I had posted a bit on this topic in another thread and rather than take that thread further off track, wanted to state that I think there are several ways to minimize the limitations of 8 bit source video when color correcting in 32 bit floating point, color banding in particular.
I’m still experimenting to find methods that work best, but I started out thinking about dithering as it applies to a digitally sampled source. This is the original test I did that showed me there must be ways to improve the look (at least as it applies to banding) of 8 bit source footage.
I made a very dark 8-bit gray-scale gradient .png that displayed from 0-10 in Vegas’ waveform. That’s the top waveform display in the image below. Stairstepping is obvious. My goal was to see if I could stretch the luminance of that image to 0-100 and reduce the stairstepping.
I put that png in a 32 bit FP project. Stretching the luminance with a Levels plugin just took the stairsteps further apart, as you would expect. Then I created a full 0-255 gray-scale gradient in a video track above the .png. I set the compositing mode to Lighten and set the track opacity to around 4%. Although it was hard to see any difference, there was a slight lift on the left side of the waveform, peak level almost reached 11. I thought of this as adding the dithering “noise”. Then I put a chain of several Levels plugins on the output and used extreme levels and gamma adjustments until I got the range from 0-100 covered. The middle waveform display shows what this created. Many additional “steps” of luminance that weren’t apparent before.
The bottom waveform display shows the results of duplicating this process in an 8 bit project.
Since I initially did this test, I’ve started experimenting with similar methods when color correcting in 32 bit floating point. Things like using color gradients as you would a glass filter on the lens. It seems to only take a tiny amount of “new” floating-point information added in to get around some of the 8-bit barriers. You can argue whether the result is “better” or “worse” but it can allow for more extreme processing of 8 bit source material without artifacts.
This is just a personal exercise I thought I would share. With the time/money I’ve spent playing with this I probably could have bought a 10bit camera by now.
Would love to hear any comments, suggestions.
I’m still experimenting to find methods that work best, but I started out thinking about dithering as it applies to a digitally sampled source. This is the original test I did that showed me there must be ways to improve the look (at least as it applies to banding) of 8 bit source footage.
I made a very dark 8-bit gray-scale gradient .png that displayed from 0-10 in Vegas’ waveform. That’s the top waveform display in the image below. Stairstepping is obvious. My goal was to see if I could stretch the luminance of that image to 0-100 and reduce the stairstepping.
I put that png in a 32 bit FP project. Stretching the luminance with a Levels plugin just took the stairsteps further apart, as you would expect. Then I created a full 0-255 gray-scale gradient in a video track above the .png. I set the compositing mode to Lighten and set the track opacity to around 4%. Although it was hard to see any difference, there was a slight lift on the left side of the waveform, peak level almost reached 11. I thought of this as adding the dithering “noise”. Then I put a chain of several Levels plugins on the output and used extreme levels and gamma adjustments until I got the range from 0-100 covered. The middle waveform display shows what this created. Many additional “steps” of luminance that weren’t apparent before.
The bottom waveform display shows the results of duplicating this process in an 8 bit project.
Since I initially did this test, I’ve started experimenting with similar methods when color correcting in 32 bit floating point. Things like using color gradients as you would a glass filter on the lens. It seems to only take a tiny amount of “new” floating-point information added in to get around some of the 8-bit barriers. You can argue whether the result is “better” or “worse” but it can allow for more extreme processing of 8 bit source material without artifacts.
This is just a personal exercise I thought I would share. With the time/money I’ve spent playing with this I probably could have bought a 10bit camera by now.
Would love to hear any comments, suggestions.