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Old 27th September 2017, 23:21   #1  |  Link
magiblot
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Join Date: Sep 2014
Posts: 108
Restorating color in VHS cartoon

Hi there,

After doing many arbitrary brightness/color adjustments in the past, I started worrying about if I am doing well or not in this sphere. I've read a little about RGB balancing, histograms and these stuff, but it's also true that automatic balancers work mostly well with film and not cartoon.

I'm interested in learning what the thumb rules for color adjustment are, if there are any, because I would like to see satisfactory colors on my source while being certain I did not make them over-saturated in the attempt, and the same with levels and losing details in dark areas, though this is easier to prevent.

The source I'm working on right now looks somewhat like this in average:



Colors and brightness look weared, yet the edge ringing (I'm not sure this is the right name) produces very bright or dark halos in some places (which reveal 'black' areas of the cartoon are pretty grey-ish).

A tool I've been using pretty often, rather than the internal levels and tweak functions, is VDub's Gradation Curves Filter by Alexander Nagiller. Applying this filter in RGB mode gives good darkening results in my opinion, because the picture doesn't just look darker (like most of my attempts at doing this with the levels function) but less weared. The other way around, applying it in CYMK mode is what I used to boost the colors, and it also makes the picture darker. In order not to be arbitrary, I only boost C, Y and M in the same proportion and with just one point (you can check the vdscript VDub (FilterMod version) Processing Settings file I enclosed and uploaded to the MEGA link below).

For instance, I could suggest something like this:



But I would like to hear your suggestions.

I've exported a series of video samples, which feature diverse situations in the cartoon, though you don't have to download them all.

https://mega.nz/#F!8lVwnTCb!Qhu5hmSagaoCDCWq5C84sQ

What I can tell you about the source video is that I applied aWarpSharp in the chroma plane and desaturated over-saturated colors with FixChromaBleedingMod. I didn't apply any further brightness/saturation adjustments.

Thanks!
Attached Files
File Type: zip levels5dark12color10.zip (1.1 KB, 64 views)

Last edited by magiblot; 27th September 2017 at 23:25.
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