Digital noise in still images

Does anyone know how to filter out or at least reduce all that noise you see when digital stills pan and zoom? It's very distracting. And I remember the guy at the Apple store saying there was a video filter for it but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Nothing I've tried has worked.

What you are seeing is sometimes described as "image flicker". The flickering is an artifact of the interlaced nature of video. It is a result of very thin (often horizontal) elements that exist on one scanline as is common in text or titling. This can also be the case in scanned images with great deal of detail with high contrast.
As the alternate fields play, the flashing element is essentially being turned on/off. The basic strategy is to get the element to exist over two scanlines so it is refreshed every time the field plays and/or to reduce the amount of contrast so the difference between ON and OFF is not so noticeable.
Things to try (In increasing order of image degradation)
- (in FCP) field order>none
- (in FCP or Photoshop) reduce whites by 10% - reduces overly bright areas. You can also work to reduce areas of very high contrast.
- (in FCP) flicker filter - minimum
- (in Photoshop) motion blur>vertical> .2 - .5 pixels - blurs vertically only
- (In FCP or Photoshop) Gaussian blur> .2 - .5 pixels -blurs both horizontally as well as vertically
- (in FCP or Photoshop) deinterlace - throws away half the image and is generally not appropriate on scanned images
Remember: Unless you are viewing your work in the appropriate external NTSC/PAL monitor, you are playing blind. The computer monitor only shows you a half resolution proxy image.
good luck.
x

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Digital noise using Apple 10-bit uncompressed codec for NTSC, BIG PROBLEM!

I hope someone from Apple or the Shake team can shed some light on this problem we're having so we can take the appropriate corrective action ASAP to meet our strict deadlines on this current project.
We're compositing all the EFX (over 1000 EXF shots) for a massive video game project that needs to be delivered to the client by the end of May. Let me preface the following comments by saying that overall, we're very pleased with Shake and the end results we're getting, but one problem in particular has us very worried about making our deadline:
The project is entirely bluescreen with CGI plates, shot on anamorphic Digibeta and captured into FCP as uncompressed 10 bit. 4:2:2 through a Blackmagic HD Extreme card (via SDI).
All the 4:2:2 material exhibits (for lack of a better desciption) digital "noise" that runs along the right-hand edge of the video, with frequent drop-out "looking" sparkles that can appear anywhere in the video image. These artifacts ONLY appear when the video clips are imported into Shake, and rendered out of Shake. They play perfectly fine in FCP and QT player.
If we force the FILE-IN node to 8 bit, the problem goes away, but keying suffers - so this is not an option.
The problem ONLY occurs on our Intel Mac's, not on our older G5's. The reason we invested in the Mac Pro's for this project was to reap the performance boost we desired in order to get the project out the door by our deadline, plus the G5's are busy offlining upcoming episodes - so turning the compositing over to the G5's is also not an option.
We're already well down the road, and while we realize that at Shake's current price-point it seems silly to complain at all, we gladly would have paid more for a compositing tool if we knew we were going to run into a situation like this. Unforunately, our initial evaluation of Shake was done on our G5's which don't suffer from this issue.
If anyone from has any recommendation for an efficient way to solve or work around this issue, we'd love to hear from you.
Best regards,
Michael Buday

Not sure the exact answer, but some options to try:
1) have you tried converting the clips to image
sequences? Perhaps it's a QuickTime error.
2) How about using 2 FileIns - one at 10 bit to
generate the keys and one at 8 bit for the fill?
Patrick
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Hello Patrick and thanks for your suggestion:
We're going to experiment with different codecs and image sequences this week to see what happens.
RE: using different FILEIN's for key/fill, is something I hadn't thought of but unfortunately the 10bit FILEIN would still be affected by the noise which would in turn affect the alpha channel created by Keylight or Primatte.
I'll let you know what we find out as things progress.
Again, thanks.
Michael
G5 Dual 1.8 GHZ Mac OS X (10.4.3) FCP 5.03, STO 1.01

Using still images with Final Cut (and the apple suite in general)

I have had a re-occuring and long term problem that has caused me many lost hours of head scratching and work arounds, and as of yet I have not been able to come up with a good solution.
Its to do with integrating still images with the Final Cut suite.
If I receive a high quality image from a client to use in their video and I then try importing it into Final Cut and animating it, it always ends up looking like a pile of ahem. Often I will get "swimming" lines appear across fine detail on the image, and parts of it will flicker as it moves across the screen. For instance, if I have a picture of some blinds or other fine detail (especially horizontal and vertical lines), when I add a grow and throw movement to it the detail will become very noisy - buzzing and flickering like mad.
I have found I can counter this by resizing the image in photoshop to a resolution closer to SD video (700w or 500h) - but I always end up losing detail, and the flickering and noise is only reduced, not eliminated. Other things that have helped are blur effects applied at a very low level, like 0.5 blur, so its not noticeable visually, but Final Cut seems to treat it differently and quieten the noise and flicker down.
However, all of these workarounds are ultimately still giving a reduced quality product.
Also, this problem is not necessarily constrained to Final Cut, I am currently fighting DVD Studio Pro because it is murdering the text quality in a stills slideshow I am creating - and in this situation there is no animation being applied. No matter what file type (psd, jpeg, tiff, png...) or size I output the text and images from Photoshop in, the moment DVD studio pro gets hold of it, it turns to cripe.
For a while I was putting it down to the fact that I usually edit in SD (PAL) formats, and there just wasn't the resolution available to reproduce fine detail. However, I do often see other people achieving pin-sharp fine detail on still images and text in SD formats (the Apple templates are a good example)
So, my question to you, oh great and high boffins, if you are dealing with still images and text, how do you do it? How do you work around any noise problems you have, and how do you produce those pin-sharp images (both moving and still) I see in other professional productions?
Quad G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

still images with too high a resolution will always cause problems. this is due to the detail of the image being finer than the scanline of the tv can display ... obviously this will caise the image to flicker as these details alternately appear and disappear as and when the scanline can display them. as you have discovered, the answer is to apply a very small blur, the effect being that the detail is spread by the blur such that the scanline can dislay it correctly.
text issues are often rooted in the same problem ... unless the text is placed very carefully (whole even number on the y axis) then the quality may be impaired due to the resulting interlacing/scanline issues

Using still image in FCP and Motion

I'm using still images in Motion (and FCP) and exporting them to Quicktime movie files. What's the best size and resolution for the images and are JPGs or TIF best? I'm exporting for 720 X 480, and currently my JPGs are 4 x 6 at 300 dpi with a pixel width and height of 1312 x 2000. I'm adding some behaviors to the images in Motion (motion paths and shrink/grow).
My FCP project is setup as a DV NTSC 48kHz, 720 x 480, editing timebase=59.94, timecode Rate=same as editing timebase, compressor-DV/DVPRO-NTSC, quality 100%.
When I export to Quicktime the movies are very low quality--lots of noise and moire pattern etc.
How do I get the best qualtiy using still images? Is it my FPS setting, image pixel size, compressor setting? Also, do the movies need to be deinterlaced?
The preview in the FCP browser and canvas looks a little better but I do notice noise (moire patterns) along the sharp edges of the still images.
I've seen QT movies of these very same images (done by someone else who is no longer around) and they are much better quality.
Does anyone have an appropriate workflow for this type of project? The final movies are to be shown on a flatscreen monitor from a local computer, so the file sizes can be relatively large (300mb).
I can post an example of he movie files if that might help.
Thanks.
Pedro

David, your a genius!!! You posted your reply on my birthday, and I missed it until today!
Fotomagico is devastatingly easy to use and absolutely makes me want to cry at the amount of time I wasted creating photo slideshows in FCP!
I opened Fotomagico up and created a slideshow, one that I had already created in FCP and had take me FIVE HOURS to create... in TEN MINUTES!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaah.
I couldn't believe it. I thought there had to be a catch or something. This was too easy the quality can't be there... but it was. It's amazing and I can't thank you enough for all the future hours you have saved for me.
Al Romero

Digital Noise - DVI Port 1 only

Last night one of the two Viewsonic VX910 monitors connected to my G5 went dark and would flicker on for less than a second (showing the correct screen) then blink out. Called Viewsonic and it's under warranty It was in port 1 of the built in AGP card that came with the G5.
Port 2's monitor looked good, so I plugged it into port 1. Anything black or very dark displayed lots of red digital noise - sort of like a TV tuned to a non-channel, but less so and the red noise is only against dark or black backgrounds. All other colors look fine..
Since port 2 was still fine, I assumed the video card was fried by the monitor. I installed a new card (Radeon 9600*) but got the same exact results!
I've run the hardware tests on the G5 from the install DVD. All passed. RAM is good, no discernible hardware failures, etc. Yet the problem persists.
Any ideas? Could the VRAM have gotten friend or corrupted? Or perhaps I might want to reset the PMU? Guess it couldn't hurt, but I don't think that could have done it.
Thanks in advance for any insights you might have.
* BTW, the 9600 card would only boot in Safe Mode. It was actually fine until I installed the ATI software. DUH! But apparently, that is a known incompatibility with some G5's - as mentioned in other threads here in the Apple forums.

In the interest of the discussions, I am posting the 'fix' for future campers with this problem.
I changed the refresh rate from 75 to 60 hertz and the noise is gone! I don;t remember setting it there but who knows what the viewsonic monitor decided it wanted to make it;s last request...

Tall still images iPhone 4

While on vacation I discovered the digital zoom feature on my iPhone 4 video camera, that zooms out to letterbox when you double tap.
When I got home and uploaded my still images photos to my computer, some of the still images are taller than others, as if they were shot in letterbox too. I can't figure out how I did it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

U mind telling us when u ordered your iPhone 4? If it has been under 2 weeks, then you need to wait more. It has been told that it takes around 2-3 weeks to get one.

Video Still Image Enhancement Software

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone out there can give me some assistance. We video horse shows and at a show last week we had some requests we have never had to deal with before -- a bunch of people wanting still images from our video. (The photographer at the show was not good at all and took few if any action shots).
At any rate, we collected names and numbers and told the people who asked we'd try. I've pulled stills off video before and used them on the covers of some of the training DVDs we've produced, but I've never tried to blow them up to anything beyond a 1 or 2 inch shot. These people would be happy with a 4x6.
Knowing that I have a number of folks out there who would pay for even a "reasonably" clear still image, I was wondering if there was any software newly available that helped boost the resolution of a video still and/or software that increased the quality of image.
I did some quick research on the web and found a Windows product called Topaz Moments and a Adobe Premere plug-in from RedHawkVision, but nothing that was a stand alone (or FCP compatible/Quicktime Compatible) product for Mac OSX. These products seemed to tout they did a multiple frame combine to render a sharper image than a single frame grab.
Any help provided would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Kim

Captures from DV video are 720x480 non-square pixels. The equivalent of a really cheap still camera c. 2000 (640x480 pixel image)
To get the best possible image pick a segment where there is NO or VERY LITTLE motion. The more motion,the more interlacing problems.
If you have interlacing issues (usually evidenced by jagged vertical lines), you may need to deinterlace the image, which basically means, you are throwing away half the vertical resolution in order to clear up the jaggies. The outcome of this is your image is effectively now a 640 x240 pixels, though the 240 will be doubled through digital trickery to become 480 again. Nevertheless, the resolution IS significantly decreased.
So.....
If you figure you will print these images out at 150 dpi, your 640x480 image is slightly wider than 4 inches and higher than 3 inches. 4x6 is possible but temper expectations before you hand them the prints.
Good luck.
FWIW, if you think you are going to have continued requests for stills, you will be much better served by an inexpensive (or expensive as your business model provides) digital camera for stills.
Good luck.
x

Can not make still image using share in Final Cut Pro x

This is what I get when trying to make a still image under share.
(com.apple.Compressor.CompressorKit.ErrorDomain error -1.)
This is a new error message. Was able to make still image before.
Thanks for anny help in solving this problem.
Russ Andris

Hi again Russ,
just posted this over at Compressor because of the Compressor related error message I was getting wheN i tried to 'Share' a sill image from video.
Thanks for the tip Russ, I did not know that one. I had tried using cmd+shift+3 with Snapz Pro to screen capture which intially worked but then did not. I tried ditching the prefs and the apps with Digital Rebellion but had no luck in saving a still. But, I installed the new FCPX update and on first try I was able to export a stll frame, on one laptop anyway. BTW, must say, I am not keen on the 'Share' notion in an app like FCPX. What I considering I am doing when trying to obtain a stil image is exporting or saving not sharing. I hope Apple might considered amending such terminology, share seems appropriate for iTunes or iWeb but not FCPX.
One more thing, a truly odd one. Files marled as .mov from my Fujifilm X100 will not import into FCPX!!
That is truly amazing - Quicktime files not recognised by an Apple aplication!! Our trials are not over.
D

Bringing in a still image

Hi there, I need to bring a still image into my project but for the life of me can't find out how to get a clean image. The image was created in Powerpoint and I have it in 5 formats including TIFF and JPEG. I loaded them all to the scratch disk and brought them into the project. All look great in the Viewer but all, except TIFF, are fragmented when in video. TIFF looks the best but is letterbox ratio. Yes, I'm new to FCP and really have been going from chapter to chapter per the manuals and still none the wiser. I went to Item properties but can't seem to make adjustments, not that I know the problem lies here but on and off since yesterday I've been trying. I'm only a few weeks into this and, I know, it's the terminolgy that gets me stumped. I read on analog/digital but it didn't point me in the right direction. Any help is greatly appreciated even if it's the chapter I need to read. Oh, I think I'm learning a lot faster reading the forums that wading through the manuals. Thanks.
iPOD Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thanks Steve. I thought I had rendered but obviously hadn't. I don't have anything else hooked up I'm just viewing the image on the canvas. Checked 100%, squared pixels, rendered and it looked good but outside the title safe area. Couldn't see a way to reduce the image once on the timeline so deleted image and reduced the size in the viewer and repeated steps, it's great. Is there a way I could have reduced the image in the canvas? Thanks again.
iPOD Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Trouble with short still image durations

I know this is probably stupid and something simple I'm missing ...
I have a series of digital stills that I can import to the timeline etc etc
but
I cannot find anyway to make the duration of each less than one second. Even if I enter less, it defaults back to one second. I need these to fire one after another really quickly.
TIA

The still image duration is set by whatever you entered in FCP's preferences. Change the preference setting to whatever duration you need, then import the images into your project and drop them on the Timeline.
-DH

How to reduce noise from still pictures in PE 11?

Hi
I have tried to set a few still pictures into my video. They were taken with high ISO 4000, with a Full frame camaera (NIKON D600). They look sharp and fine in any photo viewer. But when creatin a video with PE 11 they become VERY noisy/grainy.
WHY, and how do I reduce this noise?
Christian

Welcome to the forum.
Video noise most often shows up, when the Images are underexposed, and then brightened in some way.
I have found Neat Video to be a very good video noise reduction tool. It's 3rd party, not too expensive, and has worked well for me.
There is another product from Neat, Neat Image, which works beautifully on Still Images. It will also work well to remove film grain, in scanned film-captured Images.
What I do not know is if Neat Video will use PrElements as a host application. I know that it works well with PrPro.
Neat Image is available in three ways - a stand-alone, a plug-in for Photoshop (do not know about Photoshop Elements), or as a combo-pack with both.
As Steve comments, doing Image manipulation in Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements is the best way to handle Still Images. While PrE can do some Still Image manipulation/correction, its tools are designed for Video. Photoshop (either version) has far more tools for Stills.
Good luck,
Hunt

Creating Still Images/High quality JPG's...please help

We are in desparate need of creating quality still images from captured video. Basically, we have footage in mini DV format that we import into Final Cut HD using a Sony Clamshell deck. What is the best way to make high quality still images?
We tried it this way....Export Quicktime as Still image...and it just looks bad, Even after De-interlacing it within Photoshop. We need it to look exactly like it does if we simply press pause on the deck or pause within Final Cut.

When you start with DV material, the highest res you can for a still image capture is 720x480 (non-square) or the equivalent of a really bad quality cheepo still camera. (~640x480 square pixels)
To avoid the need to deinterlace, (the horrors of which are described below) find sections in your masterpiece that have VERY LITTLE motion, i.e. everyone/thing standing/existing absolutely still with the camera locked down on a tripod. These sections will yield the very best possible still images.
If you have motion the frame, the still images will exhibit 'tearing' which comes from the two fields of video being recorded ~1/60 second apart. The second field shows elements displaced from the first field - hence a kind of internal image shifting going on. The only real way to deal with these kind of images is to deinterlace them - that is - decide which field you are going to keep and throw away the other.
When you have deinterlaced the image, you have in effect reduced it from a 720x480 image to a 720x240 image. The image pixel count REMAINS 720x480 but with half the vertical information as the remaining lines are doubled or interpolated to build back to 480 lines.
Confused yet? I hope not...
Still, if you know you'll want stills from a project, it's better to carry around a small digital still camera, you'll get better results. Otherwise, plan on pretty small prints.
Good luck.
x
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Trying to get a high quality still image

Hi,
I am trying to get a high quality still image from a 16mm film I completed years ago. I have had it transfered to digital format and brought it in to Final Cut Pro Studio 2. The distributor (Canyon Cinema) wants a high resolution image for the website. 600-dpi or better. When I create a still it comes out 72. How can I increase the resolution of the image for distribution on their website? Thanks to anyone who get guide me to the 21st century...

DPI is essentially meaningless in the video world. DPI is a measurement for the print world only.
But since video resolution equates roughly to 72 DPI, that's the best you'll get. Best to go back to the original film and pull a still from there.
Or you could try one of those resolution enhancing plugins for Photoshop like Genuine Fractals.
-DH

I'm getting a still image in the beginning of my movie when I export. Why??

I don't understand why FCP is doing this. I export a bunch of movies (using batch export) and some of them export right while others get messed up. There would be a still image in the beginning or sometimes the end instead of seeing the actual movie. I can still hear the sound so it's only a problem with the video.
Because I use QT compression to export I don't have the option to re-compress all frames like in the "export using QT movie" command... right?
Help me out here. It's driving me crazy having to export everything a few times until final cut gets it right... Thanks.
Message was edited by: CBeditor

NLEdit,
Here's what I have (to the best of my knowledge):
Original source: mini DV tape, it's all HD
I use capture now to digitize the whole tape. My easy setup is: HDV- 1080i60 FiriWire Basic. After I have digitized all of it - it's an .mov file with the settings I just posted above. So when final cut is done digitizing I already have all the files in my browser window and I just drag them and drop them in the timeline and I choose to match the timeline settings if they're different. So my timeline settings look like this:
Frame Size: 1440x1080
Vid Rate: 29.97 fps
Compressor: HDV 1080i60
When I'm done editing, I use batch export to export a bunch of sequences (they all have the same settings I just mentioned above) and I chose:
Format: QuickTime (custom), Compression Type H.264, frame rate: 29.97 fps, key frames: every 24frames, compressor quality- high, encoding: best quality. Then for size I choose either 1280x720 HD or I use "custom" to make them half the size of that so that would be 640x360. My point is to end up with an .mov file which I can then encode into an flv or just burn it on a data cd.
As for your question number 1: I'm not even sure what you mean by that.
Does all that make any sense now?

IPhone 5 video recordings have alot of digital noise. Do i need a new phone?

Hi everyone!.
Well i preordered a iPhone 5 and after a few days use i got what was a dead mic and had to get the phone replaced. Apple gladly gave me a new phone but it seems to have developed some sort of issue where any video recording i do seems to have alot of digital noise for some reason. even when the volume is low i still hear the noise but especially when the recorded video is being played a little loud it sounds terrible with the awful noise. What can i do?

Is anyone going to reply?

Digital noise in still images

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