Dark Energy For After Effects UserGuide v1.2.9462

Dark Energy Anti-Matter/Matter Matter/Matter Plug-Ins for After s Effects For Adobe CS6.0/5.5 Version 1.2.
9462
Manual Update: Oct. 11, 2012
Copyright 2012, Digital Film Central, Cinnafilm, Inc. All Rights reserved 2012,
Dark Energy for After Effects

Contents
Introduction to Dark Energy Anti-Matter and Matter plug-ins for After Effects. .............................. 4 Anti ins The Philosophy of Texture Management ................................................................ ............................................................. 4 Introduction to the Tools ................................ ................................................................................................ ......................................................... 6 Dark Energy Anti-Matter................................ ................................................................................................ ...................................................... 6 Spatial Profiling................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................ 6 Spatial Filtering ................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................ 6 Temporal Filtering ................................ ................................................................................................ ........................................................... 6 Sharpen ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ........................................... 6 The Controls ................................ ................................................................................................................................ ............................................ 7 Simple Mode ................................ ................................................................................................ ................................................................... 7 Load Configuration ................................ ................................................................................................ .......................................................... 7 Save Configuration................................ ................................................................................................ ........................................................... 7 Analyze Current Frame ................................ ................................................................................................ .................................................... 7 Process In ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ........................................ 8 Simple Mode Controls ................................ ................................................................................................ ......................................................... 9 Advanced Mode Controls ................................ ................................................................................................ .................................................. 10 Spatial Filtering: De-noising Technique and Approach................................................................ noising ........................................... 10 Spatial Filtering Getting Started ................................................................................................ ...................................... 11 Dark Energy Anti-Matter Advanced Mode................................................................ Mode ........................................................... 17 Application of Advanced Mode Spatial Filtering ................................................................ ................................................. 18 Advanced Mode Control Descriptions ................................................................ ................................................................ 19 Spatial Filtering ................................ ................................................................................................ .............................................................. 19 Temporal Filtering ................................ ................................................................................................ ......................................................... 20 Sharpening ................................ ................................................................................................................................ 20 .................................... Denoise Refinement ................................ ................................................................................................ ...................................................... 20 Advanced Mode Getting Started ................................................................................................ 21 ..................................... Dark Energy Matter Plug-in for After Effects ................................................................ in .......................................................... 23 Copyright 2012, Digital Film Central, Cinnafilm, Inc. All Rights Reserved tal 2
When and why would I use Dark Energy Matter ................................................................ Matter? .............................................. 24 Dark Energy Matter ................................................................................................ ................................ ........................................................... 25 Load Configuration ................................ ................................................................................................ ........................................................ 25 Save Configuration................................ ................................................................................................ ......................................................... 25 Controls ................................................................................................................................ ................................ ......................................... 26 Dark Energy Matter Getting Started ................................................................ ................................................................ 27
This guide may or may not be distributed with software that includes an end user agreement; however, the premise in which however this guide is furnished may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Cinnafilm End User accordance License Agreement (EULA), and all content in this guide are protected under copyright law. Usage of Cinnafilm software requires acceptance of the Cinnafilm EULA. Except as permitted by any such license, no part of this guide may be reproduced or license, transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from Cinnafilm, Inc. The content of this user guide is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Cinnafilm, Inc or Digital Film Central. Cinnafilm, Inc. and Digital Film Central assume no Inc. . responsibility or liability for errors, omissions, or inaccuracies that may appear in the informational content contained in this guide.
Copyright 2012, Digital Film Central, Cinnafilm, Inc. All Rights Reserved tal
Introduction to Dark Energy Anti-Matter and Matter plug Energy lug-ins for After Effects.
Congratulations on choosing the Dark Energy Anti-Matter / Matter plug-in set for After Effects. You osing in have purchased the premiere motion picture industry professional Texture Management tool previously only available in stand-alone high-end image processing products like ARRI Relativity and stand end Dark Energy Professional. The same technology you have in your hands now has been used to restore, de de-noise, de-grain, and manage texture on countless feature films, television series and commercials throughout the world. Now you have the power to remove and manage grain and noise from your film and video images like a pro producing almost any desired image texture you prefer for the final look of your media project.
The Philosophy of Texture Management

The term Texture Management has evolved out of modern professional post-production terminology to describe the process whereby film grain and digital video noise is abated, entirely or in part, through the use of carefully designed software tools like Dark Energy Professional and ARRI Relativity. fessional The Texture Management field of post production has grown to be an incredibly important aspect of post-production film and digital finishing. Image noise in any production must be carefully managed in order to create a desired creative effect, as well as pass quality control standards set by broadcasters and distribution control companies. Texture Management can be used at the finishing stage of a production for a final texture look, or during the shooting and conform stage, to help match the many varieties of cameras choices available to the modern filmmaker. With Dark Energy Anti-Matter / Matter you can shoot film, RED, ALEXA and DSLR cameras all in a single production and never have to worry about the cameras noise characteristics having to match during shooting. Use Dark Energy Anti-Matter to remove the noise from the various camera sources during the editorial / durin conform stage bringing everything to a completely clean baseline. After color correction, use Dark Energy Matter to produce a light and smoothly consistent film grain or video texture across the final consistent master blending all your camera sources together into a uniformly textured look. 16mm can look like 35mm, 35mm can look like 8mm, digital can look like 35mm, etc. You can even push a significantly stronger grain texture for creative purposes making new video look like old film, or give your final footage a gritty texture for purely expressive reasons. Plus - good texture management tools can save a lot of otherwise seemingly unusable noisy shots!
You can also use Dark Energy Matter to manage different textures for different deliverables intended Matter for various final display mediums such as Blu Ray, DCPs (Digital Cinema Prints), or broadcast masters. Blu-Ray, Often each deliverable requires a unique texture, suitable to the display medium, compression suitable considerations and physical size and resolution of that medium. Dark Energy products are the result of a joint venture of skills and experience between Digital Film Central of Vancouver, Canada; a world world-renowned and innovative Digital Intermediate facility, and nd Cinnafilm of Albuquerque, NM; a world leader in software engineering known for it its unparalleled GPU accelerated motion estimation and image processing technology. Dark Energy Anti-Matter and Matter plug-ins for After Effects represent the pinnacle of design and performance used by professionals across the globe to manage texture on their final products.
Figure 1: Dark Energy Anti-Matter Plug-in for After Effects
Introduction to the Tools

Dark Energy Anti-Matter
Used for de-graining of film-based footage, and de based de-noising of digital or video-based footage. With Dark based Energy Anti-Matter it is possible to remove all the noise and grain from an image, without softening the picture detail. The Dark Energy Anti-Matter system uses the following 4 steps, in a very specific order, to achieve its awesome de-noising / de-graining: graining: Spatial Profiling - Spatial profiling automatically analyses the image and builds a noise profile isolating unwanted noise from image detail. ise Spatial Filtering - Noise is separately filtered from actual image detail using the noise profile from the first step. - A unique temporally informed spatial filtering technique does the vast majority of the temporally-informed heavy lifting noise filtering. fi - Spatial filtering happens on a whole frame basis allowing for virtually no temporal artifacts (such as disappearing details in moving objects). Temporal Filtering - A lightweight temporal filtering cleans up the few leftovers from the spatial filtering pass. spati - This temporal filter is robust against temporal artifacts because most of the filtering is being done spatially. Sharpen -
The nature of noise and grain removal means that some of the frequencies of the detail are slightly altered. This robust sharpening tool helps to restore some of those frequencies to their original state.
temporally Using its unique Power-Spatial approach, Dark Energy Anti-Matter engages proprietary temporallyinformed spatial filtering algorithms to automatically build a Noise Profile of your footage. Because the vast majority of the filtering is done spatially, your images can be virtually 100% free of temporal artifacts commonly found in temporally based noise reduction techniques on the market today.
The Controls
Dark Energy Anti-Matter has two modes: Simple Mode (default when launched) and Advanced Mode. We will begin by talking . about the Simple Mode first.
Simple Mode Although it is possible to achieve excellent results with most footage using Simple Mode as you get to know the tools and approach of the Dark Energy Anti-Matter plug-in you will undoubtedly (at some point) in want to use the Advanced Mode to refine the amount of noise you can remove and the amount of detail you wish to retain. In Simple Mode, the plug-in launches and in appears as in Figure 2.
Load Configuration Used for loading a pre-saved Denoise Setting Files(.den files). A .den file contains all the settings for a saved single noise reduction set-up, previously saved by the user. Denoise Setting Files can be used to load up, settings for a previous camera de noise setup, or a particular film stock the user has already worked on. de-noise Save Configuration Saves all the current settings to a single .den file. Hitting the Save button opens up a browser and asks you to save the file in a specific location for later recall. Analyze Current Frame Generates an automatic noise profile of the current image in the timeline. In the display, three colored boxes will appear, representing an ideal noise profile from each of the three color channels of RED, GREEN and BLUE.
Figure 2 - Dark Energy Anti-Matter
Figure 3: Analyze Current Frame: In this step, smart auto-analysis algorithms seek out analysis ideal, uniform areas of the image, for each color channel of RGB. This resulting noise profiles are used for the initial Spatial filtering; separating image noise from image detail. (Cineon converte added as a viewing LUT only.) converter
IMPORTANT ANALYZE NOTE 1 Because the spatial analysis of the image is temporally informed, you will need to select a frame within your footage range that is not the first or the last frame of your sequence. IMPORTANT ANALYZE NOTE 2 Before analyzing a frame, please see Process In below and choose the correct color processing for your footage. Process In This is the color space that the images are processed in. It is very important to choose the appropriate processing space for Process In for your footage.
IMPORTANT Select correct setting for processing. For video / digital source cameras that are NOT RAW or LOG color, (e.g.: Rec. 709, video gamma, etc.) please select LINEAR. For all other RAW types of footage . (e.g.: film log, RED Log, ARRIRAW, etc.) you should choose LOG.
Simple Mode Controls

Spatial Controls for Spatial filtering (collapsi drop down menu) (collapsible Enable Spatial master on/off switch (check box) Master Adjusts Spatial filter for all color channels together (percentage) On/off Spatial filtering for the RED channel only (check box) Spatial filtering amount for RED color channel only (percentage) On/off Spatial filtering for the GREEN channel only (check box) Spatial filtering amount for GREEN color channel only (percentage) On/off Spatial filtering for the BLUE channel only (check box) Spatial filtering amount for BLUE color channel only (percentage) patial
R Enable R G Enable G B Enable B Temporal
Controls for Temporal filtering (collapsible drop down menu)
Enable Temporal master on/off switch (check box - default - off) Master Intensity Sharpen Adjusts Temporal filter for all color channels (percentage) Adjusts aggressiveness of temporal filter (percentage - default is 50%)
Controls for Sharpen effect (collapsible drop down menu)
Enable On/off for Sharpen effect (check box) Master Denoise Refinement Adjusts all currently active Spatial, Temporal and Sharpen effects simultaneously. Intended to be used after all Spatial, Temporal and Sharpen filters have been applied. (collapsible drop down menu) Master Adjusts the overall Denoise Refinement (percentage default is 100%) Adjusts overall sharpen effect (percentage default 50%) ef
Advanced Mode Controls

A switch that expands the Spatial, Temporal, Sharpen and Denoise Refinement controls, as well as reveals the Advanced Spatial controls (see Advanced Mode section for further description) Advance The Dark Energy Anti-Matter plug in for After Effects product is a derivative of a much more complex Matter plug-in standalone product called Dark Energy Professional, which itself was the result of many years of research and development within the professional field of Texture Management. Although we have ment strived to make the controls for this plug-in as simple as possible, it is necessary to have a basic plug in understanding of the steps involved in successful de de-graining or de-noising of a project. Reading and understanding the Spatial Filtering: De-noising Technique and Approach that follows will give you a clear understanding of how to approach a de de-grain / de-noise project and help you get the best results noise possible from your Dark Energy Anti y Anti-Matter plug-in.
Spatial Filtering: De-noising Technique and Approach noising

You will notice on startup of the Dark Energy Anti-Matter plug-in, the Spatial filtering is already active. You will probably also note that in the default settings for both the Simple and Advanced modes, the Temporal and Sharpen tools are disabled. This is deliberate. The success and renown of the Dark Energy . Anti-Matter system is based on very powerful spatial filtering algorithms, resulting in cleaner, more natural looking de-grain / de-noise projects. noise It is therefore very important to refine your spatial filtering as much as possible prior to doing anything other type of temporal filtering or sharpening. Too much reliance on temporal of filtering of any kind can result in temporal artifacts. Too much reliance on sharpening can fool you into thinking that you oral are getting more detail than you actually are, when in fact you may be softening the finer details in your image by focusing too much on the sharpened portions of the im image. Follow these simple general rules when approaching de-noising / de-graining: 1. Always Spatial First: As much as possible try to get in the habit of filtering as much as you can : spatially first before enabling Temporal and Sharpen tools. 2. Look for very fine detail areas when making judgments on spatial adjustments. 3. Check OFTEN that you are not losing detail by repeatedly turning off and on the filter effect you are working on. 4. Work on one color channel at a time; viewing each channel separately in the After Effects separately monochrome display window. (see Getting Started 10. a.) 5. Once you feel you have achieved the best spatial filtering results possible, turn on Temporal and allow it to clean up any leftovers that Spatial may have missed. 6. Use Sharpen only to restore detail to its original definition and feel never try to make the image sharper than the original or you run the risk of ringing the image. mage
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Spatial Filtering Getting Started

1. Load your file sequence 2. Find an image in your sequence that has some brighter areas (not a lot of full white, not a lot of sequence full black). 3. Make sure you are not on the first or last frame of your sequence (temporal information for the Spatial filter may not function ideally). 4. Determine whether your footage is LOG or LINEAR. Set the Process In drop down menu to the i appropriate setting for your footage. 5. Load Dark Energy Anti-Matter by dragging and dropping it onto your image from the Effects Matter menu, or loading it from the drop down Effects menus in After Effects. 6. You should now see an immediate de-noising effect of your image; however, you will still need de to Analyze the image.
TOOL TIP: It is very important to set yo your working resolution ("resolution / ( down sample factor") to "FULL" before analyzing the FULL", image for a noise profile. profile Lower working resolutions than FULL will cause inaccurate noise profiles.
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7. Hit the Analyze Current Frame button that says Analyze
Figure 4: Noise Profile Boxes Each box represents a sample of noise from one of the three color channels of RED, GREEN and BLUE generated from the auto-analysis function (Analyze button). auto Analyze
8. You should see the following Noise Profile Sample Boxes appear in your After Effect display window. (see Figure 4) 9. You now have an automated noise profile and spatial filtering effect based on the frame you automated have chosen in your timeline. The spatial filtering however may still need to be refined to balance detail and de-noising. noising. 10. Using the After Effects channel viewer, choose either the RED, GREEN or BLUE channel to view the color channel separately (in monochrome black and white). A colored border around the display area indicates the color channel you are isolating. (ALT + 1, 2 or 3) (see Figure 5)
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Figure 5: Viewing the color channels individually using After Effects color channel view channels (selector indicated in yellow), allows for greater refinement and adjustment of the de-noising ctor de filters on a channel-by-channel basis. The color surrounding the display window indicates channel what color channel you are currently viewing.
11. Manually Refining the Noise Profile boxes: The auto-analysis algorithms in the Analyze function are generally very good at finding uniform analysis areas for each color channel that represent only the noise in the image. Depending on the complexity of your image however Analyze may have a hard time discerning a uniform sample of pure noise. You may wish to refine the starting point for your Spatial filtering by manually w manipulating the Noise Profile boxes. There is an easy way to do this: a. Start by viewing a specific color channel in the monochromatic channel view mode as described in step 10 above. b. In the After Effects display window, click and grab a corner of the colored Noise Profile box that corresponds to the color channel you are viewing in the monochromatic display window. c. While holding down the click, drag the box to an area of the image that has as little tha actual image detail as possible. Good places to look for are flat or out of focus surfaces like walls in the background, the sky, etc. Avoid skin tones, hair, distinct lines or patterns, areas of high contrast transitions (lines) and areas of complete blackness or full white.
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Figure 6: Manually adjusting Noise Profile boxes: While viewing the corresponding color channel, try moving the Noise Profile box around to different uniform areas of the image to see if you can improve the balance between de-noising and detail.
d. When you have found an ideal area, release the mouse and drop the box into the new position. Your new filtering results for that channel will be instantly updated. Note whether you see an improvement to the noise filtering and fine detail in the image. (see Figure 6) e. Repeat this process until you find a good balance between filtering and detail for each color channel. Dont forget to switch your display view to the specific color channel you are adjusting. You are now ready for further refinements if necessary. 12. In the Simple Mode you have the following overall Spatial controls: MASTER RED GREEN BLUE Adjusts the overall spatial filtering effect. Adjusts the spatial filtering effect of the RED color channel only Adjusts the spatial filtering effect of the GREEN color channel only Adjusts the spatial filtering effect of the BLUE color channel only
It is a good idea to continue to view the individual color channels in the monochromatic display view for the next refinement steps. This will help enormously in isolating noise from detail on a t color channel basis and help achieve a more effective de noise with as little actual detail loss as de-noise possible.
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a. While viewing a specific color channel, turn off and on the enable buttons for each of enable the corresponding Spatial filtering color channels. You should notice a big difference if there is any amount of visible noise prior to filtering (Figure 7). 7)
Figure 7: Turning on and off the enable switches for a filter in monochrome view helps you clearly see the filtering in each channel.
b. Adjust each color channel Spatial amount separately while viewing the corresponding color channel in the display viewer. You can adjust the sliders or the percentage adjusters by clicking and dragging left or right. (Use CTRL + drag to do fine adjustments). c. Too see whether you are achieving good results, turn on and off the overall Spatial amount using either the enable for the color channel or the master amount. Remember to zoom into areas of fine detail to judge the results of your adjustments. oom Copyright 2012, Digital Film Central, Cinnafilm, Inc. All Rights Reserved tal 15
d. Once you have achieved a good balance of de-noising and detail for each color channel, de noising you can then turn on (enable) the Temporal and Sharpen filters. ( e. Adjust the Temporal Intensity and Master controls to reduce residual noise left behind from Spatial filtering. f. Adjust the Sharpen filter until you have restored the feel of the detail to its original state deta before filtering. 13. Return the display back to the full color RGB combined view to check your results. Turn the overall effect on and off to see if you have a good balance of detail and noise reduction.
At this point you can render a preview of your de-noise / de-grain project. Check for any possible de grain undesirable residual noise. Make refinements as necessary. To have finer control over Spatial filtering, refinements please see the Advanced Mode description.
TOOL TIP: TIP For best performance results, make sure drop down menu in "fast previews" (represented by the lightening bolt icon in the display window area) is set to "OFF". "
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Dark Energy Anti-Matter Advanced Mode

In the Advanced mode, the controls for the Spatial, Temporal, Sharpen and Denoise Refinement are expanded significantly. The Spatial filter in Advanced Mode however has the most additional controls, mo for in addition to the overall Spatial amounts for each color channel, it also has 4 extra frequency band adjusters. These are named Low, Medium, High, and Hi-High. (Figure 8) Additional frequency bands in Spatial allow the user to refine the Spatial filtering to an extremely fine degree. Frequency in this sense essentially means the size or coarseness of the noise particles. By refining your automated profiles through further frequency band adjustments, you are effectively ar helping to better inform the Spatial filter as to what is noise and what is detail. The purpose for expanding the Temporal and Denoise Refinement tools in Advanced Mode is to open up the individual color controls; allowing for more targeted refinements of filtering according to color. ; The extra controls offered in Advanced Mode for the Sharpen filter is to allow for more aggressive sharpening and control over the sharpening of certain frequencies of detail.
Figure 8: In the Advanced Mode there are many more Spatial controls in the expanded toolset allowing for better refinement of noise filtering by both noise frequency (coarseness) and color.
In this next description section, we will not repeat the controls already covered previously in this manual for Simple Mode. Please refer to the previous documentation for Simple Mode for the description of controls not covered here. Copyright 2012, Digital Film Central, Cinnafilm, Inc. All Rights Reserved tal 17
Application of Advanced Mode Spatial Filtering ed

Now that you have learned how to use Dark Energy Anti-Matter in Simple Mode it should be a fairly easy transition for you to start using the Advanced Mode. You have learned the importance of Spatial filtering and the Always Spatial First rule. You have also ial learned how to move the Spatial Noise Profile boxes around to find the best Noise Profile sample possible representing a good balance between filtering and detail retention. You have adjusted the Spatial filter color channel amounts to further refine that balance. You then added Temporal filtering to remove any residual noise left behind from the Spatial filtering, and finally you used Sharpen only as much as you needed to restore the look and feel of the original image before it was filtered to prevent origina ore over sharpening and ringing.
The fundamentals are the same for the Advanced Mode, only now, in addition to the individual color , channel control, you also have an expanded range of control over four frequency bands: Low, Medium, High and Hi-High. Combining frequency band control with color control makes for an incredibly . powerful spatial filtering tool allowing you to remove even more noise and reveal even more detail in your image than you perhaps ever thought possible.
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Advanced Mode Control Descriptions

Spatial Filtering Advanced Spatial (Collapsible menu for the advanced spatial controls) Low Enable Master R G B Medium Enable Master R G B High Enable Master R G B Low frequency drop down menu (for big, coarse noise) Overall low frequency on/off switch (check box) Overall low frequency adjuster (4 decimal places) Low frequency adjuster for RED channel (4 decimal places) Low frequency adjuster for GREEN channel (4 decimal places) Low frequency adjuster for BLUE channel (4 decimal places) Medium frequency drop down menu (for medium to coarse noise) ency Overall medium frequency on/off switch (check box) Overall medium frequency adjuster (4 decimal places) Medium frequency adjuster for RED channel (4 decimal places) Medium frequency adjuster for GREEN channel (4 decimal places) Medium frequency adjuster for BLUE channel (4 decimal places) High frequency drop down menu (for medium to fine noise) Overall high frequency on/off switch (check box) Overall high frequency adjuster (4 decimal places) requency High frequency adjuster for RED channel (4 decimal places) High frequency adjuster for GREEN channel (4 decimal places) High frequency adjuster for BLUE channel (4 decimal places)
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Hi-High Enable Master R G B
Hi-High frequency drop down menu (for fine to very fine noise) High Overall hi-high frequency on/off switch (check box) high Overall hi-high frequency adjuster (4 decimal places) high Hi-High frequency adjuster for RED channel (4 decimal places) gh Hi-High frequency adjuster for GREEN channel (4 decimal places) High adjuster Hi-High frequency adjuster for BLUE channel (4 decimal places) High
Temporal Filtering Temporal Collapsible Temporal drop down menu Enable Master R G B Sharpening Sharpen Enable Master Radius Threshold Overall Temporal on/off switch (check box) Overall Temporal filter adjuster (as a percentage) Temporal adjuster for RED channel (as a percentage) Temporal adjuster for GREEN channel (as a percentage) Temporal adjuster for BLUE channel (as a percentage)
Collapsible Sharpen drop down menu men Overall Sharpen on/off switch (check box) Overall Sharpen filter adjuster (as a percentage default 50%) Width of sharpening effect adjuster for Sharpen filter (default is 1.0) Width Threshold adjuster for coarseness of sharpening (as a percentage)
Denoise Refinement Denoise Refinement Collapsible Denoise Refinement drop down menu Enable Master R G B Overall Denoise Refinement on/off switch (check box) Overall Denoise Refinement filter adjuster (as a percentage) Denoise Refinement adjuster for RED channel (as a percentage) Denoise Refinement adjuster for GREEN channel (as a percentage) Denoise Refinement adjuster for BLUE channel (as a percentage) 20
Advanced Mode Getting Started

Follow all the steps in the Simple Mode Getting Started guide until step number 11, then return here to the Advanced Mode and pick up from number 12 below:
Figure 9 Detailed view of the Advanced Spatial controls in Dark Energy Anti-Matter Matter
12. Use the monochromatic black and white display view of After Effects to view a single color channel of your choice. 13. Zoom into an area of your image that represents fine detail. (e.g.: fine hairs, freckles, skin blemishes, fine graphic patterns in walls or clothing etc.). 14. Starting with the Low frequency band Enable switch, toggle the Low Enable on and off repeatedly, carefully observing the filtering for that band and color channel. Look for any loss of detail or lack of filtering. You should immediately notice that the type of noise you are seeing is a different than the overall noise you were seeing in Simple Mode. That is because you are isolating erent a certain size (frequency) of noise particles using the bands.
Figure 10: Toggle a frequency band on and off repeatedly to get a better idea of how re that frequency is working to balance noise filtering and detail retention. (Example shown: Low frequency of the BLUE channel - disabled.)
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15. If you are happy with the balance between noise reduction and detail retention for the Low frequency filtering for that color channel, move up to the next frequency band of Medium and ncy repeat the same procedure of turning off and on that frequency band, until you find a band that needs adjusting. 16. When you feel you have found a frequency band that requires adjustment, grab the frequency requires slider that corresponds to the color channel you are currently viewing in the monochrome viewer of After Effects. 17. While holding down CTRL, click and drag mouse left and right over the corresponding color channel slider (e.g. Low and BLUE) until you are happy with the balance between noise reduction and detail. (Figure 11) HINT: Work on one color channel at a time and remember what color channel you are currently viewing. viewing
Figure 11: While zooming in on an area of detail, adjust the corresponding color channel being viewed in the monochrome display mode of After Effects. Dragging your mouse left or right will decrease or increase the filtering effect for that frequency and color channel only. Observe the results and stop when you have a good balance between detail and de noising. (For fine level de-noising. control, hold down CTRL button while dragging.)
, 18. Continue to move up to High and Hi-High, while observing areas of fine detail and making adjustments as you go. 19. When you have completed all the adjustments for this color channel, switch your viewer to the ou next color channel and repeat steps 12 12-17 for the next color channel. 20. After all color and frequency bands have been adjusted to your liking, switch on the Temporal and Sharpen filters and make the appropriate adjustments.
Keep in mind that the Temporal, Sharpen and Denoise Refinement controls in Advanced Mode are greatly expanded allowing you to adjust things like aggressiveness, and the effect on specific color channels. We encourage you to experiment with all of these controls to help yield better de-graining nels. de and de-noising results. The more you use and understand the tool, the more effective you can be at noising removing noise and grain from your project. Thank you for ch choosing the Dark Energy Anti-Matter plug-in for After Effects
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Dark Energy Matter Plug- for After Effects -in

The Dark Energy Matter plug-in for After Effects is used for generating and applying a film or video in texture to digital footage. As we discussed in the Philosophy of Texture Management section earlier, the field of Texture Management is expanding rapidly. The creation and control of image texture and noise across the wide variety of broadcast, home and cinema media formats, requires a professional tool like Dark Energy Matter. It is the tool of choice of professionals; used to generate any texture . required for any media display format now and into the future. Previously only available in Dark Energy Pro the new Dark Energy Matter plug-in for After Effects is Pro, in essentially the same product that has generated final textures on countless feature films, television series and commercials across the globe. Now you too have the power to achieve Texture Management like a pro.
Figure 12: Dark Energy Matter for After Effects It is recommended to always use Dark Energy Anti-Matter to de-noise or de-grain your images prior to applying a Anti grain new texture with Dark Energy Matter. Starting with a textureless image ensures complete control of the final image texture.
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When and why would I use Dark Energy Matter?

Dark Energy Matter is used for a wide variety of Texture Management purposes: To generate new textures and give life to video or digital images that would otherwise appear ures too clean. To unify disparate camera noise types in multi format camera productions; applying a single multi-format texture across all the footage makes the edits look seamless. Used creatively to make images look like an old grainy film or give a gritty look for effect. vely To generate a matching grain or texture: from one shot to another, such as matching video to film, applying an original film grain back to digitally restored film, or creating the look of a specific old film stock. Avoiding downstream compression artifacts such as color banding and macro-blocking by macro applying light textures that fool compression encoders into retaining color and detail information.
Post-production finishing today requires you to manage the texture appropriate to the final display shing devices and file formats you are delivering to; whether a mobile phone or a full sized cinema screen or anything in between. Each display format and file type nowadays requires a slightly different texture, requires depending on the physical size, resolution and compression attributes for that display format. In general you will want to use Dark Energy Anti-Matter to first remove any existing noise from all your footage. Next you will use Dark Energy Matter on your final master sequence to create a texture designed specifically for your final display mediums and file types (deliverables). By creating a clean master first using Dark Energy Anti-Matter you can then use Dark Energy Matter to render virtually any number of different textures each custom designed for the display format and file type you are targeting.
Figure 13: You can use Dark Energy AntiMatter to first remove all the grain and noise from your footage, and then apply a completely controlled texture using Dark Energy Matter
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Dark Energy Matter

The Dark Energy Matter system uses the following controls to achieve texture generation: Load Configuration Loads a pre-saved .det file (Texture Setting File). A .det file contains all the settings for a single texture saved generation project, previously saved by the user. This can be used for calling up a favorite texture to apply to the current footage you are working on in your timeline. Save Configuration Opens a browser window for you and asks you to save a Texture Setting File (.det file) to a location on of your choosing. The file you save contains all the information required to re-apply these settings later in re apply any other project you may be working on. Use this to save favorite settings.
Figure 14: The expanded controls of Dark Energy Matter
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Controls Overall amount of texture for all three color channels (default=100%) Amount Channel Amount (Collapsible menu for color channel amounts) ollapsible R G B Texture Size The size of the texture (1-100, default = 25) (1 Intensity The coarseness of the texture (0%-100%) (0% Channel Intensity (Collapsible menu for color channel Intensity) llapsible R G B Chroma Process In Controls RED channel coarseness only (0% 100%, default=100%) (0%-100%, Controls GREEN channel coarseness only (0%-100%, default=100%) (0% 100%, Controls BLUE channel coarseness only (0% 100%, default=100%) s (0%-100%, Controls the overall saturation of the texture particles Drop down menu for Linear or Log processing of texture Controls RED channel amount only (0% (0%-100%, default=100%) Controls GREEN channel amount only (0% (0%-100%, default=100%) Controls BLUE channel amount only (0% (0%-100%, default=100%)
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Dark Energy Matter Getting Started

1. Load your project into After Effects or apply the Dark Energy Matter plug-in for After Effects to plug your footage by dragging and dropping it on to the display window or choosing it from the menu. Tool Tip: Generally you should apply Dark Energy Matter plug-in after all the other effects in your effect stack. This ensures that there will not be a color, sharpening or other enhancement to the texture being generated by this plug-in (unless of course that is your intent). in 2. Go directly to the Process In at the bottom of the Dark Energy Matter effect window. Choose the appropriate setting to process your footage (either Log or Linear). You will notice the processing type yields a slightly different effect to the footage, putting more or less texture in the highlights and black areas of your image depending on the setting. 3. Start by adjusting the overall Amount and observing the effect of the texture being added. 4. If you feel the texture size is good, you can adjust the Channel Amounts separately to yield more or less texture in a specific color channel. 5. Adjust the Texture Size to yield larger or smaller textures. Use this in combination with the Amount or Channel Amounts to get the perfect size and amount of texture desired. 6. Intensity is essentially the coarseness of the texture being generated. You can think of it as coarseness the space between the particles which also increases their perceived temporal activity. Adjust this up and down to yield the desired texture effect. 7. Adjust the Channel Intensity to weight the coarseness of the texture differently between the three color channels of Red, Green or Blue. 8. Once you have found a good balance of color, size and amount of the texture particles, you might want to adjust the overall colorfulness of the texture by adjusting the Chroma. The adjusting default is 0 (zero) indicating a relatively colorless texture; turn the Chroma up to saturate your grain particles with more color (depending on the Channel Amounts balance this may alter the overall color balance of your footage). We encourage you to experiment with the Dark Energy Matter plug-in for After Effects as much as possible to get a good feel for the many kinds of subtle and extreme textures you can achieve. Zoom achiev into the particles while playing around with the controls to see the effect the texture generators have on your footage. Bring in a shot with some pre existing texture that you like, split screen it, and see if you pre-existing can match it using the Dark Energy Matter controls. The more you understand about how the tools Energ derstand function, the better you will be at creating the perfect custom textures for your projects. Thank you for , choosing the Dark Energy Matter plug-in for After Effects.
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Dark Energy For After Effects UserGuide v1.2.9462

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Dark Energy Anti-Matter/Matter Matter/Matter Plug-Ins for After s Effects For Adobe CS6.0/5.5 Version 1.2.

Dark Energy for After Effects

The Philosophy of Texture Management

Figure 1: Dark Energy Anti-Matter Plug-in for After Effects

Introduction to the Tools

Figure 2 - Dark Energy Anti-Matter

Simple Mode Controls

R Enable R G Enable G B Enable B Temporal

Controls for Temporal filtering (collapsible drop down menu)

Controls for Sharpen effect (collapsible drop down menu)

Advanced Mode Controls

Spatial Filtering: De-noising Technique and Approach noising

Spatial Filtering Getting Started

7. Hit the Analyze Current Frame button that says Analyze

Dark Energy Anti-Matter Advanced Mode

Application of Advanced Mode Spatial Filtering ed

Advanced Mode Control Descriptions

Hi-High Enable Master R G B

Advanced Mode Getting Started

Dark Energy Matter Plug- for After Effects -in

When and why would I use Dark Energy Matter?

Dark Energy Matter

Figure 14: The expanded controls of Dark Energy Matter

Dark Energy Matter Getting Started

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