Color Matching Video and Still Pictures

[wwaag]

I am putting together a trip video that includes both DV footage and still pictures (converted to DV). Any suggestions or tips on the best way to "color match" these two sources? It's clear that the still photos are overly saturated when compared with video footage of the same subject. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

wwaag

[Bjs]

Use any tool you want , but grab a snapshot from the dv footage , and have that open as your comparison file .

Mwsnap is good for snapshots and is free .

Now you could use what ever tool you like to edit the pictures too try and get them too match closer too the comparison file , but try the gimp , its free , and has some decent filters built into it for adjusting colour , ect .

Just when saving in the gimp , you do need to actaully specify the output type , ie , saving as moonstone.jpg , you need to include the file extension , as the gimp dose forget .

I think a while back there was something called dc enhancer , a free photo enhancment tool , that not only did all this , but the filters were brilliant , so it might pay to dig about , or search for "digital photo enhancement , freeware" , that should pull a few up for you to use ...

My hard drives get full of these things ... never know when someone else might want them later ...

[gadgetguy]

Irfanview has some decent and easy to use color adjustment, and it's free.

[edDV]

I am putting together a trip video that includes both DV footage and still pictures (converted to DV). Any suggestions or tips on the best way to "color match" these two sources? It's clear that the still photos are overly saturated when compared with video footage of the same subject. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

wwaag

How are you editing this video?

Program? Many editng programs have still import filtering, others rely on programs like Photoshop.

It is important to have your DV path calibrated and a monitor path estableshed before adjusting the stills.

[wwaag]

Thanks for the responses. For image editing, I use Photoshop CS2. For video editing, I use Premiere Pro 1.5 in conjunction with a Matrox RTX-10 card. I also use a Colorvision Spyder 2 for calibration of my monitor.

Let me clarify. For my stills, I use Canopus Imaginate to create image "movement" (i.e., Ken Burns effect). Imaginate outputs an AVI file that can be input into Premiere along with my DV footage for final editing. In this way, I can integrate my DV video footage with video footage produced from my still images.

The problem is that, for the same subject, the color characteristics of the two sources are not the same. As stated in my original post, the resulting video from the stills appears overly saturated. The "easy" solution is to simply "desaturate" all of the images by trial and error so that they appear to be roughly the same. However, there should be a more systematic way of color matching--e.g. shooting a video and still photo of a "color test pattern" and then adjusting the still photos so that they match. Hopefully, someone has done this and could offer some suggestions.

Again, thanks for the replies.

wwaag

[vhelp]

I think that what your problem is, when trying to "color match" your
*still camera* against your *dv cam video footage stills* has something
to do with the way the dv video footage is being "sampled" whilest
your *still camera* is not being sampled.. (ie, 422 or 420 or 411 etc)

Based on what I understand in your setup..

** still camera is 444 non-sampling (theory)
** dv cam is 411 sampling, followed by jpeg compression
** color matching *might* require down-sampling the still camera pic to 411

I believe (theory here) that the way/approach to this is to take your
still camera pics sample them to 411 the way dv is. Then, you
should be able to more closely match them up w/ last minute fine-tuning
adjustments with color filters or satuation levels, etc.

-vhelp 3628

[edDV]

I don't think the problem is sampling*. It is most likely color space and levels. I don't have Photoshop CS2 or Imaginate but a user forum for Imaginate should quickly solve this issue. There is one on the Canopus site.

Probably one in the DMN forums.

Premiere is ready to import from Photoshop. I'm sure Imaginate has a procedure.


*although the stills do need to be downsampled into DV format.

[wwaag]

Guess I'll try the Imaginate forum with the same question altlhough most appear to be Edius rather than Premiere users.

Incidentally, Imaginate has a direct plug-in for Premiere, although the consensus from the Imaginate forum seems to be is that it is better to render first (uncompressed RGBA) from Imaginate and then import into Premiere which I've done. I've also imported these stills directly into Premiere as JPEG's with the same result. A couple of years ago, I did a similar project using output (MPG converted to DV) from Memories on TV with the same problem.

My suspicion is that it's a color space problem. Again, desaturating a bit seems to work, but there should be a more precise method. Thanks again.

wwaag

[dipstick]

Since you've imported the image sequence as an avi into Premiere, why don't you simply use one of Premiere's color correcting filters to adjust saturation to your preferance?

[vhelp]

At the moment, it is difficult to determine the exact causes of
your two sources matching as "stills".

It would be wise to post some "still camera pics" and "dv cam pics".

Also, although I was talking color space as well, when I was on about
with the sampling, I also think that it would be wise to do a search
on your still camera's finalized image format.. ie, how is it storing
your pic as, RGB or YUV. And, if YUV, what format (sampling) is it
in.

Knowing this, you can move further towards your goal.

For example.

lets assume that your still camera is outputing as YUV raw data.
The next step would be to know what format it is using.. for example,
YUY2_422 or YUV_411 etc etc.

Then, if you determined that it is YUY2_422 (hyperthetically speaking)
you would next sample down to 411 color space.

But, what is your still camera is finalizing to RGB color space.
Then, the next step would be to convert to YUV, and then finally, to
sample it to 411 for DV.
If it *is* RGB, then you could try this.

** open such BMP inside vdub.
** select the compression, and choose a DV codec to compress to
** then, save as, an AVI file. (you can do this with one pic)
** .
** then, you now have a DV 411 image that you can now ADD to your
** dv timeline inside vdub.
** and compare from there.

Then, go from there with your graphics apps.

I suspect that it is possible that you could be suffering on account of
the codec installed on your given system for dv decompression.

But, don't forget, that your still camera is progressive, and not
interlace, like dv is.. which is really 720 x 240 (field) pixels.

-vhelp 3631

[edDV]

8bit RGBA is usually scaled 0-255 per component. DV and DVD are YUV with 16-235 luminance.

My suspicion is the RGB to YUV transfer didn't scale black to 16. This would darken the image and may look like oversaturation.

Check your gray scale with a luminance ramp or stair step pattern.

I have no way to test Imaginate.

[wwaag]

Thank for all the replies. Also got a few suggestions on the Imaginate forum. At least, I've got some options to try. Will report back on results.

wwaag

[wwaag]

Again, thanks for the sugestions. I think I have found a workable solution for those few situations in which I will have video and photos of roughly the same subject. In Photoshop, I first applied the NTSC color as suggested in another forum. Using levels, I then restricted the output to 16-235, the same as my DV footage. This had a noticeable effect, but the image was still not close to the video. I then imported the image into Premiere and opened the Color Correction effect. Pretty neat since it has a split-screen option to show you the results of changes. Guess I was wrong about saturation, since changing that had little effect on the image.

After trying a number of different changes, I found that simply reducing gamma a certain amount solved the problem. Since making such changes in Premiere is pretty time-consuming (re-rendering), I went back to my image-editing application and applied the gamma-reduction there. Worked well. Although I suspect the match isn't perfect, it's certainly OK.

I still think the idea of taking a photo and video of some standard "color test pattern" has merit in which the lighting could be controlled. But at least for the moment, I think I have an OK workaround. Again, thanks.

wwaag

[edDV]

Again, thanks for the sugestions. I think I have found a workable solution for those few situations in which I will have video and photos of roughly the same subject. In Photoshop, I first applied the NTSC color as suggested in another forum. Using levels, I then restricted the output to 16-235, the same as my DV footage. This had a noticeable effect, but the image was still not close to the video. I then imported the image into Premiere and opened the Color Correction effect. Pretty neat since it has a split-screen option to show you the results of changes. Guess I was wrong about saturation, since changing that had little effect on the image.

After trying a number of different changes, I found that simply reducing gamma a certain amount solved the problem. Since making such changes in Premiere is pretty time-consuming (re-rendering), I went back to my image-editing application and applied the gamma-reduction there. Worked well. Although I suspect the match isn't perfect, it's certainly OK.

I still think the idea of taking a photo and video of some standard "color test pattern" has merit in which the lighting could be controlled. But at least for the moment, I think I have an OK workaround. Again, thanks.

wwaag

Thanks for reporting back. I hope you realize that you can-should be doing all these adjustments while watching the TV monitor. Premiere and other programs support real time TV monitoring via the camcorder IEEE-1394 connection. The results will be very different vs the computer monitor. First step is to adjust the TV to the Premiere DV color bar (16-235 levels, use pluge for black, etc.)

http://www.indianapolisfilm.net/article.php?story=20040117004721902
http://www.videouniversity.com/tvbars2.htm

In any case, you should be adjusting the still to match the video, not the other way around.

[wwaag]

edDv wrote:

Thanks for reporting back. I hope you realize that you can-should be doing all these adjustments while watching the TV monitor. Premiere and other programs support real time TV monitoring via the camcorder IEEE-1394 connection. The results will be very different vs the computer monitor. First step is to adjust the TV to the Premiere DV color bar (16-235 levels, use pluge for black, etc.)

Yes, I do use an external monitor that is displayed through my video card, a Matrox RTX-10, that I have attempted to calibrate using NTSC color bars. It's an old monitor, but shouldn't matter too much since I'm only using it to "compare" the 2 video sources. Since I routinely, "Photoshop" all images taken from a digital camera (as well as old ones from film), I calibrate my computer monitor using Colorvision's Spyder 2. The first time I calibrated, I was amazed how much the original monitor settings were "off". So at least, I know that the source imagery from camera images is pretty accurate. Colorvision is also planning to release a system for calibrating external monitors and TV's, but I haven't looked into that. If it's reasonably priced, that would be very useful. Agaiin, thanks for your reply.

wwaag