How do i fix this fuzzy ant looking stuff in premiere

[defaultmp4cskv7uclz]

i dont know what this is called so i didnt know what to search, but all my dark areas always have this, what looks like ants walking all over the screen, in the black areas. im working in premiere and am wondering if there is anything i can do to lessen or remove this without just blurring everything. thank you

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello,

Sorry for the issue, but it has little to do with Premiere Pro. This is what we call gradient "banding" from working on footage with areas of heavy contrast. The reason for banding could be that the footage containing high contrast gradients was shot in 8 bit H.264 and then exported to H.264.

A fix is to shoot at higher quality or to add light to the areas containing such dramatic areas of contrast.

The most common issue people have regarding these artifacts is with the sky, which is often filled with different colors of blue, so gradient banding occurs frequently in that case with lower quality footage. The other common issue is that there is not enough light in the scene. Night scenes shot on cell phones contain a lot of this artifacting, as you may have noticed.

Sometimes, you can lessen the intensity of the issue by making the gradients less extreme via improved lighting or adjusting exposure on the camera (for example, a high ISO setting can produce artifacts such as this, too).

To sum up: if you are shooting in heavily compressed 8 bit H.264 and exporting H.264 (also heavily compressed) and have extreme gradients, you're seeing the result.

If you want to use heavy gradients in your program (and who can blame you, they look great), then your source footage needs to be from a pro video camera that can acquire footage in a high quality format, not in 8 bit H.264 (which is, unfortunately, very common in DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, consumer level camcorders, and mobile devices) but in 10 bit ProRes - if possible. Then, export in 10 bit color space export (ProRes HQ) to avoid noise and banding issues when exporting.

BTW. you can upload ProRes files to YouTube. They just take a lot longer. A good alternative is to create a ProRes master and then make copies from that master in Media Encoder.

If you cannot work in 10 bit and must shoot in 8 bit, try the VR De-Noise effect at .02 or thereabouts. Not working? Purchase the Neat Video Denoise effect. Then, export with ProRes or ProRes HQ.

Note, it won't be perfect. Too much denoise and your footage will be too soft. Find a happy medium, and good luck. Come back with any questions.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Michael Grenadier]

or in many cases, with many cameras, you can get an external recorder and record dirctly via hdmi to a more robust format like prores (hq).  I've used Neat Video's denoise effect and it's pretty amazing, but it takes time to learn how to manipulate it and it can be timeconsuming to set up the parameters and render.  Personally (on some seriously underpowered machines) I find working with Neat in AfterEffects much easier.  The interface has been much more responsive in my experience.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Right! I like the Atomos recorders I have seen for ProRes recording. I would like to get one for my older DSLR so I can keep it alive and use it for a streaming video setup I have in mind rather than buying a whole new camera setup. Gradient lighting looks so cool, and I'd love to be able to use it more with 10 bit source.

Kevin

[defaultmp4cskv7uclz]

thank you very much for not only explaining what its actually called, but how to not have it. unfortunately yes, im limited to 4k from a gopro8black and a canon 5d. ill look into the different options you suggested, but im assuming it will only get me so far, due to what you said about the level of these types cameras. exporting to prores wont have any effect im assumine as its already in the data from being filmed that way? thank you again for the explanation and new found knowledge.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Yes, but you could shoot with the 5D tethered to one of those Atomos boxes (for not only recording but monitoring your 5D) and work around the issue the way grenadier suggested. That's a way to get killer source footage that would avoid the banding issue for a few hundred bucks used, a bit more new. Worth it, IMO. This also delays the eventuality of spending another 5K on your 5D replacement. Write off the gear after your first gig using it.

Kevin