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Post Processing 'Sharpness'

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I am somewhat stuck (or suck) with post-processing:

1) Using Davinci Resolve, 14, free version. I have plenty of CPU/Memory/Drives.

2) Raw video we are supposed to shoot for the best post processing ...
3) Today I shot raw, natural, gorgeous video with same lighting and exposure to confirm what I am seeing in the .mov files the H produces and the rendered output from Davinci.
3a) raw .mov is flat, with less sharpness (as expected). Natural is pretty good, with excellent sharpness. Gorgeous is how I view my fiancée and wish to see life with my rose colored glasses.
3b) the raw .mov video from the H is flat, not sharp, but does not change as far as color recording. I can see the natural and gorgeous .mov video from the H adjusting either sharpness or saturation/hue each second; there is an actual flicker as the color is readjusted : this pretty much removes the possibility of using natural or gorgeous as input to a movie editor.
4) Given that, I am not able to get the sharpness out of the raw video the H produces that is the same sharpness as the natural .mov the H produces, when rendering the raw .mov with Davinci. This is a) learning curve b) limit c) ahhhh wtf!
5) Additionally at a simple level, without adjusting color, sharpness, any settings other then what is set as default, when rendering the natural footage it does render as less sharp then the actual .mov footage from the H. Is there a simple 'pass through' that will just allow me to edit / remove / splice footage and render without degradation?

Questions :
1) How can I get the raw .mov files to render with the same sharpness as the Natural footage?
1a) Davinci or any other editor if fine. I don't care anymore about the 'best' editor - what editor simply renders cleanly?
2) Can I get the Natural footage to render without loosing sharpness?
2a) I understand the natural degradation of rendering from source through each level of output; however, in previous life being a photojournalist with film and spending 14 hours in a darkroom to minimalize this, I would think a 'simple' translation of bits to the output should not introduce effects - unless it is the output format. Is there a specific output format from the H .mov to the rendered format that is best?

Request :
I do not want to go through the same learning curve with Kodachrome and Extrachrome to get an excellent result; I just do not have that same patience anymore.

Thank you!
 
I'm a novice at editing but I always lock the WB and exposure to make the video consistent. Are you rendering as .mov rather than .mp4? I have not noticed a difference in sharpness between video modes but there can certainly be a difference when rendering if the bitrate is set too low.
 
Good question ..

Rending in Davinci as :
Format : Quicktime
Codec : H.264
Resolution : 3840 x 2160 Ultra HD
Frame rate : 24

This generates a "my movie.mov" file.
 
I don't know much about DaVinci Resolve. I have a free version on my iMac but I've not really done anything with it.

I started with Apple's iMovie and I'm transitioning to Final Cut Pro X 10.4.

Anyway, the Typhoon H CGO3+ really doesn't have a "raw" video file. It's just a regular video file without any color, contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc. adjustments made to it. The other CGO3+ video options all have some adjustments baked into them. Plenty of people start with "Natural" or "Gorgeous" settings for the video in the CGO3+ until they get their sea legs with video processing.

With plugins for iMovie and FCP X I've been able to make some quick processing adjustments to deliver good looking video. I'm sure you can with DaVinci as well although I can't show you the way.

In my leap to FCP X I bought some tutorials from Ripple Training and they are top notch and worth every penny I spent. They have tutorials for DaVinci Resolve as well.

Home Page – Ripple Training
 
I don't know much about DaVinci Resolve. I have a free version on my iMac but I've not really done anything with it.

I started with Apple's iMovie and I'm transitioning to Final Cut Pro X 10.4.

Anyway, the Typhoon H CGO3+ really doesn't have a "raw" video file. It's just a regular video file without any color, contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc. adjustments made to it. The other CGO3+ video options all have some adjustments baked into them. Plenty of people start with "Natural" or "Gorgeous" settings for the video in the CGO3+ until they get their sea legs with video processing.

With plugins for iMovie and FCP X I've been able to make some quick processing adjustments to deliver good looking video. I'm sure you can with DaVinci as well although I can't show you the way.

In my leap to FCP X I bought some tutorials from Ripple Training and they are top notch and worth every penny I spent. They have tutorials for DaVinci Resolve as well.

Home Page – Ripple Training

Thanks! Looking into the training. May try FCP if they have a trial for it. Rendering another 10 versions tonight with slight adjustments in Davinci to try get a sharp film.
 
There is no trial version of FCP X. Instead, Apple has iMovie which is free. iMovie shares some basic concepts with FCP X but is nowhere near as robust. FCP X is a pro level video production app and quite reasonably priced for what you get.

You can produce some good results with iMovie but it has limits. Here’s a free tutorial for iMovie
 
The quick answer is you need to apply an Unsharp Filter to the video. Unsharp is designed to sharpen up the edges of objects, whilst avoiding adding too much sharpening noise to smooth surfaces. You set the radius (how many pixels around an edge are sharpened), the strength (how much edges are enhanced) and the threshold (how 'rough' a surface has to be before sharpening is applied). There are various tutorials on YouTube for doing this in the editor of your choice.

As for 'pass through' - a lot will depend on what you're doing to the video - are you changing the encoding, the bit-rate or the resolution? All of those will 'start from scratch' when it comes to encoding the file. You will need to pay close attention to your output format to avoid accidentally mushing up the image.
 
The quick answer is you need to apply an Unsharp Filter to the video. Unsharp is designed to sharpen up the edges of objects, whilst avoiding adding too much sharpening noise to smooth surfaces. You set the radius (how many pixels around an edge are sharpened), the strength (how much edges are enhanced) and the threshold (how 'rough' a surface has to be before sharpening is applied). There are various tutorials on YouTube for doing this in the editor of your choice.

As for 'pass through' - a lot will depend on what you're doing to the video - are you changing the encoding, the bit-rate or the resolution? All of those will 'start from scratch' when it comes to encoding the file. You will need to pay close attention to your output format to avoid accidentally mushing up the image.
 
The filter is not to my knowledge referred to as "Unsharp Filter" but rather Unsharp Masking Filter. You are masking unsharpness not creating it. Regarding the third aspect of using the Unsharp Masking Filter the threshold is pixel differentiation predicated on density and color prior to a change in sharpness happening. It's also important to remember that content dictates how much sharpening should be applied. For example a field of thin wheat stems would need much less sharpening prior to over sharpening than content without existing strong vertical lines like clouds...
 
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The filter is not to my knowledge referred to as "Unsharp Filter" but rather Unsharp Masking Filter. You are masking unsharpness not creating it. Regarding the third aspect of using the Unsharp Masking Filter the threshold is pixel differentiation predicated on density and color prior to a change in sharpness happening. It's also important to remember that content dictates how much sharpening should be applied. For example a field of thin wheat stems would need much less sharpening prior to over sharpening than content without existing strong vertical lines like clouds...

You are of course right. Unsharp Mask/Filter (I think different tools use slightly different naming) is not a 'fire and forget' filter - it needs to be adjusted to each scene. That's one of the reasons why it's not applied in camera to every shot (the other reasons being that it needs fast hardware in the camera, and applying it a second time to an already filtered video will make a complete mess of the image).
 
Thank you Tuna and Mickeyboo.

Pondering. Will get back. Very reminiscent of my work with Kodachrome slides when I would make a contact print of the slide onto a high-contrast BW negative to make a contrast mask. Then the slide (positive) and contrast mask (negative) where sandwiched together and printed (light applied to render to two elements) onto another variable of paper with it's own contrast and responsiveness to light. Light was also a variable back then with three lights' color temperatures changing quickly over time.

This really is a PITA; just never have delt with 'sharpness' - that was a given from the original and you could not enhance it.

So it seems the 'unsharp mask' is a way to describe an edge (density and color?), a way to describe how many pixels around an edge should become the edge or background (and noise?). Not sure about threshold. Not sure about describing an algorithm in these terms to allow software to interpret in general. :)

As a note in Davinci, with simply setting the radius a couple digits drastically increases the noise in the sky / water areas. Additionally, I tend to underexpose based on the old slide days where it is best to underexpose positive film to not blow out highlights. It seems that the underexposure in digital video also tends to generate much more noise when the sharpening. Just a lot to learn (time).

Thank you both again!
 
You can certainly recover underexposed video more easily. Search for (color) grading tutorials on YouTube - sort the colour and dynamic range out first, then apply sharpening.
 

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