ShaheedMalik wrote:I watched this but didn't like their workflow. The were using NR last instead of first.
I have generally taught my students to
use noise reduction last for a few simple reasons:
1) if you pound on the very first clip with NR, you may be stomping detail that you can't get back later on
2) just in the nature of balancing and adding contrast, you're going to increase apparent noise just in the process of adding gain. That alone means the NR should come
after this stage, because the gain increases noise while also increasing video level.
3) I generally make the case of doing NR at the very end in a separate node, and tailor the NR specifically for the nature of the shot: for example, one setting for night interiors, one for night exteriors, one for day interiors, one for day exteriors. All of those situations will probably require a different setting for the NR controls. Even with Resolve NR, I'll often make a separate Y (luma) and C (chroma) SNR adjustment, just to hang on to as much detail as we possibly can.
4) there's always the argument that
texture is important for final color and if you remove the texture early in the process, you can't ever really get it back, no matter what extra processing you add. If you put the NR towards the end, you always have the opportunity to turn it way down or even bypass it entirely. If it's in the first node, you may be damaging the signals in ways you're not even aware of throughout the process.
5) for film features, I tend to render out the entire first pass as a flattened 444 file (provided there's time), then I use a fairly targeted setting for Neat video based on the 4 parameters above (day int, day ext, night int, night ext), and I use PowerGrades with the appropriate neat setting as required. I tend to use much less aggressive settings than the automatic noise profile and instead turn at least half of the NR off to make sure we're not losing too much detail. A little noise is fine; a lot of noise is not. It's a fine to walk.
6) you can make a case pro and con for adding some mild sharpening after the NR if you feel there's a perceptual loss in edge detail. Neat has a setting for that, and again we try to be conservative and not take it too far.
7) note also that it's possible to target just highlights-only or shadows-only for NR, or even have the NR only affect a specific color channel. I've had cases where the blue channel is kind of "thick" and noisy, so I'll use some very mild NR just on Blue channel to try to tame it a little bit, but not lose any detail at all. So there's a lot of "it depends" to this setting.
Mon Jan 27, 2020 9:27 pm
