Script to Add More Colour?

[VideoFanatic]

My videos have colour but not much colour. They looked washed out or faded.

I tried these but they didn't improve the colours:

ColorYUV(autogain=true)

Mpeg2Source("I:\video.d2v")
SeparateFields()
HDRAGC(coef_gain=1.0, coef_sat=1.0)
Weave()

Could anyone suggest a script that would add more colour?

[johnmeyer]

Could anyone suggest a script that would add more colour?There is no single script that will cure color problems, because often they are caused by incorrect levels rather than color saturation. You need to at least post a screen snapshot or, better yet, 1-2 seconds of video from the clip.

Also, as I recently posted in another thread, I'm not sure that AVISynth is necessarily the right tool for this. Levels and color grading are generally much better handled in your video editing program, because it lets you interactively change levels, saturation, and many other parameters which affect how you perceive color in the final product.

I'm not trying to dodge your question but instead am trying to figure out whether you have a simple 0-255/16-235 levels issue; a color saturation issue; an issue with overall exposure (colors can look weak in over-exposed video); etc.

[VideoFanatic]

Here's a sample of the file: http://www.mediafire.com/?he47atae9c68cdc

I know there are editors that have easy colour fixing options but if it's that easy then surely there must be an Avisynth script I could use to do the same thing? I put my Avisynth script through HC Encoder. I tried other programs such as TMPGEnc but I found through testing that they don't give as good quality as HC Encoder.

[manono]

The colors do seem a bit faded to me. How about:

Crop(12,0,-4,0)
Tweak(Sat=2.0,Cont=0.90,Coring=False)
AddBorders(8,0,8,0)

I'm sure johnmeyer and/or others will have other better suggestions. Adjust the Sat setting higher or lower for more or less intense color.

[VideoFanatic]

OK I'm trying that just now. What is the crop for?

What are the borders for? It's already 720 x 480

What does the coring do?

[manono]

The borders were uneven, with more on the left than on the right. The idea with the crop and the addborders was to do away with the crushed black and replace it with fresh black, and also to redistribute the black bars better. If you check, it's still 720x480. Coring=False allows for full range. It's all explained in the AviSynth docs if you'd care to look sometime:

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Tweak

[VideoFanatic]

Thanks. I did look beforehand but unfortunately that wiki is not written in plain english like Wikipedia is nor is most of the documentation about Avisynth on the web.

[VideoFanatic]

Thanks for that script. It worked perfectly. I have quite a lot of wrestling videos like that and it's not always obvious which ones need the colors fixed. I would like to use a colour script on all my videos where I could tell it to increase the colours to a maximum level so if the colours are faded then it fixes them and if the colours are OK then it does nothing. Is that possible with a script?

[johnmeyer]

I played with the video in Vegas Pro. The levels in the Vegas scope looked just fine, but I agree with Manono that the saturation is way too low. His script ends up with video almost identical to what I did in Vegas.

[VideoFanatic]

Thanks john. Please see my question above.

[manono]

I would like to use a colour script on all my videos where I could tell it to increase the colours to a maximum level so if the colours are faded then it fixes them and if the colours are OK then it does nothing. Is that possible with a script?
It might be possible to use the ColorLike or HistogramAdjust filters or some other method to 'transfer' the colors from a 'good' video to a 'bad' one. But, if so, someone else will have to show you as that's over my head.

[johnmeyer]

You're looking for something like autowhite or autolevels, but for color intensity, kind of an "AGC" for saturation. It would not be an easy task to figure out what the proper intensity should be, given all the exposure and color possibilities.

Most of my work is restoration, and for all the dozens of problems I try to fix, I can't think of any which can be helped much by a "set it and forget it" tool, even for levels and white balance. I think you'll find that most of the discussions in this forum about fixing things usually involve making changes to settings for different parts of the video and then stitching things together.

[VideoFanatic]

OK thanks. Manono with the original script you suggested:

Tweak(Sat=2.0,Cont=0.90,Coring=False)

I seem to have some files where the colours are faded slightly and others they are faded a lot. The above script works on heavily faded files but on slightly faded files I tried a Sat of 1.0 but it had no effect. What sat level could I use that would have half the effect of Sat=2.0?

[poisondeathray]

Default saturation for tweak is 1.0 . This does nothing to the clip. Values above 1 increase the saturation, values below 1 decrease the saturation as per the instructions
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Tweak

So if 2.0 is too much, try something in between like 1.5 :)

You can use avspmod to view changes (push f5). I think there are sliders for tweak as well

[Mounir]

with Tweak sat at 1.4 max should be enough for vhs, 1.3 should be best, depending if the levels have been adjusted correctly before, among other things

HDRAGC is not good imo because it curve lines that should be straight, tested with an smpte test pattern, verified with the videoscope.

regards

[VideoFanatic]

Thanks everyone.