First ~very~ partial color frame
 

Ok, so let me first explain what this is.

This is a section of a frame, and of a very uninteresting scene, basically what my cannibalized DVX sees from it's test location. I know it is a bad test image, but you have all been waiting so i decided to release it.

This image ONLY contains about 77% of the complete color information. This is because 6 bits i can't fit into my current test card, and two bits seem to be disconnected for some reason.

There is also a hefty amount of obvious 'noise', which i am almost completely sure is caused by the disconnected bits. The noise is clearly seen as harsh black/red/etc dots peppered around specific areas.

It is slightly off focus, because i simply didn't :) Surprised i can even tell what i'm looking at....once again, no LCD no viewfinder.

I put the R,G,B layers together in photoshop. I used the default layer settings in photoshop, so this might not be the correct way of putting them together. If someone is a photoshop guru and knows how to combine three grayscale images into a color image perfectly, let me know.

Finally, a clear green hue can be seen which i beleive is normal of just about every image i have seen captured straight from CCD's, including the Thomson Viper.

I will be working this week on capturing a complete video clip, and somehow move my test setup to the balcony so I can capture a more interesting and hopefully colorful image.

Also, be sure to see it in an actual paint program like Photoshop, because browsers and preview programs perform smoothing:

http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~pertierr/DVXcolorcap.bmp

This is the same image, but after doing an 'auto levels' on each color layer independently.

http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~pertier...olorcap_AL.bmp

I think there is going to be remarkable freedom to manipulate the colors in every frame, pull detail from dark areas, etc. And this is only at 9 1/3 bits. :)

wow..very cool...i see what you mean about color depth with this "RAW" file.....this is VERY exciting! dv is such a HUGE limitation for a really GREAT camera and creative project shooting just because of the compression...I love the dvx100 and hate DV ;)....Juan you may find this kinda cool:

http://www.dv3productions.com/upload...low-focus-.jpg

I just got done building that unit...I will be selling it shortly...

when it comes time to build your "box" for the bottom of the camera feel free to talk with me if you want about the design and manufacture of your unit..

Yowsers! (okay, sounds like Woody Allen, anyways)

There is a TON of latitude in those blacks!!! Dang!

BTW, I will agree that the best way to record these images is just save the RAW data-with a converter program convert them to whatever format you want later. That way you perserve the RAW data, and if better algorithms, noise suppression, etc. come out later, you can take advantage of those improvements without any of the potential loss that a specific file format might incur-even if it is 16bits-per-pixel.

I still don't think that Log encoding is as antiquated as you might believe. Thomson is doing it, Kinetta will be doing it, Dalsa is doing it-all the big boys are doing it. Even panasonic is psuedo-"doing it" with their F-REC mode in the Varicam's cinegamma, at least by the indications from a white paper released at this year's HPA tech retreat. But again, I will agree with you that the best place for any of those conversions is after the fact, after the RAW data has been recorded-then like you said, we can do whatever we want.

Oops! The images are actually 8-bit/channel! None of the programs I have can save TIFF or BMP in more than 8-bit color per RGB channel, so the file format is actually cutting precision down.

Anyone have any suggestions for standard graphics formats that support at least 12-bits or 16-bits per RGB channel i.e. it would be something like 36-bit color.

Juan

16 bit tiff
 

16 bit tiff should be fine!

- ben

afaik TIFF can only do up to 24-bit color(8-bit RGB). 16-bit tiff would be 4-bit RGB with a 4-bit alpha channel...

Check again... 16bit/pcc TIFF is an export option in Photoshop.

It's been a few months since I looked at the TIFF file format spec, but I think the TIFF file format itself supports *any* color depth. Of course, the specific TIFF implementations in most commercial software only support 8bit and under, since other color depths are so rare.

- ben

Try professional image standards, I don't know all their names (one of them is RLA). You can find them in After Effects, Combustion and so on. Most of them could be 10 or 12 bit.

On my Photoshop CS (and I'm pretty sure 7 and maybe 6) I've got 16-bit TIFF option.

Here's one of my 48-bit scans (it's raw corrected tunsten film shot in daylight) saved as a 16-bit TIFF. Note it is 32 MB in size.

http://www.sevensmilingsharks.com/cat.tif

I will check...but i have photoshop 6 and photoshop elements and neither of them allows me to specify bit depth in TIFF....

It might have been added in Photoshop 7.

PS. My upload barfed - I just restarted it. Should be done in 30 minutes.

You don't specify the bit depth when you're exporting the TIFF -- you just open a 16bit document (or convert an 8bit one by going to Image->Mode->16 bits/channel) and then go to "Save as" and you'll see TIFF listed alongside Photoshop in the save options. It won't tell you it's saving as 16bit, but it is.

PS has been 16bit (in some capacity) since at least 6.0, so it shouldn't be a problem...

- ben

Provided that one is able to save these the data as TIFF or similar format, what are the steps to actually editing for video/film purposes?



es

Hi Jaun,

There are a number of image formats that allow for greater bit-depths. These include .HDR, OpenEXR (.EXR, open-source format developed by ILM that supports float, a plugin is available for photoshop and most compositing applications), Maya .IFF files, Cineon (.CIN, .KDK), .DPX, .RLA, .RPF, .SGI , and of course 16 bit and floating-point .TIF.

Not all of these are supported by Photoshop, but some do have plugins that enable photoshop to read them. Let me know if you'd like any specific information on any of the formats.