Improving Screencaps: Part One
Even the prettiest, biggest high quality DVD screencaps ever can benefit from some tweaking. Here is a brief tutorial on a few of my favorite methods to improve dark and dull screencaps.
I'll be using this lovely screencap of Buffy from Graduation Day, Part One as an example. It was much larger than this, but I've resized it to 415x300 for this tutorial.
As you can see, this cap is too dark and a bit grainy. I'll tackle the darkness first.
Brightening
I find that curves usually does the trick to lighten an image in just the right places. Curves can be accessed under image > adjustments > curves, but I prefer to use an adjustment layer. (Adjustment layers sit on top of your picture layer and can be removed or tweaked later on, which is why I like them better than just changing the image directly.) Create a curves adjustment layer by clicking the "create new fill or adjustment layer" button at the bottom of your layers palette (it's a half black/half white circle) and choose curves.
By default, curves is set to RBG (in the drop-down), and the line should be straight and going diagonally across the middle of the grid. Under the grid are two little arrows. Make sure the white arrow is on the left and the black arrow is on the right.
Grab the line right in the middle of the grid and pull it a little bit diagonally to the top left corner. See how the picture gets brighter? Don't release the line until the picture is brightened to your satisfaction.
Here's how mine looks:
And here's the result:
Another method I sometimes use instead is to copy the layer and then put the top layer to screen:
The bottom layer is still set to normal, but the copy on top of it is set to screen. I've left the screened copy at 100%, but with some pictures you may need to lower the opacity.
Here's the result using the screen method:
There are other ways to brighten, of course. Levels, brightness/contrast, colors, etc. I've just shown you my two favorite ways. There are also lots of ways to improve graininess. Here's my favorite smoothing method.
Improving
Ok, so the picture is brighter. Now we need to improve the quality a little bit. My favorite way uses the median filter. You'll need to first flatten the image (layer > flatten image) or copy merge (select > all, edit > copy merged) everything into one new layer. Then duplicate that layer so you have two identical layers. Select the top layer and run the median filter (filter > noise > median). I usually use a setting of 3-5, for this picture I'm using 4 (the bigger and less detailed the image, the higher the setting you can use).
Here's how mine looks:
Pretty drastic, huh? Now set the opacity of the top layer to 40%. Much better. Buffy looks softer.
Here's the result:
But wait, I'm not done yet. I want to bring back some details! With the top layer still selected, hit the "add layer mask" button at the bottom of the layer palette (it's the rectangle with a white circle in it). Paint in black with a soft round brush (I'm using 17px at 50% opacity) on the mask (NOT THE IMAGE!) just over the eyes, lips, nostrils, earlobes, and other similar areas. I usually paint a few streaks over part of the hair, too. If you need to correct a mistake, switch to white and paint over the area again (painting with white removes the mask).
Here's what my layer palette looks like after the mask:
And here's the result:
A little nicer, isn't it? If you don't want the picture quite as soft, or you want it softer, just change the opacity of the filtered layer a bit, or use a different setting when you run the median filter.
Final Comparison
Much better! Buffy pretty.
Improving Screencaps: Part Two
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