Need Improved "Levels Filter" for VirtualDub

[MassDaemon]

I am trying to correct the colors, white balance, levels or whatever it's called in some of my videos. I tried the internal levels filter of VDub and many more. Among those I found the internal levels filter the best for me. I specially liked the sample video feature which can take an average over the whole video instead of a single frame. Levels filter of VDub like many other internal filters are undeniably very similar to Photoshop filters. Using Photoshop's level filter to adjust a sample frame of my video, I found a very useful and effective feature which is not included in levels filter in VDub. That is the ability to set the "Input Levels" for Red, Green and Blue SEPARATELY. This will improve the colors dramatically in the fastest and easiest way.
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/8e75ff0883.jpg
VirtualDub

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/b3ac0d5e5f.jpg
Photoshop

Sample:
http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/f92a84126c.jpg
Original

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/0f2e12fd20.jpg
VirtualDub

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d7e7dce805.jpg
Photoshop

I tried many other filters to deal with correcting the RGB levels including: "MSU Smart Brightness", "RGBEQ 2.11" "LrgbColorsAdjust", "RGB10-Donald Graft" and some others, but none of them satisfied me.
Is there an improved levels filter with separate RGB channel control of input levels. If not, can someone develop such a filter, as I don't think it is very challenging to separate RGB and then applying the same filter. If that is not possible either, is there a filter that can split the RGB channels and merge them, so that I can chain filters like this?!
Split RGB -> Apply levels filter for each separate channel -> Merge RGB channels.
As you can see, this is my first post here, so sorry if it's noob or something! :p
Thank you in advance.

[foxyshadis]

Avisynth has all the tools to do basically anything you want (such as split channels -> process each as luma) as well as the colorYUV filter. Avidemux also provides a port of coloryuv and an eq2 filter that's a bit simpler, but no per-channel levels.

Working with RGB in videos always requires at least two colorspace changes anyway, since compressed video is natively YUV, and combined with the quantization levels produces it can get a bit ugly. It's a bit tougher to visualize working in YUV, but with the gui avsp it can be pretty straightforward.

[rfmmars]

Use "Fdump's" RGBeq 2.11. It has everything you need.

http://fdump.narod.ru/equalizer.htm

Richard

[MassDaemon]

Use "Fdump's" RGBeq 2.11. It has everything you need.

http://fdump.narod.ru/equalizer.htm

Richard
:thanks:
As I mentioned I've already tried it. It seems to have everything, but I didn't manage to get a good output. There are too many parameters to change and the final result is not satisfactory. I tried to use the help. But that didn't work either. Maybe my poor knowledge is the main reason for that.
The internal filter of VDub is too easy and yet very effective. I would appreciate some help on using "RGBeq" though.

And about Avisynth; where is the starting point? I haven't tried it yet. Is there a GUI for it? I can't spend so much time on video conversion. So I prefer "easy to use" tools. That's why I've never tried Avisynth.

[rfmmars]

:thanks:
Maybe my poor knowledge is the main reason for that.
.

Yes RGB-eq 2.11 will have a learning curve as well as Colormill 2.11. I use it 100 times in a film restoration project, sometimes on a frame bases. Take the time to study it in depth.

Richard
photorecall.net

[thearklight]

I am trying to correct the colors, white balance, levels or whatever it's called in some of my videos. I tried the internal levels filter of VDub and many more. Among those I found the internal levels filter the best for me. I specially liked the sample video feature which can take an average over the whole video instead of a single frame. Levels filter of VDub like many other internal filters are undeniably very similar to Photoshop filters. Using Photoshop's level filter to adjust a sample frame of my video, I found a very useful and effective feature which is not included in levels filter in VDub. That is the ability to set the "Input Levels" for Red, Green and Blue SEPARATELY. This will improve the colors dramatically in the fastest and easiest way.

Thank you in advance.

Hello.

images took ages to load wonder why?Ouch. Try imageshack
they seem to load faster.But it's probably my end! Anyway onto
the problem.This can all be solved with 2 programs and one
virtualdub filter.

PHOTOSHOP.

In photoshop, go into curves and edit the image, exactly
how you want, including in seperate colour channels, then
click on the Pencil icon.Then click to save the curves.
Because you selected the pencil icon,
the curves will save as an AMP file.
Very important.

VIRTUALDUB

Open ANY variant of Virtualdub, but make sure you have
the latest version of the gradation filter
in the plugins folder so you can access it.
Here it is if you don't have it...

http://members.chello.at/nagiller/vdub/index.html

Open the video in virtuldub, open filters and select gradation filter.Once opened click to import the AMP file
you made earlier.In the preview you will see
your video Alter. But not quite how you wanted it.
Select R/G/B processing so gradtion filter takes
into account the seperate colour channels,
and that's it done.

One important thing.

When you edit in Photoshop, edit in RGB
Colorspace

I did something similar in this thread-

http://neuron2.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=8043&sid=babf2650d8b1d899f8029f8b150e39dc

[MassDaemon]

Thank you thearklight. Very useful. I wish I could also import ".ALV" files into virtualdub.

[sumpm1]

To manually adjust the "levels" of each color channel as you refer to PS, you could use FFVdub plugin in Vdub. It has seperate controls for the gamma of each channel. It works great on most material. I have had trouble getting quality levels out of Vdub with MPEG1 sources though.

[MassDaemon]

To manually adjust the "levels" of each color channel as you refer to PS, you could use FFVdub plugin in Vdub. It has seperate controls for the gamma of each channel. It works great on most material. I have had trouble getting quality levels out of Vdub with MPEG1 sources though.

I didn't know you could use ffdshow filters in encoding. Very handy. But where can I specify color channels in levels filter? :confused:

[sumpm1]

I didn't know you could use ffdshow filters in encoding. Very handy. But where can I specify color channels in levels filter? :confused:

yes, use ffvdub for Vdub though. You can find color gamma in the "picture properties" section of ffdshow:


http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/9093/vdub008kp4.png (http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vdub008kp4.png)
http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/8567/vdub009fq9.png (http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vdub009fq9.png)

[thearklight]

that's cool. Saw that a while back,but when
I tried those in a workflow they seemed
slower to render to me.With knowledge
of curves and editing a sample frame in
photoshop.Running only the gradtion filter
with imported AMP files it seemed to
produce more accurate colour correction r
esults and FASTER in my opinion anyway.
I maybe wrong, I didn't do a scientific study.
But it just seemed to work faster.

still the more the options, the better.

Heri