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Superresolution


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I'm trying to develop a work flow to create superresolution images. Superresolution is a great way to increase detail, reduce noise and increase the megapixel count of an image.

 

In a nutshell the idea is to take a series of photos (up to about 20) of the same image with only slight changes in the position of the camera. Continuous shooting mode, hand held is the easiest way.

 

The steps for the process are (in order)

 

1. Double the dimensions of each photo

2. Import them into a stack and align them

3. Average the layers

 

I can do this now in Affinity, but the process is slow and awkward. I have to import each image separately, double each image's dimensions, export. Then re-import each image into a stack and set the opacity of each layer something like (bottom to top) 100%, 50%, 33%, 25%, 20%, 17%, 14%, 12%, 11%, 10%, 9%, 8%, 8%, 7%, 7%, 6%, 6%, 6%, 5%, 5%.  

 

Is there a way to align layers after they've been imported into a stack? The dimensions need to be doubled before the layers are aligned.

 

This could be a great automated feature in Affinity Photo like frequency separation. 

 

 

 

 

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  • 8 months later...

I am also currenty working on a work flow for super resolution.

This is what I came up with:

 

Record a macro after opening a file of the series (View-> Studio -> Macro activates the side panel)

- Press the red record button in the macro panel

- Apply the changes you want to be made (adjustments + resize document)

- Press the "Add To Library" button in the macro panel (the one with the three squares and the plus)

   - Use the category "Macro" and give it an name you can later easily recognize what it does (e.g. "Super Resolution Preps")

 

Now go to File -> New Batch Job

- Hit the "Add" button and add all photos you want to be processed

- On the lower right side of the dialog under "Available Macros" select Macros in the drop down menu and chose the macro you created. Hit Apply.

- On the upper right side select the file type you want your photos to be saved as (but not the affinity format because you cannot add them to a stack later on)

- Hit OK and get a coffee ;)

 

After everything finished, go to File -> New Stack

- Add the files processed by the macro

- Choose the aligning options you want

- Hit OK and get another coffee

- In the "Layers" tab on the "Live Stack Group" choose the blending method you like (the symbol next to the check mark)

 

hope that helps a little

 

Greetings

Matt

Win7 Pro 64 Bit, Intel Core i5-3550 (4x 3,3 GHz), 32GB Ram

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  • 6 months later...
On 9/23/2017 at 0:44 PM, Maultierhirsch said:

I am also currenty working on a work flow for super resolution.

This is what I came up with:

 

Record a macro after opening a file of the series (View-> Studio -> Macro activates the side panel)

- Press the red record button in the macro panel

- Apply the changes you want to be made (adjustments + resize document)

- Press the "Add To Library" button in the macro panel (the one with the three squares and the plus)

   - Use the category "Macro" and give it an name you can later easily recognize what it does (e.g. "Super Resolution Preps")

 

Now go to File -> New Batch Job

- Hit the "Add" button and add all photos you want to be processed

- On the lower right side of the dialog under "Available Macros" select Macros in the drop down menu and chose the macro you created. Hit Apply.

- On the upper right side select the file type you want your photos to be saved as (but not the affinity format because you cannot add them to a stack later on)

- Hit OK and get a coffee ;)

 

After everything finished, go to File -> New Stack

- Add the files processed by the macro

- Choose the aligning options you want

- Hit OK and get another coffee

- In the "Layers" tab on the "Live Stack Group" choose the blending method you like (the symbol next to the check mark)

 

hope that helps a little

 

Greetings

Matt

Hi, can you please explain to me what to do? I am just following your and his advice with my 35raw drone images to maximse the details and quality and I have no clue where to start with

 

https://mavicpilots.com/threads/how-take-a-48mp-photo-with-mavic-pro-not-a-panorama.33491/

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Hi dronecrasher,

First you open one of your images in Affinity Photo. It does not matter which one, because it is just used for creating the macro, which you are then applying on all of your images. Then you record a macro using the steps I outlined in my post above. ("View-> Studio -> Macro activates the side panel" means goto the Menu "View", there to the entry "Studio" and there to the entry "Macro activates the side panel"). For the rest follow my steps from the previous post.

Some additional Infos:
When applying the macro on all of your images, you should use an uncompressed image format (e.g. bmp) as file type for the macro output. That way you don't have a loss of details due to compression. They are a lot bigger though.

If you do not get good results, keep in mind that superresolution only adds a little sharpness to your image when done correctley. But it will never be like a real 48mp picture. The resulting image also depends a lot on the ability to acurately stack the images on top of each other.

You will need a lot of patience when stacking. When you have all your images in the Live Stack, make only two images visible (disable the checkbox on the right of the image entry in the layers tab to maka a layer=image invisible). The fist image is you reference image, the second one you move around. The "live stack group" folder has a little sign (blend mode) next to the visibilty checkbox. Klick on it and change it to "standard deviation". This way you can check if you alligned correctley. If the image is black (you will still see the grain but mostly nothing from your image), then your allignment is ok. Otherwhise you will have to work on it. Next you make the second image invisible and make the third visible. It is important that you keep the reference image always visible and only change the other image. At the end you change the blend mode (the little sign next to the checkmark) to Mean or Median, whichever gives you better results.

Good luck. I hope your images are easy to process. If you have questions feel free to ask.

Cheers
Matt

Win7 Pro 64 Bit, Intel Core i5-3550 (4x 3,3 GHz), 32GB Ram

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On 4/4/2018 at 2:43 AM, Maultierhirsch said:

Hi dronecrasher,

First you open one of your images in Affinity Photo. It does not matter which one, because it is just used for creating the macro, which you are then applying on all of your images. Then you record a macro using the steps I outlined in my post above. ("View-> Studio -> Macro activates the side panel" means goto the Menu "View", there to the entry "Studio" and there to the entry "Macro activates the side panel"). For the rest follow my steps from the previous post.

Some additional Infos:
When applying the macro on all of your images, you should use an uncompressed image format (e.g. bmp) as file type for the macro output. That way you don't have a loss of details due to compression. They are a lot bigger though.

If you do not get good results, keep in mind that superresolution only adds a little sharpness to your image when done correctley. But it will never be like a real 48mp picture. The resulting image also depends a lot on the ability to acurately stack the images on top of each other.

You will need a lot of patience when stacking. When you have all your images in the Live Stack, make only two images visible (disable the checkbox on the right of the image entry in the layers tab to maka a layer=image invisible). The fist image is you reference image, the second one you move around. The "live stack group" folder has a little sign (blend mode) next to the visibilty checkbox. Klick on it and change it to "standard deviation". This way you can check if you alligned correctley. If the image is black (you will still see the grain but mostly nothing from your image), then your allignment is ok. Otherwhise you will have to work on it. Next you make the second image invisible and make the third visible. It is important that you keep the reference image always visible and only change the other image. At the end you change the blend mode (the little sign next to the checkmark) to Mean or Median, whichever gives you better results.

Good luck. I hope your images are easy to process. If you have questions feel free to ask.

Cheers
Matt

Matt,

Thank you so much for your time.

 

One favor to ask though : Is it possible that you upload your final super resolution result via dropbox and one of the original raw files to compare?

 

 

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Hi,

sure no problem. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uq2m6qqh5gd66zs/AADZBl2IktFi2slioxarKELMa?dl=0

Keep in mind, that there are also other adjustments to the image (contrast, saturation, etc.). Look at the details as well as noise/grain levels rather than the overall result. There is the main difference between one image, a stack of images and super resolution stacking. For really good SR results one would need very good and sharp images to stack.

I also found a good Youtube video on super resolution by a photographer I like. This can give you a good feeling for what to expect. He uses Photoshop but it is the same technique.

All the adjustments he makes to the raw images in Lightroom, you add to your macro.
Ghosting you can directly edit in the live stack (adding a mask and painting out the ghost in the mask)

 

Win7 Pro 64 Bit, Intel Core i5-3550 (4x 3,3 GHz), 32GB Ram

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42 minutes ago, Maultierhirsch said:

Hi,

sure no problem. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uq2m6qqh5gd66zs/AADZBl2IktFi2slioxarKELMa?dl=0

Keep in mind, that there are also other adjustments to the image (contrast, saturation, etc.). Look at the details as well as noise/grain levels rather than the overall result. There is the main difference between one image, a stack of images and super resolution stacking. For really good SR results one would need very good and sharp images to stack.

I also found a good Youtube video on super resolution by a photographer I like. This can give you a good feeling for what to expect. He uses Photoshop but it is the same technique.

All the adjustments he makes to the raw images in Lightroom, you add to your macro.
Ghosting you can directly edit in the live stack (adding a mask and painting out the ghost in the mask)

 

Thank you so much! I will look at your dropbox files in a minute. Meanwhile I started a big thread on the side a week ago figuring out how to get the best results in affinity.

 

I saw your posted video in the past and also read this article https://petapixel.com/2015/02/21/a-practical-guide-to-creating-superresolution-photos-with-photoshop/ but never knew how to do it.

 

I will try out your marco instructions which will just help me simplify or speed up the process I assume? Also, changing the opacity between each layer really makes a difference?

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, dronecrasher said:

I will try out your marco instructions which will just help me simplify or speed up the process I assume? Also, changing the opacity between each layer really makes a difference?

Yes, the macro will make the process easier and faster. Without the macro you would have to apply the same changes to every single image by hand.

Changing the opacity between layers, does not make a lot of sence in my mind. When you set the blend mode of your live stack to mean or median, it does pretty much the same as if you would manually change the opacity of each layer like shown in the PetaPixel article you posted (4. Averaging the Layers). Both methods make each picture contribute the same ammount to the final image. Setting the blend mode simply does the job for you and you do not have to do the calculating how much opacity each layer needs to have. Plus you can easily change the blend mode to other things without fiddeling around with settings on each layer. "Median" an "Mean" have slightly different results. Usually they are not very visible though. On some images it might make a slight differende. Feel free to experiment.

Cheers
Matt

P.S.: Keep in mind, that you might have to make a new macro for each new project if you made specific changes to the source images (e.g. corrected the exposure). If you make the macro universal (only change the size of the image and make changes to the image you would apply to every raw image of your camera) and you save the macro output into a lossless image format, you can apply the other changes onto the live stack. But that might cost you a lot of CPU power and so time to wait for changes, depeding on the size of your images and also the number of images you process. You have to figure out for yourself what is best for you. A new macro for each project or waiting for the CPU to finish processing the stack.

Win7 Pro 64 Bit, Intel Core i5-3550 (4x 3,3 GHz), 32GB Ram

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1 hour ago, Maultierhirsch said:

Yes, the macro will make the process easier and faster. Without the macro you would have to apply the same changes to every single image by hand.

Changing the opacity between layers, does not make a lot of sence in my mind. When you set the blend mode of your live stack to mean or median, it does pretty much the same as if you would manually change the opacity of each layer like shown in the PetaPixel article you posted (4. Averaging the Layers). Both methods make each picture contribute the same ammount to the final image. Setting the blend mode simply does the job for you and you do not have to do the calculating how much opacity each layer needs to have. Plus you can easily change the blend mode to other things without fiddeling around with settings on each layer. "Median" an "Mean" have slightly different results. Usually they are not very visible though. On some images it might make a slight differende. Feel free to experiment.

Cheers
Matt

P.S.: Keep in mind, that you might have to make a new macro for each new project if you made specific changes to the source images (e.g. corrected the exposure). If you make the macro universal (only change the size of the image and make changes to the image you would apply to every raw image of your camera) and you save the macro output into a lossless image format, you can apply the other changes onto the live stack. But that might cost you a lot of CPU power and so time to wait for changes, depeding on the size of your images and also the number of images you process. You have to figure out for yourself what is best for you. A new macro for each project or waiting for the CPU to finish processing the stack.

Thank you very much.

 

I tried out your macro description. I batched them (quality 100% JPEG, selected the macro (only recorded the resizing of 200%) and then stacked the files. MY stacked file was a 192Megapixel file and 105mb o_O 

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