Colorit

In some discussion threads of Doom9 fora recoloring is being discussed. I wanted to use a different approach for coloring a black and white image or recoloring a colored image. I wanted to use masks and filling techniques for this task.

The success of, to some extent semi-automatic, colorization depends upon how good a mask can be generated and the degree of separation of objects. It is therefore necessary to try varied types of discriminators (whether theoretically sound or not) and arrive at an optimum mask. Towards fulfilling this goal I have authored several tools (functions) for this plugin.

Coloring a black and white image or recoloring a colored image is best done in an interactive environment. However Avisynth with a front end viewer like virtualdub, can be used, though a little tedious. Even though the functions herein work reasonably fast, assessing each stage and modifying script takes time and so the speed of functions are secondary.

Unless specifically opted for, the coloring tools included here, retain the original grey scale values of the image. Coloring may be attempted step by step i.e. color a part within a small window. Then this partially colored image can be used as input to the next step. The already colored areas are excluded (unless specifically not required), by the edge or mask makers and the coloring functions.

'Grid' plugin will greatly assist in getting precise coordinate values. A few of the examples of use of the functions were shown in the "Recoloring" thread of Avisynth Development section of Doom9 forum. Since then there were a number of modifications in specifying parameters but the general proceedure remains same

Many functions in this plugin, have a large number of parameters and may appear daunting. But as most of these parameters have default values, use of the functions should not be difficult. Some of the parameters are for restricting processing to within a window so as to save computation time.

Test facility, wherein a single frame is repeatedly processed with linearly varying parameters, are provided wherever required.

At this time, I have tested the functions of this plugin mostly in YUY2 color format. The other color formats I checked but not to a full extent, however they should work.Because of the large sets of parameters, my testing can not be termed complete. Therefore a number of bugs may be present.