Handling Over-Sharpening: How to Soften Footage Without Losing Detail

Day 2: 25 Insights in 25 Days 2019 New Year Marathon!

The Curse Of The Drone: Over-Sharpening In-Camera

Over the past decade, drones have gone from developing technology and niche use-case to an incredibly common tool used in filmmaking worldwide. In the world of documentaries, reality TV, and non-fiction TV – almost every show uses drone footage these days.

While the technology has developed a lot, and people have come up with many creative uses for drones and drone footage – one major problem still plagues colorists and post-production professionals: These drones usually have utter garbage for cameras!

The problem

While productions love to use drone footage for the unique perspective it can add, very few productions can afford a heavy-lift drone carrying an Alexa or RED camera. Instead, prosumer drones with built-in or small action cameras are seeing a lot of use in the TV world. These cameras suffer from a lot of challenges, including:

• Many only record 8-bit
• Many record highly compressed codecs
• Small sensors and lenses make for low image quality
• Footage is often excessively sharpened in camera

The Solution

In this Insight, I specifically tackle the sharpening issue. Shots with heavy sharpening, when put in context with shots that don’t have heavy sharpening, can stick out like a sore thumb. As colorists, we know that the flow from shot to shot is crucial for getting the most effective grade. One oversharpened shot can easily ruin a sequence.

Not just for drone footage

These techniques and tools aren’t limited to only drone footage. The techniques we explore apply to any over-sharpened footage that needs help fitting into a project.

In the video below we explore a few different options to “take the edge off” an over-sharpened drone shot. I share methods I think don’t work because the image looses too much detail. I also walk you through a less conventional technique that does a fantastic job removing sharpening without sacrificing detail.

In future Insights – I’ll explore fixing some of the other problems colorists grading drone footage have to deal with.

-Joey