Restoration tips: De-logo Patch Technique™

[spoRv]

De-logo Patch Technique™

What is the De-logo Patch Technique™?
It's a method to get ridden of a logo (usually TV) using a second source to obtan a "patch" that will cover it.

How does it work?
It's quite simple: you need two sources aligned (spatially and temporally); then, take a portion of the source without logo, to make a "transplant" to cover the source with logo; you could do a simple geometrical shape patch - to be the shape of the logo, make elaborated, multi shaped patch - like several simple geometrical shapes put together, to cover for example a logo composed by letters, numbers, symbols etc. or make a mask that cover perfectly the logo.

Why use it, if you have a source without logo?
Good question! Usually, you want to de-logo an high quality source - like a 1080i/p HDTV broadcast, which is the only one available, while lower quality sources are available - 720p HDTV, WEB download, DVD etc.
Using this technique, you have the best quality for the whole image, except for the patch which covers the logo.

What if there is not another source?
Then this technique couldn't be used; you must use another de-logo method, that usually cover the logo interpolating the surrounded details.

Some examples
Here you are the original frame (left), the mask (center) used for a classic de-logo method, and the overlaid mask (right) before the de-logo - (click for 2x zoom):

[Image: original_mask_overlay.jpg]

Now, the original frame (left), a classic de-logo method (center), and the De-logo Patch™ (right) - (click for 2x zoom):


[Image: original_classic_patch_116266.jpg]

The classic De-logo method seems to work well... right? Yes, but only in some shots, usually the most static... see the next examples - two consequential frames:

[Image: original_classic_patch_43828.jpg]

[Image: original_classic_patch_43829.jpg]

Pretty neat, right? WARNING: I haven't tested enough the classic De-logo filter; with carefully chosen settings, it certainly could work better, but it will always produce some artifacts.


The quality of the final result varies, of course, depending on the quality of both sources; near perfect solution is to find two 1080i/p HDTV versions, both with a logo in a different part, and use one as the patch for the other, and vice versa!

Advanced method (updated 2017-11-30)

In some cases, the sources used for this technique have different color grading and/or contrast; it would not be possible to use the De-logo Patch Technique™ "as is"; you first have to regrade one source using the other as a reference, to get a patch as much similar as the source that should be delogo'ed.

Sometimes, the regrade could not be perfect, and the eyes (well, the brain attached to them) are very good to notice some imperfections, in particular straight lines, so to fool them, you could use a variation of the simple logo mask, covering the straight lines and making them less noticeable - I suggest to do a loop of various masks, so every subsequent frame would get a different mask. Also, very important, add a grain plate to the patch, to disguise even more the eventual logo remains.

From top left: untouched HDTV, untouched WEB-DL, simple overlay using untouched sources and a simple logo mask, advanced overlay using colormatched source for the patch, different variation masks, grainplate for the patch and for the final result (and also a color correction, that is beyond this technique)







Variations of the logo mask:

[Colek]

Just used this technique, and if you're using SD and HD footage, make sure to change color matrix, in my case, DVD and HDTV transfers turned out to be identical masters and it was quick to just overlay DVD footage on logo

[spoRv]

Just used this technique, and if you're using SD and HD footage, make sure to change color matrix, in my case, DVD and HDTV transfers turned out to be identical masters and it was quick to just overlay DVD footage on logo

Yep, it was implied, but maybe I forgot to mention it... thanks!

[Valeyard]

The virtualdub delogo filter works way better than your example. The correct way is to sample two frames - one that is completely black and the other completely white (the whole frame doesn't need to be black or white, just the region where the logo is). It's true you will have artefacts due to compression though.

[williarob]

The Virtualdub delogo filter is always my first choice, but this technique (using Photoshop's "Content Aware Fill") also works very well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkn2g8NhGhU

[spoRv]

After I've worked A LOT on Prometheus, I've thought to update the first post with the advanced method I used for it; hope this would be useful for someone.

[SLiM]

@spoRv
Hello. I would ask for a detailed description of this method, maybe with an example. I am recording HDTV movies and I would like to remove the operators' logos. The standard de-logo method does not satisfy me.

Fight.Club.1999.MULTI.1080i.HDTV.H.264-SLiM.ts
The.Hobbit.An.Unexpected.Journey.2012.MULTi.HDTV.H.264-SLiM.ts

[spoRv]

Hello SLiM, welcome to the forum!

First of all, you need two sources of the same movie, using the same master (same framing, color grading etc) and with logos in different angles, or at least that do not overlap each other.

Have you them?

[Colek]

For Fight Club, you could use Open Matte Web-DL, but I don't think there's any point in doing that as they're from same master most likely and Web-DL's gonna be higher quality.

[SLiM]

@spoRv
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130990

I tried to do it this way.
https://pastebin.com/Wmp2QNhJ
I have one with the logo and the other without.
Fight.Club.1999.PL.REMASTERED.1080i.HDTV.H.264-SLiM_sample.mkv
Fight.Club.1999.720p.HDTV.x264-THOR_sample.mkv