Color enhancement for Mavic Mini?

[Jack43]

Good stuff, and again much appreciated Jack. I have been getting use to the backward shots and have been considering it more recently when planning my videos. It certainly does have appeal to see things appear in backward progression that you cannot see coming. I think we have similar taste in music too, really like your choice. Choosing music to match the scene can be a real challenge also! The stuff available on Youtube really lacks quality. Some of the free music sites are better, but not much and most of it sounds like it was done electronically and lacks appeal. After listening to 20 or more tunes I usually just give up and go with something that is OK, but not great. There has to be a better way to match video scenes to music. Any tips out there?

You´r welcome Jim!
Choosing music is one of the hardest challenge, but if you have the taste it´s easier of course. Oh I know about searching music for an hour or more! At the end you have the impression that every composition sound like all the others!
Here you can discover some free music:

Royalty free music and 'free to download' music - Free Music Archive

Free Music Archive is your number 1 resource for royalty free music and 'free to download' music.

freemusicarchive.org

furthermore you can search the internet. There are many free music sites!

have a great day and cheers,
Paul aka Jack

 

[dsvilko]

From my quick tests, I don't think Litchi contrast/saturation controls get applied on the drone, during the RAW->JPEG conversion. The dynamic range is the same on the -3 contrast photo (the reason you would normally use a flat profile is to cram more of the original data in the 8 bit color space, when DR is too wide). As the contrast in Litchi gets applied to the JPEG photo, you actually simply destroy about 15% of the original data without gaining anything in return (apart from a smaller file size). To use such a 'flat' profile for further editing would be like converting the MM JPEG photo to RAW to get a better quality

 

[RogerDH]

From my quick tests, I don't think Litchi contrast/saturation controls get applied on the drone, during the RAW->JPEG conversion. The dynamic range is the same on the -3 contrast photo (the reason you would normally use a flat profile is to cram more of the original data in the 8 bit color space, when DR is too wide). As the contrast in Litchi gets applied to the JPEG photo, you actually simply destroy about 15% of the original data without gaining anything in return (apart from a smaller file size). To use such a 'flat' profile for further editing would be like converting the MM JPEG photo to RAW to get a better quality

I asked on the DJI forum if there were methods in the Mini API that Litchi could be using to handle those controls. Unfortunately, I added another question: If there's firmware code to handle them, could we expect to see those controls in DJI Fly. The only answer I got was that I should ask about DJI Fly enhancements in another forum. In that forum, I mentioned that some Litchi users were reporting that those controls were working, implying firmware code to handle them, and asked about DJI Fly. All I got was a boilerplate reply that they would forward the enhancement suggestion. In general, looking around their forum, it doesn't seem that DJI pays much attention to it.

 

[dsvilko]

I asked on the DJI forum if there were methods in the Mini API that Litchi could be using to handle those controls. Unfortunately, I added another question: If there's firmware code to handle them, could we expect to see those controls in DJI Fly. The only answer I got was that I should ask about DJI Fly enhancements in another forum. In that forum, I mentioned that some Litchi users were reporting that those controls were working, implying firmware code to handle them, and asked about DJI Fly. All I got was a boilerplate reply that they would forward the enhancement suggestion. In general, looking around their forum, it doesn't seem that DJI pays much attention to it.

I would be very much surprised in anyone of the DJI programmers reads the DJI forum. Unfortunately, if you have a more unusual or technical question, you won't get much help on their forum.
Even looking at the Litchi live histogram it's clear what it's doing. Turn the drone on inside the house and point it at a window. You get a significant areas of the photo that are clipped to black and also white. The dynamic range is simply too large. Now reduce the contrast to -3. If it was working correctly, you would get a much wider and lower 'spike' on each side of the histogram. What you actually get is the exact same histogram compressed into the middle 85% of the possible 256 value range. No pixels have a value 0-20 or 235-255. If you were to later edit such a photo and again increase the contrast, you would simply end up where you started but with additional posterization artefacts and lower overall quality. If you want a better quality, for photos, HDR through exposure bracketing is currently the best you can do.

 

[jumpingbean]

From my quick tests, I don't think Litchi contrast/saturation controls get applied on the drone, during the RAW->JPEG conversion. The dynamic range is the same on the -3 contrast photo (the reason you would normally use a flat profile is to cram more of the original data in the 8 bit color space, when DR is too wide). As the contrast in Litchi gets applied to the JPEG photo, you actually simply destroy about 15% of the original data without gaining anything in return (apart from a smaller file size). To use such a 'flat' profile for further editing would be like converting the MM JPEG photo to RAW to get a better quality

I like quality posts like that. Indeed, reducing contrast in Litchi won’t increase your DR, but your coloring options are much wider than if you would start with stock MM image.The way MM’s firmware applies contrast and saturation differs from what can be achieved in Resolve for example, and starting with a flatter profile will take you towards cinelike picture instead of MM’s original profile, resembling auto mode on a camcorder. If you try to roll off contrast from that, the effect won’t be as pleasing. As a rule of thumb, I’ve found out that adding values during color correction brings better effects than reducing them from the original picture.

 

[dsvilko]

I like quality posts like that. Indeed, reducing contrast in Litchi won’t increase your DR, but your coloring options are much wider than if you would start with stock MM image.The way MM’s firmware applies contrast and saturation differs from what can be achieved in Resolve for example, and starting with a flatter profile will take you towards cinelike picture instead of MM’s original profile, resembling auto mode on a camcorder. If you try to roll off contrast from that, the effect won’t be as pleasing. As a rule of thumb, I’ve found out that adding values during color correction brings better effects than reducing them from the original picture.

Have you actually tried it with MM because from my (limited) testing it makes absolutely no sense. You can't get more flexibility for post by first deleting 15% of the original data. And that is precisely what contrast on MM does. It only deletes data by trying to pack the same DR into a smaller part of the available color space. It's not done in firmware during the RAW conversion. As I have already said, this way you only get more reduced tonal resolution with accompanied posterization artefacts if you want to bring the contrast back up. Don't be fooled by 'cinelike' look. It's not the 'gray', 'flat' look of the real cinelike profile that gives it it's advantage but the applied flatter curve during the RAW -> jpeg conversion that tries to keep more of the highlight and shadow detailes at the expense of the mid-tone resolution. Again, in contrast to other more profesional drones, on MM this only destroys information without balancing that with addition of new highlight/shadow information and so in absolutely no circumstance would it be a good idea to use. And you CAN get the same contrast reduction later in your editor of choice if you really wanted to, this time with no reduction in quality if it internally uses 16-bit per channel color space (most do). If you are planning on doing any further editing, avoid Litchi sliders like the plague.

 

[jumpingbean]

Have you actually tried it with MM because from my (limited) testing it makes absolutely no sense. You can't get more flexibility for post by first deleting 15% of the original data. And that is precisely what contrast on MM does. It only deletes data by trying to pack the same DR into a smaller part of the available color space. It's not done in firmware during the RAW conversion. As I have already said, this way you only get more reduced tonal resolution with accompanied posterization artefacts if you want to bring the contrast back up. Don't be fooled by 'cinelike' look. It's not the 'gray', 'flat' look of the real cinelike profile that gives it it's advantage but the applied flatter curve during the RAW -> jpeg conversion that tries to keep more of the highlight and shadow detailes at the expense of the mid-tone resolution. Again, in contrast to other more profesional drones, on MM this only destroys information without balancing that with addition of new highlight/shadow information and so in absolutely no circumstance would it be a good idea to use. And you CAN get the same contrast reduction later in your editor of choice if you really wanted to, this time with no reduction in quality if it internally uses 16-bit per channel color space (most do). If you are planning on doing any further editing, avoid Litchi sliders like the plague.

That makes sense. Looks like you know your way around coloring. It would be most welcome if you could demonstrate your example on curves or scopes.