Picture quality (in terms of Levels or something like that)

[danielcalado7]

Hello everyone,
I'm a newbie and very glad to join any forum that partly regards such marvelous technology as Avisynth and VirtualDub.

I have this little challenge I believe is simple but I cannot overcome it. How do I achieve the picture quality of case2 starting from case1?
Here are the frames:
case1
http://img594.imageshack.us/f/case1q.png/
case2
http://img52.imageshack.us/i/case2.png/

Is there any filter that does that?
I've tried the Levels filter, of course, but there's more to it.
Does anyone know of a 'detailer' filter for B&W? (I'm not sure it is required to achieve the quality of case 2 but I'm interested anyway).
Any help would be very much appreciated.
Best regards,
Daniel Calado.

[Stereodude]

I'm not sure why you would want to go from #1 to #2. #2 has crushed blacks and compression artifacts.

But, you need to crop the black borders on #1, adjust the levels, resize it, and sharpen it.

[manono]

Welcome to the forum,

The 2 pics aren't from the same frame or even the same source, and there's no telling whether or not what works for a single frame works for the rest of the movie. In addition, I don't know if you did anything to the frames when taking the pics and converting to RGB. but:

Crop(20,0,-6,-20)
LanczosResize(640,480)
Levels(1,0.44,255,0,255,Coring=False)
Tweak(Bright=19,Cont=1.27,Coring=False)

will get you in the general ballpark. To help you in the work you can put on:

Histogram()

and/or:

ColorYUV(Analyze=True)
Limiter(Show="Luma")

If by 'detailer', you mean a sharpener, AviSynth has a number of sharpeners available.

[danielcalado7]

Thank you very much for your help, Stereodude and Manono.
Sorry for the delay, I haven't had time to post.

Yes, it needs to be resized and croped but I only meant picture quality (I was too lazy to resize and crop before uploading the frame).

Stereodude, case 2 is compressed indeed but the picture in terms of levels (or something like that) looks 'Film Noir' and more professional. case 1 to me looks like something incomplete (I get a tremendous feeling that I'm only watching greys, no blacks at all).

Manono, thanks for your effort, I will try everything you sugested and will get back to this thread.

"The 2 pics aren't from the same frame or even the same source, and there's no telling whether or not what works for a single frame works for the rest of the movie."

True. I didn't do anything to them, I just changed the aspect ratio of case 1.
Both sources are from different filmprints (the credits are different). But the uploading images correspond to the same frame, the thing is: compression and levels changed the expression on the actor's face a lot.

As I understand it, detailer doesn't necessarily mean sharpener. Sometimes, sharpening only adds noise to the pic. This is something else that I once heard of. It probably is something that involves edges. That's my opinion. But I guess I'll ask the very person who mention it.
Right now, I will try what you offered me.

Thanks a lot for everything.
All the best.

[danielcalado7]

Manono,
Sorry for this tremendous delay, but have been busy as hell lately.
I tried your settings and they were just great but unfortunately only great with that particular shot, other shots diverge from your solution. Anyway, I decided to just buy that broadcast recording in DVD-video from a collector and will mask the network logo using the other print (the supposedly official DVD).
Very grateful for your help.
Take Care and Happy Easter,
Daniel.