OK, just something I've discovered, forgotten, and then after playing around, re-discovered today. I don't have the money or the proper docking software for Grain Surgery (*ahem, SoFo*), so I've been doing my own version of grain surgery with underlit and/pan'ed images. Run a combination of three effects -- Curves, Gaussian Blur, and Sharpen over the grainy footage, and thorugh tweaking you'll find you can put the footage within an acceptable range.
Typically, I do Curves ahead of anything, and they can go a long way to remove grain. Gaussian Blur set to .010 or less in both directions does a good job as well, and finally, depending on the imagery, I use the Sharpen presets from Light to Heavy to get the job done. This might be a good point of departure to ask -- what is the difference between Sharpen and Unsharp? I recall the latter being a standard Photoshop filter, but I can't, offhand, recall what it does...
Also, while I haven't done definitive studies of the Video Master Bus effects like Supersampling and Motion Blur, I will say that I recently slowed some DV down to 35% and combined a SS rate of 5 with MB set to .01 and the footage looks amazing. I left these master bus settings on while rendering the above mentioned grainy footage, as well, and they likely helped.
Something else I'd like to pass along: multi-layered color styling is fun in Vegas. Drop three layers of the same footage on your Vegas timeline, labeling them 1) Mask, 2) Color Overlay, and finally 3) Original Footage. Make sure all the footage has the same start/end points on their respective tracks.
On the top layer (Mask), apply 'Black and White' (set to 1.000), Brightness and Contrast' (ramp the Contrast setting up past .50), and finally a little 'Gaussian Blur' (.005 in both directions).
On layer 2 (Overlay), assign the colors you want to effect Highs, Mids and Lows through your mask by using the Color Corrector.
Your third layer stays untouched.
Combine the top two layers by making Layer 2 the Compositing Child of Layer 1. Make sure your MaskFX are set to Luminance. Your footage should take on the colors that you've assigned it in Layer 2.
There you have it -- you can achieve a wide range of color effects this way, and if you're clever you can do all sorts of other tricks that follow after this format. Play around to get the look you want -- particularly with the mask layer which controls the density of color adjustments.
What are some of your Vegas tips and Tricks? (BillyBoy is allowed to join in *wink*)
- jim
Typically, I do Curves ahead of anything, and they can go a long way to remove grain. Gaussian Blur set to .010 or less in both directions does a good job as well, and finally, depending on the imagery, I use the Sharpen presets from Light to Heavy to get the job done. This might be a good point of departure to ask -- what is the difference between Sharpen and Unsharp? I recall the latter being a standard Photoshop filter, but I can't, offhand, recall what it does...
Also, while I haven't done definitive studies of the Video Master Bus effects like Supersampling and Motion Blur, I will say that I recently slowed some DV down to 35% and combined a SS rate of 5 with MB set to .01 and the footage looks amazing. I left these master bus settings on while rendering the above mentioned grainy footage, as well, and they likely helped.
Something else I'd like to pass along: multi-layered color styling is fun in Vegas. Drop three layers of the same footage on your Vegas timeline, labeling them 1) Mask, 2) Color Overlay, and finally 3) Original Footage. Make sure all the footage has the same start/end points on their respective tracks.
On the top layer (Mask), apply 'Black and White' (set to 1.000), Brightness and Contrast' (ramp the Contrast setting up past .50), and finally a little 'Gaussian Blur' (.005 in both directions).
On layer 2 (Overlay), assign the colors you want to effect Highs, Mids and Lows through your mask by using the Color Corrector.
Your third layer stays untouched.
Combine the top two layers by making Layer 2 the Compositing Child of Layer 1. Make sure your MaskFX are set to Luminance. Your footage should take on the colors that you've assigned it in Layer 2.
There you have it -- you can achieve a wide range of color effects this way, and if you're clever you can do all sorts of other tricks that follow after this format. Play around to get the look you want -- particularly with the mask layer which controls the density of color adjustments.
What are some of your Vegas tips and Tricks? (BillyBoy is allowed to join in *wink*)
- jim