Adventures in the PCU

[Samuel H]

This is a thread for everything picture-control related
A twin of this other thread over at the Canon subforum: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread...res-in-the-PSE


And I'll inaugurate it by solemnly presenting the beta-2 of my Flaat suite of picture controls for Nikon DSLRs:
http://www.similaar.com/foto/flaat-p...ols/index.html

Forget about the ultra-high dynamic range endeavours: this is now mainly about the everyday tools, Flaat_10 and Flaat_11

As with the Canon picture styles, my aim when creating these was:
* Low noise in the final images, achieved by efficiently using the codec's color space
* Easy to grade, achieved by generating a smooth, log-like response to light
* Leading to nicer skin tones, achieved by using Portrait as base picture control
* Only on Flaat_11/12, more recorded DR (less part of the sensor's DR being clipped in the shadows; this comes at cost of noise)


Would you give them a try and tell me what you think?
(for those who don't know, the instructions on how to install this are in the download page, following the link above)

[Jon Neely]

could you in your wisdom make a profile that is catered to detail, low noise and good color representation for the shooter that for some jobs they dont want to spend time grading? For this kind of shooting I am shooting at iso 100-200 but shooting landscapes.

Cheers,

Jon

[Samuel H]

I'm not really into the "no grading" thing... if you can live with "easy to grade", you can go for Flaat_10p, but even then it's not perfect for what you want: in this version, everything is based on Portrait, because that's the path to nicer skin tones; for landscapes, my guess is that this will have color issues that you won't like

when I get some feedback on beta-2, I'll start working on the next version; if all goes well, that should include two suites, one based on Portrait and one based on Neutral; give it a month or so

[Peter J. DeCrescenzo]

Hi Samuel: Interesting stuff! Thanks for researching this.

I have a question (from the Dept. of Stupid Questions):

Might there be a chance that in-camera settings similar to what you're working on may also benefit external video recording via the D800's HDMI connector? Even theoretically? Just curious. Cheers!

[Samuel H]

I have no idea: I HAVE footage recorded externally with the D800 and Flaat_13p, but my (windows) editing software doesn't want to play with it
I can upload it to the server if anybody is interested

my guess is that:
* the day-to-day options (Flaat_10 and Flaat_12) will be great for external recording, as they aim for nicer, easier to grade images, not crazy transformations
* the crazy-DR options (specially Flaat_13) will help more with in-camera recirding than with external recording: the advantage of applying this aggressive curve in-camera instead of in-post is that it is applied to uncompressed 422 images, before the codec reduces them to 420 H.264; if you're going to save high-quality 422 anyway, there may not be a lot of difference between applying the crazy curves in-camera or in-post


edit:
the first Flaat_13p beta-2 test is up: http://vimeo.com/39899742
it's still about the crazy-DR, I hope I'll soon have some footage with the regular variants too

[Stephenh]

Hi Samuel H,

Thanks for all the detailed research and providing us users with some great picture styles.

Steve.

[Samuel H]

hope you like them
post footage when you get some!

[Samuel H]

new test footage, with Flaat_10, Flaat_11, Flaat_12: http://vimeo.com/39937102
it's still mostly a DR test, but I found it very useful: I'm very glad to see Flaat_12 seems definitely useable, I wouldn't say it's any more noisy than Flaat_11 on the Canons

[Danielvilliers]

Thanks again for your work on the flaat picture profile for the D800. Don't you think that it would have been better to shoot at base ISO (100 ISO) to see the best less noisy shadows you can have. The second thing if there is a 1080p version or is it a 100% crop of a 1080p image just to see the noise because it seems very low at this rez.

[t.p.]

hey Samuel H
thank you for you hard work and research on flaat picture profile , i was wondering if you did also test on the D4 dr and picture profile , and if so do you find it any different than the d800 ?