Uprez your footage using Photoshop

235 Studios

235 Studios

Veteran
I was watching the DVD By Berry and it was talking about using PhotoZoom Pro to uprez the DVX footage to HD to compare it with the JVC HD camera. And that got me thinking - I currenlty use Photoshop to automaticly resize pictures for video slideshows, why can't Photoshop uprez my DVX footage too? So I sat down and came up with the following tutorial as well as a couple of actions to automatically uprez the footage to HD. (And I thought I'd offer it to anyone who is interested.)

Sample footage (Stills)
Original (720 x 480) http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRezOrg.tga (1MB)
Uprez to 1280 x 720 http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez720Test.tga (3MB)
Uprez to 1920 x 1080 http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez1080Test.tga (7MB)

Instructions:
http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpResingWithPhotoshop.pdf

Photoshop Actions:
http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez720HD.atn
http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez1080HD.atn

Oh, and if you want an action to convert pictures for a slide show here you go:
For Widescreen presentation: http://www.waltersindustries.com/SlideshowDVD16-9.atn
For Normal presentation: http://www.waltersindustries.com/SlideshowDVD4-3.atn

Some questions for anyone as well:
I have not used PhotoZoom Pro, would it be better to us this instead of Photoshop?
What is the different between TARGA and PNG when uprezing? (When I used TARGA the files were a lot larger then when I used PNG) Am I gaining anything ny using TARGA?

Hope this helps
 
Oh, I forgot to mention - the sample pic's are stills from a project I did a while ago which used a Canon XL1s, so the sample pics are in 60i. I assume that you would get better results if you used 24p.
 
Interesting :). Thanks!

I tried downloading the instruction PDF file but it doesn't seem to work :(
 
I am by no means a math/algorithm guru, but I believe that photozoom uses a more sophisticated method of uprezzing and therefore produces better images. There is a thread here on it in the Technical section I believe. Read that and all your questions will be answered.

Matt
 
Quite right Matt. Still, if you need to upres and don't have/don't want to spend the time to use photozoom (which can only batch process a limited number of images at once) photoshop is a very decent option.
 
Hey guys, what happens when you finish your conversion to HD? How will you transfer your new HD footage to MiniDV using DVX100 (for example)? Do you need a HD Camcorder? If you do - what's the point? Or am I missing something...

Thanks
 
The point is not to put back to MiniDV tape... it would be pointless. It's to uprez for film-out, or back onto an HD deck for broadcast, digital projection, effects work, etc.
 
Although going back to miniDV might be pointless, I wonder if there would be any benifit in capturing your footage, editing it, then uprezing your edit, then applying the effects & CC, then going back to miniDV. I have not tried this, but I'm thinking that the final FX added to the footage would be handles better, and not degrade the image as much or as quickly. (I've noticed from time to time that when I apply a lot of FX the image begins to degrade)

Anyway, just a thought.
 
There is a Photoshop trick that allows you to upres at a better resolution than just selecting Image > Image Size and going directly to your destination size. And since you're setting up an action, I suggest you use this method.

The trick is that you repeatedly upres by 8-12% until you reach your desired size. The result is a sharper image than if you had just gone straight there.

This guy has a website on the topic: http://www.wfu.edu/users/bennettk/upres.html
 
Thanks, I'll look it over and make the changes. I'll let you know when I've got the action updated. I think I'll change it in the morning. I'm off to bed now. ;)
 
Alright I made some changes to the actions, now if you wish to use the stair method to uprez your footage you can use these actions:

Uprez to 720HD
http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez720HDs.atn

Uprez to 1080HD
http://www.waltersindustries.com/UpRez1080HDs.atn

I noticed that the file sized become significantly larger using this method. I haven't done a side by side comparison for the two different results yet, but according to the link from Skote, it should yield better results.
 
While I see what you are doing and appreciate your work, you would get very similar if not better results up rezzing the footage in your NLE. I use Vegas and have done extensive tests with uprezzing the footage through photozoom, photoshop and vegas. Photozoom was slightly sharper, however, I did not think the image was better. Photoshop and vegas use the same algorithm to resize, and therefore were exactly the same. Now I havn't tried the trick with adjusting 8% at a time, it might give you better results, I don't know, but for the work you are doing I don't see how the results would be worth it.
Another thing is, you don't want to uprezz your footage if you are planning a film out for two reasons.

1. It costs more. Check out http://www.dvfilm.com/specials.htm for the prices. You will see that HD footage to film is $100 more per minute

2. Production houses like these will do the up rezzing for you, and will therefore use better software to do so, giving you a better image, and no hassle.

The only reason that I am uprezzing the footage is becasue it will be displayed from an HD projector from my laptop for the opening showing. Other than for HD distrobution there is no reason to uprezz footage.
 
Scharky,

True enough - but seeing as how I have photoshop, and it is an easy process to create an action that will do the work for you I thought that it would be fun to create, and provide it to others. While I will not be uprezing the majority of my work, I do have access to a HD projector through a friend and thought that it would be fun to run some "HD" footage through it.

As for uprezing in the NLE, I had thought that the algorithm in the NLE was not as good as in Photoshop. I'm using FCP - I'll have to do some tests.

Thanks for your input.
 
Uprez is easy with Moment

Uprez is easy with Moment

If you really are thinking about getting a print off your clip then check out what I use. Moment by Topazlabs (search on the latter) www.topazlabs.com

This will not uprez video to hd.

I have had very good luck with this and I have tried the above methods and few other decent progs that cost over $250. Moment is way underpriced imho.

Good to see some actions for photoshop showing up. If you rotoscope, they are the only way to go.

Anyway,
Enjoy

Chris
 
I hadn't expected so much traffic (over 2GB) - so I increased my traffic allowance today you should be able to access it shortly.

Sorry for the inconvienence.
 
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