Color space correction

[Shubin]

I have two clips taken at the same time at the same
subject but using two different DV cameras. The problem
is that they have different matrices and different colour
spaces. That means the color is noticeably different.

I beleive it is possible to adjust color using ColorYUV
to make them more alike, BUT... it will take all my life
to iterate through all possible values of Y,U,V and gamma.
Is there a tool that will allow me to choose correction
values manually and then to just paste necessary values
into script ? A kind of.

[ccfilms]

Part of the reason why the color is different is the lense and CCD. But it is very possible to color correct footage to make them look alike. I do it all the time. Sometimes, the same video camera produces different color tones in the same circumstance. It happens. But it is possible to correct the color.

I'm not sure if there is a color balance filter of Avisynth though, cuz that'd be your best bet. Also, mess with gamma and saturation. It really takes tweaking. It's not a straight forward linear process (color correction). But with time, it's very beneficial.

While you at it, why not try color correcting the footage to be BETTER than the original, eh? Here's what i mean. I did a film and my footage straight off teh DV camera was pretty yucky, and then I color corrected it (using a few more professional tools than avisynth, but you can do similar with Avisynth, that much is certain). And this is what i got:


ORGINAL:
http://www.ccfilms.com/cell.jpg


CORRECTED:
http://www.ccfilms.com/glow.jpg


fact is, it is a common practice in film editing to edit the color to something totally different than the source. Watch a BTS or an outtakes real or deleted scenes in some movies. The color tones are WAY different from the final cut of the film, most of the time (unless they color corrected the BTS or the deleted scenes or outtakes).

It's an art. :D Have fun!

[HighInBC]

It would be nice to be able to do the color tweaking in something like photoshop, and then take the numbers from that filter and put them in an avisynth command.

Is there anything like this?

[ccfilms]

Prolly not. I know though that if you use something like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, or Adobe After Effects (all of which cost money and are expensive) you can do all of that to video stuff. lol.

I wonder if there is a thing to bring photoshop filters to avisynth though. lol. I doubt it, but im quite new to avisynth.

[Shubin]

Jeremy, that's what I mean.

Currently I managed to correct the color playing with numeric
values of gamma_y and off_u. However I'm not sure that I've got
the best possible result.

Taking number from Photoshop is hardly possible, but there is
Gimp. When I tried Gimp I decided that I'll eventually move
Photoshop to recycle bin... Gimp is much better.

Right now I'm learning to make films. I'm using only free and
open-source programs for all production and I'm happy with it.
In some sense Avisynth is better than (the one I tried) Ulead
Video Studio. With Avisynth I'm working with numbers, not scroll
bar and sliders. Thus I can test a variant, change it and revert
_exactly_ to the previous version. No matter how long afterwards.
That's like programming, and being a programmer, I understand it
easily.

[lamer_de]

E-male wrote a plugin that can read graduation curves (or something like that) from Photoshop or Gimp (don't remember if for both or only Gimp). Unfortunately I can't find the thread any more, but it was either in this or the "Avisynth development" forum.

CU,
lamer_de

[Wilbert]

LBkiller:

http://esby.free.fr/
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80859

[zilog jones]

You may want to test out what the colours look like on a TV set (if that will be the destination for your videos) before making any decisions. From my experience, colour is *a lot* more vivid on my TV (DVD via RGB inputs) compared to looking at the same thing on a PC monitor.

Don't test it using your PC's TV-out though - they're usually quite crappy.

[esby]

@Wilbert

I think lbkiller is not an answer to this thread,
as it just allows to edit static image.
(I don't think the author wants to photoshop/gimp every pictures of the clip and apply the filter to each...)

The problem here lies in importing filters (or filter settings).
But this is mostly due to the absence of GUI settings in avs filters.
(At it is hard to 'tweak' values in a direct approach.)
Now the next version might be able to do that, supposing I get time to work on it again.

esby

[tsp]

you can find E-mails GIMP plugin in the below thread:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87791&perpage=40&pagenumber=5

[Wilbert]

I messed up. Sorry.

I take it that the source of GiCoCu not available?

[tsp]

Nope but maybe if you ask E-male nicely he will release it :)

[Shubin]

GiCoCu is probably a strange name, but it is what I've been
looking for. Thank you !

What about lbkiller - when I tried it it did not work.

>But this is mostly due to the absence of GUI settings in avs filters.

I've already said this - no need for GUI, AVS is so good as it is.
The only thing needed is a some kind of external API - possibility
to call AviSynth functions like ColorYUV from an external program
and to get the result. AviSynth is a DLL, isn't it ?

If one of the authors will implement something like

clip CallAvisynthFunction(clip Clip,char* FunctionName,char* FunctionArguments);

then various GUIs will appear in few days...

[esby]

What about lbkiller - when I tried it it did not work.

What did not work?
well, anyway, lbkiller is not intented to do this kind of job.
Now there are still some bugs left.
So if you report any of them, please be more precise ^^, thanks in advance.

esby

[Shubin]

Sorry, it was not a bug report. The edited frame
just did not appear in the resulting clip. I did not
do any more investigations, because I did not really need
the functionality. Just tried and failed. Most likely I did
something wrong.

[HighInBC]

I have found a simple solution to white balancing. It requires an object on the screen that should be white, or atleast a shade of grey(brighter the better). You give the routine the color of that pixel and it gives back an RGBAdjust commnad.

It works great, see my examples.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96042

[E-Male]

here is GiCoCu with source, but be warned, my code isn't too well written

would be nice for me to know what plans you have with it

GiCoCu.dll - a Gimp Color Curve File reader for Avisynth (http://e-rels.dyndns.org/downloads/GiCoCu.dll)

GiCoCu source (http://e-rels.dyndns.org/downloads/GiCoCu.cpp)

GiCoCu(string filename, bool alpha, bool photoshop)

[HighInBC]

Thanks E-Male, I was looking for that filter, the link on the older threads no longer worked. Got it now

[kururu]

I had that problem once, I ended up finding coloryuv values by trial and error. I just wanted to note that Premiere Pro has a feature for this exact situation, to match colors between different sources. Hope you found something that worked in the free software world though.

[E-Male]

Thanks E-Male, I was looking for that filter, the link on the older threads no longer worked. Got it now
odd, the link is quoted from the old thread
well, it's a DL from my pc, so it might be down now and then (when my pc is off or crashed)