Which do you prefer? A finished 4K aesthetic question!

[Phil Holland]

Ahoy friends,

I've been up to no good coming up with various ways to develop Red Dragon material. Some methods purely through REDcine-X Pro and some methods that I would define more or less as time consuming witchcraft.

There is oddly no real right or wrong answer here, but I am curious as to which you prefer in terms of the general aesthetic. A couple of these methods involve some hefty processing time per frame, but I'm more or less curious at what you guys like to look at.

These are 100% crops from a portion of a DCI 4K image.

A:


B:


C:


D:


E:


F:


G:


H:



If you have a moment this evening I'd love to know which you prefer and if there's a reason why. For the curious I finished this particular piece with technique "F".

Thanks!

 

[Joseph Coleman]

A or C for my eyes. The others feel too sharp/processed, not as natural

 

[Phil Holland]

A or C for my eyes. The others feel too sharp/processed, not as natural

Interesting. And I certainly feel that this is valid and part of the equation. Sharpening/processing for stills is and should be a bit different from motion.

Technique C is how the vast majority of my Dragon footage has been processed in 2014.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

I like the color in F the best. As for the level of sharpness I agree with Joseph in that I prefer a softer look, but it depends entirely on what it's for.

 

[Phil Holland]

I like the color in F the best. As for the level of sharpness I agree with Joseph in that I prefer a softer look, but it depends entirely on what it's for.

That's good to hear. That means I didn't waste time rendering it out this way This will be more or less to showcase detail.

I agree, if I was shooting something more narrative I'd aim differently.

 

[Brandon J.F.]

That's good to hear. That means I didn't waste time rendering it out this way This will be more or less to showcase detail.

The difference is most noticeable in his mustache. It's the first in the series, other than maybe A, where the color looks right to me. G and H are much too sharp for my taste.

Do keep us updated on this

 

[Clayton Taylor]

My vote's A.

 

[Lakis Amarantithis]

I think all can be used depending on what feeling/mood you want to enhance at that moment. I've seen almost all used.

I like more the B because it looks not computer manipulated. The A is a little blurry the rest too much contrast/over sharpened/faulty colors.

Correction: After 2-3 looks I think something between A and B will be my favorite.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

G.

I like the crisp feel.

 

[Sam Winzar]

Even before reading that you finished with F, F stood out as my clear favourite. It just looked incredibly sharp but in a way that doesn't feel harsh.

 

[Mike Ossou]

My vote would be for D.

Having said that, I may have answered differently if the image was moving. I haven't learned to judge single frames from a moving image yet. I still look at them as photographs. As a photograph, the brighter and sharper the mustache, the more the eye is drawn to it and the image becomes about the mustache rather than the subject. After D, that single hair becomes far to much of a distraction to my eyes.

But this isn't a photograph - so I'm not sure how I would feel if the image was moving.

I can say this, keep doing whatever you are doing. Because your work always looks good.

 

[Phil Holland]

G.

I like the crisp feel.

G and H employ ADD and extra processing. So this should provide the cleanest texture and technically speaking the sharpest possible image. I can probably push it further, but I don't want to cut my screen

Even before reading that you finished with F, F stood out as my clear favourite. It just looked incredibly sharp but in a way that doesn't feel harsh.

I dig that!

My vote's A.

A is of course straight out of camera and scaled down to 4K. The original source is actually 5.5K if you're curious.

I think all can be used depending on what feeling/mood you want to enhance at that moment. I've seen almost all used.

I like more the B because it looks not computer manipulated. The A is a little blurry the rest too much contrast/over sharpened/faulty colors.

Correction: After 2-3 looks I think something between A and B will be my favorite.

A being straight of camera is sort of the "out of the barrel" way to work for me.

B is a technique that utilizes some sharpening in REDcine-X Pro + DEB. Which is fairly straight forward and not to time consuming.


To add to this as there's no real secret to keep about things I guess. This is ISO 500 material shot at 5.5K.

The primary difference between B and C is B has DEB enabled. D is straight ADD with the USM that ADD provides.

Methods G and H take the longest to process. A is the fastest as it's straight out of camera. B and C take a hair longer due to Post:Look:Effects:Sharpen enabled. F is sort of a middle option as it's not as time consuming as the further methods and doesn't effect texture/noise. I'm digging F. I won't use it for everything because it's time consuming for sure.

ADD is the only real thing going on in any of these options that would reduce noise/texture and you can sort of see where that kicks in. I can whip up a few other options, but this is what I've liked using lately.

 

[jacob.schwarz]

I like B & G.

 

[Michael Tiemann]

A through E have some weird magenta whiskers. I can accept that in the face there would be magenta/plum colors coming from swarthy coloring, but I cannot accept that these colors would bleed into white whiskers. I think the softness of F (compared to the sharpness of H) is a good starting point. But if we're at the point in the movie where the character is really sweating some detail in the shop and it's not clear how much longer it's going to take, then perhaps H is a better expression than the calmer, more character-friendly F.

 

[Mark Phelan]

F or G. Does that make it an effigy? I like the color in F and it's probably my overall favorite. A is simply too soft for that kind of up close shot for my taste. If we are going in tight, then we better see it is my view. I agree, you were getting painfully close to slicing your monitor, but it's fun to see the wrinkles, the dust, the hair. Pulls one into the shot.

 

[Dylan McLaughlin]

I like the color in F the best. As for the level of sharpness I agree with Joseph in that I prefer a softer look, but it depends entirely on what it's for.

I also really enjoy F. It does seem to be the tiniest bit too sharp for absolute perfection in my opinion.

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Really appreciate this line of inquiry Phil, far too many people make blanket statements about how UHD/4K looks without considering the many ways it can be treated in processing.

Cheers - #19

 

[Matt Ryan]

D & E. Clean and sharp... But maybe too sharp because it has the artifact of the magenta mustache.

But I love ADD+ADD's sharpening function so it makes sense I like those samples.

 

[Phil Holland]

Really appreciate this line of inquiry Phil, far too many people make blanket statements about how UHD/4K looks without considering the many ways it can be treated in processing.

Cheers - #19

Cheers Blair. There's about a billion ways to bake a final image. I like hearing the various thoughts and opinions about what people enjoy. This is oddly stuff that most can't observe properly at lower resolutions too. So for me this is more or less that last cherry on top after actually shooting quality footage.

I also really enjoy F. It does seem to be the tiniest bit too sharp for absolute perfection in my opinion.

Interesting. I can soften that sucker down a bit for a slight variation for sure.


For those spotting it. The slight color cast on edges that are a hair (pun intended) off of the focus plane are common among optics. If you have a piece of wire hit it with some light and have it coming away from the camera on the diagonal. Depending on a variety of factors as you pull focus up and down the wire you will a type of chromatic aberration on the edges that are out of focus from the point of in focus. The interesting bit here is it goes away the further you get into the out of focus image. However, where critical sharpness is locked on the glasses frame near the bottom you will notice no discoloration.

This is more or less one of the reasons I'm saving my pennies for some Leica Summilux-C Primes. However, I'm a realist and at the moment I know how to combat the little evils that optics can introduce

 

[Sam Winzar]

Do you mind sharing the process used on F?