint)

image removed

HDTV Broadcast (IMO best colors of this movie out there, better than DVDs)

image removed

Color corrected

image removed

As you can see it producted a lot of artifacts on that spot there. What should I do about it? Try to match both frames even more to each other?

Thank you very much again :)

 The best thing to do, is to do the color correction shot by shot, although sometimes it works very well for multiple scenes or even a whole movie if the differences in color are very consistent.

The artifacts seem to be caused by some compression artifacts in the source. Increasing the stabilization parameter might reduce these, so try a value of a 1000, and then reduce the parameter if possible. 

 Thanks for your reply, I will try to set stabilization parameter to 1000 when I am at my workstation PC :)

You think I should firstly go with all the filters for the movie (denoisers, Super Resolution etc. using AviSynth for that) or color correction first?

 Color correction first could be useful, because you can remove any remaining artifacts with filters afterwards.

First off, holy sh*tballs Batman! Just WOW! Amazing tool and fantastic results. Thank you very much for sharing this with the community.

For those of you with weaker machines, like mine, (I'm on a laptop that has a dual-core 2.3ghz processor with 4gb of ram) I wanted to let you know what kind of "waiting" time you are looking at. So with the "default" settings when you run the GUI (multi color space model and stabilization factor of 1) it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes to build a color model. Damn, that was a long time, LOL... However, it only took about 35-40 seconds (per image) to process images with the model. Not the fastest, but it does the job and, again, thanx for sharing.

Ok, so in one of the earlier posts I noticed someone asking about using this tool to color-correct the 16mm scan of Song of the South. I, too, was very curious about it and since no one posted anything in regards to that, I figured I would give it a shot;)

For now, due to the long time it take to build the color model, I have only had the chance to process one frame, as when trying to use the same color model for other frames (from other scenes) it created incorrect results which means I will need to build a few color models for this one...

Anyway, for reference, I took a couple frames from the 35mm, broken file, 1080p copy. Now, I know that there is a problem with the colors there and I loaded the image into my paint program. There, I desaturated the the magenta by 18%, desaturated the purples and reds by 8%. This created a much more "natural" look, especially when it comes to flesh tones.

Here are a couple of examples of this (top- original frame/bottom- my correction)

Now, whether these settings are actually "right" is still up for debate (I'm sure) but it seemed closer to what it should be IMHO so I decided to go with this color-correction for reference image when testing this tool.

The 16mm frame I used for testing here is this one:

The next two images are the 35mm reference image (top) and the 16mm corrected to it (bottom)

Granted, it's not perfect and I might need to use a higher stabilization factor, but I think it's a lot closer than the original 16mm frame. What do you guys think?

Yeah, that's very slow. It takes about 10 min to build a model for a 1080p test, and reference frame on my 2.6 GHz laptop, which has 6GB memory. 

That 16 mm frame is a real challenge. The colors are very different, and it's pretty noisy. Perhaps using a temporal denoiser will reduce the noise artifacts. Also, colors can probably be matched more closely if the 16 mm frame, and 35 mm frame are cropped in the same way.

That was just a "quick n dirty" test to see what the tool is capable of. The 16mm frames I tested were from the 720p rip and not from the original 1080p WMV file so IMHO not only will it help to have both cropped the same way, but for both to have the same 1080 resolution.

When I changed the stabilization factor from the default 1 to a value of 1000, I ended up getting more noise and artifacts (especially around the colors/shapes of the butterflies) so I will do some more tests mainly using the default value of 1.

When my computer is done rendering video for a project I'm working on, over on fanres, I will do some more proper tests. I am looking forward to seeing the results. The frame that I picked for my initial test was intentional due to the rather large color differences and to see how the tool will handle the mixed animation/live-action footage. Next, I will also test it with just some of the animation sequences and just some of the live-action sequences (both, bright and dark scenes)

If anyone is interested in any specific frames to do tests on, feel free to mention it or post the image here and I'll include it in my "test batch." ;)

Here's a little test I did on matching a frame for The Dark Knight bluray to 35 mm:

35 mm:

Bluray:

Bluray matched to 35 mm:

Great tool! I'm currently using it to color transfer Fellowship of the Ring EE. It does a good job. However, I've run into following problem and have no idea what causes it:

Input

Reference

Result

I'm using a single color space model and have tried the stabilization parameters 0, 1, 500 and 1000. I get similar results for all of them.

I have not had time to try this out myself yet because of all our projects lately but I have a question, does this tool only do images or will it process the video?

Thanks

Images. Though I believe now you can export a LUT and apply that to whatever segment of video you want in Premiere, etc.

towne32 said:

Images. Though I believe now you can export a LUT and apply that to whatever segment of video you want in Premiere, etc.

Thanks, so nothing for Avisynth or maybe Adobe After Effects?

archimedes said:

Great tool! I'm currently using it to color transfer Fellowship of the Ring EE. It does a good job. However, I've run into following problem and have no idea what causes it:

Input

Reference

Result

I'm using a single color space model and have tried the stabilization parameters 0, 1, 500 and 1000. I get similar results for all of them.

 In some cases the result can be very sensitive to the cropping, and it may help to select part of the frame to construct a model. This is what I get if I select the left part of the frame in the reference, and then the exact same part in the test frame:

Reference:

Test:

Test matched to reference:

dark_jedi said:

towne32 said:

Images. Though I believe now you can export a LUT and apply that to whatever segment of video you want in Premiere, etc.

Thanks, so nothing for Avisynth or maybe Adobe After Effects?

 For the current version (v1.2) you can export an image sequence with Virtualdub, correct them, and import the image sequence again with Virtualdub, and save it as a video.

For the upcoming v1.3 you should be able to export a LUT that can be used in Adobe After Effects.

Thank you, DrDre, this helps.

Another suggestion: Transfering a whole film shot by shot is very time consuming. Let's say you build a color model based on the first frame of the shot and transfer the rest of the shot using this model. For the next shot, you build a new color model, and so on. Right now, you have to sit in front of your computer, even though it's a very automitc process. So it would be good if you could specify the shots, the reference frame and the model type in a text file. The program would read this file and perform the transfers automatically.

Example: The input frames are called "inputX.bmp" where X is a number, the reference frames "refX.bmp" 

One line for a shot could look something like this:

100,110,m,500,100,400

input100.bmp and ref110.bmp are used to build a multi color space model with stabilization parameter 500. After this is done, input100.bmp to input400bmp are transfered. The idea is to write several of these lines in a single textfile. The program can work through them without somebody having to be in front of the computer.

archimedes said:

Thank you, DrDre, this helps.

Another suggestion: Transfering a whole film shot by shot is very time consuming. Let's say you build a color model based on the first frame of the shot and transfer the rest of the shot using this model. For the next shot, you build a new color model, and so on. Right now, you have to sit in front of your computer, even though it's a very automitc process. So it would be good if you could specify the shots, the reference frame and the model type in a text file. The program would read this file and perform the transfers automatically.

Example: The input frames are called "inputX.bmp" where X is a number, the reference frames "refX.bmp" 

One line for a shot could look something like this:

100,110,m,500,100,400

input100.bmp and ref110.bmp are used to build a multi color space model with stabilization parameter 500. After this is done, input100.bmp to input400bmp are transfered. The idea is to write several of these lines in a single textfile. The program can work through them without somebody having to be in front of the computer.

 I'm actually working on a script for this, so v1.4 should have an automated shot by shot correction feature, although you would still have to make sure the cropping for the test and reference frames are the same. 

Thanks for the response, really sounds like v1.3 and v1.4 are really going to be great, I wonder what could be in store for v1.5 lol.

Thanks again

That sounds awesome, DrDre! Maybe you could specify the cropping areas in this file, too? You just need two diagonal points.

@Harmy

Yes, I'm going to share FOTR EE recolored once it's finished. I'm using a single color space model, because it's faster this way. The colors are not 100% correct, but good enough. I will probably post the prologue tomorrow.

Here's the prologue of FOTR EE. It has no sound, as I'm currently lacking a program to edit dts or ac3 files.

https://mega.nz/#!XZJlQAoJ!jMiHPa0JsLqjm_LAx_uNh-YFgH4T3zWnPvCEvCDV5xA

It's not a final file and still work in progress. So far I've spent 50 hours creating this file. I've used a single color space model with stabilization parameter 500.

Shots which are using blending are really challenging to convert. There is also additional noise introduced by this algorithm. Maybe a stabilization parameter of 1000 can fix this.

The soldier shot has always intrigued me, as the color grading for this shot always felt off to me in any home video release. His face was always too red, and although the man was obviously ginger in his younger years, this is never reflected correctly in the color gradings I've seen so far. I think the automated correction of Team Negative1's preview turns out to be a good basis for some manual adjustments, and for what in my opinion is the way this shot should be graded:

Team Negative1 original:

Team Negative1 regraded:

Using this result to for a regrade of the bluray leads to...

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

archimedes said:

Here's the prologue of FOTR EE. It has no sound, as I'm currently lacking a program to edit dts or ac3 files.

https://mega.nz/#!XZJlQAoJ!jMiHPa0JsLqjm_LAx_uNh-YFgH4T3zWnPvCEvCDV5xA

It's not a final file and still work in progress. So far I've spent 50 hours creating this file. I've used a single color space model with stabilization parameter 500.

Shots which are using blending are really challenging to convert. There is also additional noise introduced by this algorithm. Maybe a stabilization parameter of 1000 can fix this.

 It's looking really good!  

Just wanted to add my thanks to DrDre for this tool. It works amazingly well! I've been trying it with a few different films and it does an awesome job.

In particular, I tried regrading the parking garage scene from the recent Terminator Blu-ray, which has some of the worst teal-shifting I've seen in a while. I matched it to my PAL DVD copy of the film from 2005. Here are the results (which took a couple of days to render!):

https://mega.nz/#!dl5zlRAT!Jn1tJj5d1dmsAh_ORHnSLgbzh_XHcdzb5MDaYbkKXj4

I only matched it to one shot though, so the colours aren't 100% accurate across the whole scene. Still, it looks WAAAAAY better than what MGM put out on the Blu-ray.

Looking forward to version 1.3+. If we can start using LUT files from this program in Premiere or After Effects, that's going to be amazing.

STENDEC said:

Just wanted to add my thanks to DrDre for this tool. It works amazingly well! I've been trying it with a few different films and it does an awesome job.

In particular, I tried regrading the parking garage scene from the recent Terminator Blu-ray, which has some of the worst teal-shifting I've seen in a while. I matched it to my PAL DVD copy of the film from 2005. Here are the results (which took a couple of days to render!):

https://mega.nz/#!dl5zlRAT!Jn1tJj5d1dmsAh_ORHnSLgbzh_XHcdzb5MDaYbkKXj4

I only matched it to one shot though, so the colours aren't 100% accurate across the whole scene. Still, it looks WAAAAAY better than what MGM put out on the Blu-ray.

Looking forward to version 1.3+. If we can start using LUT files from this program in Premiere or After Effects, that's going to be amazing.

 You're welcome! That Terminator regrade is looking very good. Terminator was released in The Netherlands on bluray a few years ago. I wonder if it has the same color grading as that recent one?

DrDre said:

The soldier shot has always intrigued me, as the color grading for this shot always felt off to me in any home video release. His face was always too red, and although the man was obviously ginger in his younger years, this is never reflected correctly in the color gradings I've seen so far. I think the automated correction of Team Negative1's preview turns out to be a good basis for some manual adjustments, and for what in my opinion is the way this shot should be graded:

Team Negative1 original:

Team Negative1 regraded:

Using this result to for a regrade of the bluray leads to...

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

 Here's an improvement of my latest regrade (imo):

STENDEC said:

Just wanted to add my thanks to DrDre for this tool. It works amazingly well! I've been trying it with a few different films and it does an awesome job.

In particular, I tried regrading the parking garage scene from the recent Terminator Blu-ray, which has some of the worst teal-shifting I've seen in a while. I matched it to my PAL DVD copy of the film from 2005. Here are the results (which took a couple of days to render!):

https://mega.nz/#!dl5zlRAT!Jn1tJj5d1dmsAh_ORHnSLgbzh_XHcdzb5MDaYbkKXj4

I only matched it to one shot though, so the colours aren't 100% accurate across the whole scene. Still, it looks WAAAAAY better than what MGM put out on the Blu-ray.

Looking forward to version 1.3+. If we can start using LUT files from this program in Premiere or After Effects, that's going to be amazing.

 That looks really great. I bet it will look even better in a higher video bitrate. 

I have been trying the tool with the Superman 2 theatrical blu-ray, to try and match Superman 2 to the DVD, and seemed to work pretty well for the most part. The tool crashed a lot for me on windows 7 pro though, so I'm gonna try it on windows 8.1 pro to see if there is a difference.