Color and sharpening filter question

[IbrahimKh]

recently I found screenshot comparison of Hindi movie
screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/174439/

and I'm amazed how filter can do to improve picture quality.

Now I'm interested to converting some of my movies to look like that.

Any idea what should I do? Or filter/setting I should use?
I'm using staxrip, and not familiar with virtual dub.

THank you

[johnmeyer]

The particular example you showed does considerable violence to highlights. AVISynth has sharpening filters that can probably do what you want, but without as much unwanted side effect.

I think someone may have created a modern list of AVISynth sharpening filters. This is the one from the old Wiki:

AVISynth Sharpening Filters (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Sharpeners)

I know that a lot of people used Didée's "LimitedSharpen," and a faster version called "LimtedSharpenFaster." You'll have to try some of these filters yourself, because each works better or worse depending on your source material (and your own tastes).

[FranceBB]

Uh... I think everything looks a bit overfiltered to me in the screenshot comparison you posted, but it's my personal opinion.

Anyway, a good filter to remove banding (which works at 16bit as well, if you use the Dither_tool) is flash3kyuu:

flash3kyuu_deband(range=16, sample_mode=2, blur_first=true, opt=-1, keep_tv_range=false)

As to the sharpening filter, I agree with johnmeyer and I generally use LSFmod which - despite its name - it's not fast xD (but does a good job).
In your case, something like this will probably accomplish pretty much the same result as in your source (sharpening-side):

LSFmod(strength=200, Smethod=3, kernel=19, Smode=1, Szrp=16, Spwr=4, SdmpLo=0, SdmpHi=0, Lmode=1, keep=100, soft=0, edgemode=0, edgemaskHQ=true, show=false)

As to the contrast and colours, if you really wanna change them (and try not to do it, unless it's really necessary), just use:

Tweak(sat=1.31, dither=true) #and adjust brightness and contrast accordingy; but again, DO NOT do it unless it's necessary.

[hello_hello]

I agree with much of what's already been said. The sharpening seems overdone. Try not to get carried away. Even with that in mindt I still encode the occasional video, return the next day and check it with fresh eyes, then give myself a slap.

I suspect the luminance levels were expanded for the filtered encode, and I suspect that's a good thing in this case, given the unfiltered screenshots have a "washed out" look. I've seen plenty of Bluray or DVD etc with messed up levels.

The first screenshot appears to have clipped whites, so it might be an idea to leave white as it is and expand the black level, so to speak.

Something like this should head you toward the filtered version without over-doing it. You could possibly fine tune each of the Avisynth filters a little, but much of that's personal preference.

Levels(24,1,255,0,255) #Expands the black levels.
Tweak(sat=1.1) # A slight colour boost
LSFmod(strength=75) #Even when using LSFMod I usually dial back the sharpening a little. The default strength is 100.
gradfun3() #Dithering for colour banding repair/prevention.

There's no noise filtering in that script as there appears to be no need for it.

I don't use StaxRip myself but I believe it comes fairly well endowed with Avisynth plugins these days, even the famous QTGMC deinterlacer. It might pay to check the plugins and scripts supplied with StaxRip to see what you already have. It can be done, I just can remember the 'how" part.

Some links:
Levels (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Levels)
An alternative to Levels is Ylevels (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Ylevels). They handle the chroma differently so I tend to try both and use the result I prefer.
Tweak (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/Tweak)
LSFMod (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/LSFmod)
Gradfun3 it's part of the dither package. It requires the 16 bit flavours of a couple of other plugins, which can be downloaded from here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1386559).

Your unfiltered screenshots with the following applied, although looking again, maybe the colour could have been boosted a tad more. It's somewhere to start though.

Levels(20,1,255,0,255)
Tweak(sat=1.1)
LSFmod(strength=75)
gradfun3()

https://s31.postimg.org/iigae0m2v/1464674050_0376452819.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/iigae0m2v/)

https://s31.postimg.org/8q14egrs7/1464674050_1098674235.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/8q14egrs7/)

https://s31.postimg.org/usqbksb93/1464674050_8610957342.jpg (https://postimg.org/image/usqbksb93/)

I gave it a shot but it seems it's either full size images that don't resize so they stretch the width of the page and make the thread hard to read, or thumbnails and a game of follow the link to download the full-size version.

[Motenai Yoda]

looks like a pc->tv levels correction + sharpening

[Reel.Deel]

I think someone may have created a modern list of AVISynth sharpening filters. This is the one from the old Wiki:

AVISynth Sharpening Filters (http://avisynth.nl/index.php/External_filters#Sharpeners)
avisynth.nl is the new wiki, avisynth.org is the old wiki. Here's how sharpeners section looked like in Jan. 2012 (https://web.archive.org/web/20120104130439/http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/External_filters#Sharpeners). If you know the whereabouts of this modern list please do share. :)

I know that a lot of people used Didée's "LimitedSharpen," and a faster version called "LimtedSharpenFaster." You'll have to try some of these filters yourself, because each works better or worse depending on your source material (and your own tastes).

LimitedSharpen → LimitedSharpenFaster → LSFmod

LimitedSharpen is the original version and it uses the ancient MaskTools.

LimtedSharpenFaster was modified by manao to use MaskTools2.

LSFmod was modified by LaTo and it's the recommended version since it includes previous changes, optimizations, bug fixes, and new features.

[GMJCZP]

Other posibility for sharpening could be Tunsharp with ss.