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Emulating film resolution

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Tom Lammerse

Hi!

I've been working with filmbox to emulate film and while I'm very pleased by the results there is still something I would like to refine. When working with 4K footage on a 4K timeline I find there is too much resolution under the grade to get pleasing grain integration. Especially when going for a 16mm look. I've tried different MTF workflows and while it softens things I've found there was still too much information. I've recently experimented with grading on a 720p timeline and exporting in 4K to upscale and while this gave some pleasant results it's not the most elegant way to work.

Any insights would be much appreciated.
 
Tom Lammerse said:
and while I'm very pleased by the res
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Tom Lammerse said:
Hi!

I've been working with filmbox to emulate film and while I'm very pleased by the results there is still something I would like to refine. When working with 4K footage on a 4K timeline I find there is too much resolution under the grade to get pleasing grain integration. Especially when going for a 16mm look. I've tried different MTF workflows and while it softens things I've found there was still too much information. I've recently experimented with grading on a 720p timeline and exporting in 4K to upscale and while this gave some pleasant results it's not the most elegant way to work.

Any insights would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
I use this approach with quite pleasing results: Create a parallel node with an edge detect effect, grayscale output, play with the settings to achieve slightly blurred sharp edges selection. Then use this node's output as the alpha channel input to a new node closer to the last node in your chain. Adjust the midtone details there and add a bit of blur to your taste. This method allows you to remove overly sharp details without creating an "out of focus" effect.
 
I worked on a forthcoming feature that was completely shot on 16mm Kodak 7219 back in April, and I told the director, "hey, we're gonna have to add some grain and similar jazz to the image: it looks far too sharp and clean for film. Nobody will believe it was shot on 16mm." So it kind of depends what era you're using to judge 16mm. 16mm meant one thing in the '70s, another thing in the '80s, another in the '90s, and in the last 20 years, 16mm negative on a really great scanner can look ridiculously good, to the point where it started to look like a digital camera. (This was all shot on an Arri 416 camera, which is an extremely steady and stable camera, arguably the best 16mm camera ever made.)

I think people get much too wrapped up in trying to create what they think film looks like. My advice is to get some real film and work with that, and you'll see there are lots and lots of facets to it. I'm fine with just throwing Dehancer or Filmbox or Genesis on a piece of digital material, turning the knobs, and then subjectively saying, "eh, that's close enough."

I never was a fan of halation in all my film transfers, and in fact do everything I can to reduce it, because I think it detracts from the picture quality. Kodak told me they felt the same way some years ago, and very recently they've taken steps to reduce halation even more in modern film stock:

A new anti-halation system offers a variety of technical and environmental
improvements while maintaining the film stock’s high image quality
www.kodak.com

AHU Announcement

Kodak announces new film structure for VISION3 color negatives.
www.kodak.com www.kodak.com

The revised film emulsions look fantastic. But for anybody who likes the effect of halation, you could always use a plug-in to simulate it later.
 
Tom Lammerse said:
Hi!

I've been working with filmbox to emulate film and while I'm very pleased by the results there is still something I would like to refine. When working with 4K footage on a 4K timeline I find there is too much resolution under the grade to get pleasing grain integration. Especially when going for a 16mm look. I've tried different MTF workflows and while it softens things I've found there was still too much information. I've recently experimented with grading on a 720p timeline and exporting in 4K to upscale and while this gave some pleasant results it's not the most elegant way to work.

Any insights would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...
if you're having issues with grain not reducing apparent resolution, it may be the way how the grain is implemented. I have found that increasing grain's intensity or opacity doesn't always give the desired result. What you may be looking for is more random luma, chroma, not more strength.

I call this grain paradox the "window effect" where through persistence of vision, our brains reconstruct the higher quality image underneath. Additionally, resolution and sharpness may not be be the same thing. If, however, the image was sharpened or not RAW, you may have post processing issues. If this isn't the case, I would shy away from edge blurring the image. The image should deconstruct naturally through grain pixellation, not blurring. Blurring can lead to image artifacts and other strange behavior like the grain being sharper than the image.

If instead, you run multiple passes of a grain layer using grain as a luma matte to the original image (this then used as a luma matte for the grain plate), you will both solve the window effect and the resolution issue at the same time.
 
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Chris Wright said:
if you're having issues with grain not reducing apparent resolution, it may be the way how the grain is implemented. I have found that increasing grain's intensity or opacity doesn't always give the desired result. What you may be looking for is more random luma, chroma, not more strength.

I call this grain paradox the "window effect" where through persistence of vision, our brains reconstruct the higher quality image underneath. Additionally, resolution and sharpness may not be be the same thing. If, however, the image was sharpened or not RAW, you may have post processing issues. If this isn't the case, I would shy away from edge blurring the image. The image should deconstruct naturally through grain pixellation, not blurring. Blurring can lead to image artifacts and other strange behavior like the grain being sharper than the image.

If instead, you run multiple passes of a grain layer using grain as a luma matte to the original image (this then used as a luma matte for the grain plate), you will both solve the window effect and the resolution issue at the same time.
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This is a really interesting method. How do you go about implementing this practically on a timeline?
 
A less sophisticated method is to simply to blur a little and then sharpen - try adding your grain infront, in the middle and at the end of the stack - they all behave quite differently. We do this often in design and animation to reduce the detail a little bit and get everything to play nice together. It is a coarse trick and I think that @Chris Wright 's solution sounds much more tuneable and sophisticated. I like the home-roll on this. Any "film effects" type solution I have seen looks effects-y to my eye.
 
I think applying a little diffusion before the film emulation can do wonders. Scatter does it well, as does DigiDiff, Hazy, and Grayscale Labs' Nano. To me, diffusion is the real "secret sauce" that can make good images great.
 
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