Anyone notice images rotated w/small push using PIP get "soft"?

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 3/4/2026, 11:59 PM

On a current project, I noticed one camera was slightly rotated (wasn't completely level).

Because I multi-cam edit, I wanted to fix this at the media level.

THRILLED I was to realize I could use PIP on the media to rotate just that tiny amount and push in just a hair to fill the black corners which resulted from the rotation.

Source was recorded 1080p59.94, render output is 1080p59.94. Rotation is so small I thought all would be good.

But then I saw the render output and it looks... soft.

Has anyone else experienced soft renders after rotating with PIP?

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Comments

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 3/8/2026, 6:36 PM

I like it's speed which doesn't slow down preview renders very much and isn't too hard to change to AI Upscale for final overnight renders.

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 3/8/2026, 7:00 PM

So even for a minor push and 1 degree rotation (or less), you'd find AI Upscale a higher quality than the other methods?

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 3/9/2026, 1:12 PM

For the zoom part, absolutely, because AI Upscale has sharpen & denoise models plus an extra sharpen checkbox. If I use the denoise model and need a littler more sharpen than the checkbox delivers, I stack AI Sharpen behind it. For the rotation, I usually do that with pan/crop unless I'm going to animate it, in which case I like working with pip in front of pan/crop better. Also gives the option of putting the pip-rotation in front of everything which might make a difference.

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 3/9/2026, 6:49 PM

We're still rocking Neat Video for our noise reduction when needed. AI Sharpen is worth the performance hit over the standard "Sharpen"? Visually what have you observed different?

My G70's tend to read a tiny bit soft for my liking for stage performances, especially for full-stage/wide perspective where the talent is already so small on screen, so I tend to use a Very Light sharpening on a regular basis (depending on show mood and quality of the image)

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 3/10/2026, 11:40 AM

After doing client preview screenings rendered without AI, I always get positive feedback of how more polished it looks after swapping AI in for the final overnight render. I only wish AI Upscale had a checkbox to reduce it to Smart Zoom's load because the location parameters do not exactly match when switching between them without a little tweaking.