getting rid of image noise - is there a "smart blur" filter?
I have some old VHS video footage that I would like to convert to dvd. The footage has quite a lot of image noise. Is there a filter that smoothes/blurs low-detail areas while retaining sharp edges? (sort of like "smart blur" in Photoshop?)
Mmm... not really... The problem lies within the source - VHS, and there's very little you can do to make VHS look any better than VHS...
You can try tweeking the contrast, or use colour correction, or even use a 1 - 2 point gaussian blur, these could diffuse the noise and make it less obvious.
the only other alternative is to go to a top-end post production house and see if they can clean it for you... but now we're talking money.
I've found that on 99% of VHS tapes I attempt to restore, one of the best things to do is use the desaturate filter. VHS seems to always come in oversaturated, creating noise in the colors. I pull some of the color out, and it makes the noise a lot more tolerable, more like watching a VHS tape and not crappy off air reception.
I tried stylize/anti-alias (mimimal value), which actually improved the picture, but I lost edge sharpness.
Might have thought of desaturating myself, since the original footage is black and white anyway... :-)=)
I'll try it. There are some color artifacts, but the noise is also in the luminance.
With "smart blur" I mean the photoshop filter which applies a kind of gaussian blur to smooth/low-detail areas without affecting sharp edges, so the image looses noise without getting blurry. You can adjust blur radius and edge threshold.
You can also export an image sequence from FCP and create a droplet action to do the smart blur in PhotoShop, then select your image sequence files and drop them into the PS droplet, then reassemble... Might take a while, but you'd get the exact PS processing...
Go into Image Control in the effects tab of fcp, double click on levels and then play with the gamma controls. I've had a lot of success using this filter when working with vhs material. Good Luck!