Is it possible to fix home videos that are grainy because of poor lighting? I have a bunch of home movies that I made of my baby and they all seem to be grainy. I was using a newer sony digital camcorder but to me I think the camera sucks if I have to have the lights up all over the room in order to get a half decent picture. Basically I just want to know if it is possible to fix the grainyness and if so what software works best for this? Thanks
Edit Grainy Home Movies
It all depends on how grainy the footage is. If it's REALLY grainy, I'd recommend editing the light levels for it to brighten it up, and then use a "reduce noise" filter.
Both of these things can be done in Adobe after effects, and there's a free trial of it on adobe.com. Note that if the footage is seriously grained, the reduce noise filter will probably just render it blurry instead, but if you know how to go along, you might wield some good results.
Both of these things can be done in Adobe after effects, and there's a free trial of it on adobe.com. Note that if the footage is seriously grained, the reduce noise filter will probably just render it blurry instead, but if you know how to go along, you might wield some good results.
Depends what you define as grain.
Is it pixelation type grain or noise grain? As mentioned reducing noise might work if it's not too bad. With some playing around in something like Premiere (you could download the trial*).
*http://www.download.com/Adobe-Premiere-Pro/3000-2194_4-10331724.html?tag=lst-0-1
Is it pixelation type grain or noise grain? As mentioned reducing noise might work if it's not too bad. With some playing around in something like Premiere (you could download the trial*).
*http://www.download.com/Adobe-Premiere-Pro/3000-2194_4-10331724.html?tag=lst-0-1
I don't know where to ask this question. It is sooooo... low tech. I have a video player that connects to an RCA cable that I have to boost the signal. I don't know how to boost a video signal if it uses an RCA jack. I would rather not have to get svideo switcher, cables & boost.
There are a bunch of grain reducing filters out there that work with different programs. Boris has one as part of it's Continuum batch of plug ins that will work with After Effects and Final Cut Pro as well as some other programs (Avid and Premiere I think). Joe's Filter's has one for Final Cut Pro (it is shareware if I remember right). Gen Arts Sapphire has one in it's plug in's set, that will work with just about any NLE as well. Some of these are pretty expensive though. Also, usually they tend to soften the image a bit which I guess is the price of removing the grain. Anyways, as mentioned there are a ton of these out there and most have a demo version so you can try before you buy.
how old is your footage? what format was it recorded onto? film?
for low light situations, grain is normal
generally, if you use a filter or program to de-grain an image, it will make the video more blurry. And it makes it look kind of washed out. If the movies are old enough, i would just say keep all the grain and people will appreciate the age of the video......its better to show all than to hide grain badly
for low light situations, grain is normal
generally, if you use a filter or program to de-grain an image, it will make the video more blurry. And it makes it look kind of washed out. If the movies are old enough, i would just say keep all the grain and people will appreciate the age of the video......its better to show all than to hide grain badly
Try the manual to read how to prevent any grain in the future.
The best thing here I've found is prevention, if you really want clear quality footage, make sure to use high quality tapes and equipment. But I'm sure for most people that's not a prerogative, but editing graininess and pixellation can be very difficult as fixing these things often leads to other problems, as a poster mentioned earlier fixing graininess usually leads to blurriness. If the footage is crappy to begin with chances are you probably can't make it much better, especially if it's from something like a tape or a Hi8 or something that isn't digital. I would def reccomend taking these peoples suggestions and playing around to find out what looks best to you. It will take some time though, so patience is necessary when editing crappy footage.
OK so it would be possible but you would have to pay a team of really good animators, photoshop artists and editors to do it for you.
They would then have to fix it frame by frame and treat each frame like a still to get it perfect.
If its grainy you cant fix it.
They would then have to fix it frame by frame and treat each frame like a still to get it perfect.
If its grainy you cant fix it.
To understand why your video is grainy, you have to understand some basic principles of video. A cheap video camera is a simple piece of machinery. Light comes in the front and a picture comes out the back. The only part that's important to you understanding the grain and eventually killing it is knowing where the grain is. And to do that, you need to know why it's there. On a real camera (real... still, take your pick) the shutter speed (how long the film or sensor can be exposed to light) can be changed, along with the aperture (the size of the hole that lets in light) and ISO (sensitivity to light). Most pocket still cameras increase ISO to reduce blur caused by motion during longer shutter times.
A higher ISO leads to more grain. On a typical digital camera, there's usually a pretty good range from ISO 100-1600, each with there own characteristics that are influenced by both shutter speed and aperture. A higher number is more sensitive to light but also has a higher level of grain. On a still camera this can be a big problem because one shot is studied for a relatively long period of time.
A video camera is a different beast, really. Cheap video cameras have one shutter speed because of the amount of frames they have to have per second to produce a moving video (about sixty). As a cheap video camera cannot adjust aperture to let more light in, it simply adjusts the ISO to do more with the available light, albeit adding more noise.
Now, the reduction of noise. Like many previous posters said, noise removal makes videos less clear. However, this effect, to me at least, will be negligible compared to the grain. Furthermore, it may be possible to remove noise or grain from simply one "channel" of color. For indoors, I would certainly start my search in the red channel, as the majority of tones under an incandescent lightbulb tend to lean towards the red spectrum. You may be able to find some option that allows for an additional amount of sharpening to be added into your video to improve the noiseless details' sharpness. I don't really recommend that (it looks... crispy), but it may be worth the experimentation. If you find yourself shooting more and more in low light in the future, I recommend doing some research and finding a camera with a larger aperture (if they even make such a beast.) or one that responds better and has lower grain levels with higher ISOs.
As a photographer, I hope I've been able to help. Good luck.
P.S. If you don't like the results from the selective noise removal, remember that when any noise remover removes grain, it also removes detail. You may only want to remove part of the noise or just reduce it.
A higher ISO leads to more grain. On a typical digital camera, there's usually a pretty good range from ISO 100-1600, each with there own characteristics that are influenced by both shutter speed and aperture. A higher number is more sensitive to light but also has a higher level of grain. On a still camera this can be a big problem because one shot is studied for a relatively long period of time.
A video camera is a different beast, really. Cheap video cameras have one shutter speed because of the amount of frames they have to have per second to produce a moving video (about sixty). As a cheap video camera cannot adjust aperture to let more light in, it simply adjusts the ISO to do more with the available light, albeit adding more noise.
Now, the reduction of noise. Like many previous posters said, noise removal makes videos less clear. However, this effect, to me at least, will be negligible compared to the grain. Furthermore, it may be possible to remove noise or grain from simply one "channel" of color. For indoors, I would certainly start my search in the red channel, as the majority of tones under an incandescent lightbulb tend to lean towards the red spectrum. You may be able to find some option that allows for an additional amount of sharpening to be added into your video to improve the noiseless details' sharpness. I don't really recommend that (it looks... crispy), but it may be worth the experimentation. If you find yourself shooting more and more in low light in the future, I recommend doing some research and finding a camera with a larger aperture (if they even make such a beast.) or one that responds better and has lower grain levels with higher ISOs.
As a photographer, I hope I've been able to help. Good luck.
P.S. If you don't like the results from the selective noise removal, remember that when any noise remover removes grain, it also removes detail. You may only want to remove part of the noise or just reduce it.
| kuyman wrote: |
| To understand why your video is grainy, you have to understand some basic principles of video. A cheap video camera is a simple piece of machinery. Light comes in the front and a picture comes out the back. The only part that's important to you understanding the grain and eventually killing it is knowing where the grain is. And to do that, you need to know why it's there. On a real camera (real... still, take your pick) the shutter speed (how long the film or sensor can be exposed to light) can be changed, along with the aperture (the size of the hole that lets in light) and ISO (sensitivity to light). Most pocket still cameras increase ISO to reduce blur caused by motion during longer shutter times.
A higher ISO leads to more grain. On a typical digital camera, there's usually a pretty good range from ISO 100-1600, each with there own characteristics that are influenced by both shutter speed and aperture. A higher number is more sensitive to light but also has a higher level of grain. On a still camera this can be a big problem because one shot is studied for a relatively long period of time. A video camera is a different beast, really. Cheap video cameras have one shutter speed because of the amount of frames they have to have per second to produce a moving video (about sixty). As a cheap video camera cannot adjust aperture to let more light in, it simply adjusts the ISO to do more with the available light, albeit adding more noise. Now, the reduction of noise. Like many previous posters said, noise removal makes videos less clear. However, this effect, to me at least, will be negligible compared to the grain. Furthermore, it may be possible to remove noise or grain from simply one "channel" of color. For indoors, I would certainly start my search in the red channel, as the majority of tones under an incandescent lightbulb tend to lean towards the red spectrum. You may be able to find some option that allows for an additional amount of sharpening to be added into your video to improve the noiseless details' sharpness. I don't really recommend that (it looks... crispy), but it may be worth the experimentation. If you find yourself shooting more and more in low light in the future, I recommend doing some research and finding a camera with a larger aperture (if they even make such a beast.) or one that responds better and has lower grain levels with higher ISOs. As a photographer, I hope I've been able to help. Good luck. P.S. If you don't like the results from the selective noise removal, remember that when any noise remover removes grain, it also removes detail. You may only want to remove part of the noise or just reduce it. |
A couple things here.....you have the right idea, but I think you are a photographer, NOT a videographer. Here's why.
First, a video camcorder CAN adjust both the shutter speed, AND the iris (aperture)....however most cheap ones just does it automatically....as the cheap video cameras are auto everything. USUALLY the cheap video camera will not change the shutter speed, and will just open up the iris for you....and since they have tiny chips, they run out of light quickly. Once they run out of light they boost the GAIN (this is roughly equivalent of the ISO for a still camera). Boosting the gain will let in more light, AT THE EXPENSE OF GRAIN!! Video cameras have gain, not ISO.
SO what can you do? First, you can buy a REAL camcorder, one with three chips and big chips, and manual controls. Then you can keep the gain from kicking in unless you want it too, and the bigger chips will give you more low light ability. However, most people that aren't pros, aren't going to do this, as these cameras are expensive (think thousands of dollars). The only option you have then, is TO ADD LIGHT. Use some shop lights, turn on the overheads, plug in some lamps, use a flashlight if you have too! That will cause the cheapo video camera's auto circuitry to close down the gain, which will reduce the grain!
Thanks, Alaskacameradude. You're pretty accurate, I've never taken a video longer than three minutes in my life although I have taken over ten thousand pictures. While I thought I knew what I was talking about, I wasn't one hundred percent sure. But, how can it adjust the shutter speed? That seems strange... I thought because the frame rate had to stay the same it couldn't afford to. Oh, don't worry about explaining it to the original poster, this was published almost two years ago
I would assume the noise as grain, rather as a characteristic of your footage than a problem/difficult.
I believe putting some color saturation could make that looks better (with the noise, of course).
I believe putting some color saturation could make that looks better (with the noise, of course).
| kuyman wrote: |
| Thanks, Alaskacameradude. You're pretty accurate, I've never taken a video longer than three minutes in my life although I have taken over ten thousand pictures. While I thought I knew what I was talking about, I wasn't one hundred percent sure. But, how can it adjust the shutter speed? That seems strange... I thought because the frame rate had to stay the same it couldn't afford to. Oh, don't worry about explaining it to the original poster, this was published almost two years ago |
No problem, I like helping people understand obscure points of videography, because it makes me look knowledgeable and helps me justify the large sums of money I charge for my video production and video consulting business. Anyways, maybe the following can help explain the shutter speed in video cameras a little
Unlike the shutters used in still cameras, the shutter used in most video cameras is not mechanical. Chip camera "shutter" speeds simply represent the time that the light-induced charge is allowed to electronically build in the imaging chip before being discharged.
By setting a video camera to a "normal" shutter speed of 1/60th second (the time it takes to scan one video field in the NTSC standard), the electronic sampling is done at the maximum time allowed by the field rate of the TV system. This represents the maximum exposure possible with normal sampling.
In very low light conditions the shutter speed on some video cameras can be slowed down to allow much more light to register on the chip.
Although this results in much brighter video, if there is any action, a jumpy, stroboscopic effect will be obvious. (I do this for effect sometimes with my PD-150....set the shutter speed to 1/4 of a second which results in streaky red car tail lights and extensive motion blur. Some people like to set the shutter speed to 1/30 of a second instead of the normal 1/60 of a second. They feel it gives more of a 'filmic' look as there is just a little motion blur. Anyways, back to the explaination)
If there is a need to stop (freeze) action, faster shutter speeds than "normal" can be selected. Most professional video cameras have a series of shutter speeds from of 1/60 second (normal), to 1/2,000th second. Many go beyond this to 1/5,000, 1/10,000th, and even 1/12,000 second.
If you think of dividing a second into 12,000 parts and then allowing the image to be exposed for only one of those 12,000 intervals you get an idea of just how fast this is. This is usually used if you want to pull still frames from something happening EXTREMELY fast. One recent photojournalist in a war zone was using his HD video camera to pull still images from for his newspapers website. He set the shutter speed very high and videotaped a missile being fired. He was able to pull a crisp still without motion blurring from his video because of the high shutter speed.
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