Fix VIDEO FLICKER in 30 Seconds WITHOUT Plugins

[@michandr1975]

Found the same issue when watched and glad to see comment of Mathieu Lalonde :-) It does not matter how many layers you mix. if you want equal mixing then second layer needs to be 50%, third - 33%, forth - 25%, fifth - 20%, etc. Basically each next layer Opacity = 100% divided by number of the Layer on top of the original one. Btw it's easy to check if you mix for example Red, Green, Blue solids and check resulted color. :-) I love this method to denoising some footage, sometimes upto 10 layers.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Thanks for the feedback. As far as the math goes I'll have to trust you on that one. I don't understand the math well enough to know which is the 'correct' way of doing it. After @Mathieu Lalonde's comment I decided to do some tests: First, I went to the clip I used as the sample (my hand going down a banister) and tried 50% and 33%, and it didn't work...it had more flicker than when I did 67/33. But, that said, secondly I went to another clip that I hadn't been able to fix with 67/33, and I tested at 50/33, and for that clip it did work. I also had another one that I hadn't been able to get working, and neither 67/33 nor 50/33 worked, so instead I did four layers (three on top of the main clip) at 75/50/25 and that worked flawlessly. So, bringing it full circle...I still don't understand the math side of things, but I am realizing it's not a one-size-fits-all sort of fix...it needs to be played with to find the right number of layers and the right opacities for those layers. On a different note: I've also used this for denoising. In my recent timelapse video, Pinnacles National Park, many of the clips I ran through this process and was able to vastly clean up the clips. Unfortunately the clips that contained more noise, the nighttime clips, were ones that I didn't want to use this process because then the stars would have been blurry. Oh well, nothing's perfect I guess.

[@michandr1975]

I guess there might be not just opacity math but also some nature of flickering itself involved whch may vary. Anyway for complex issues sometimes there is no universal solution, and flickering one of such issue which is easier to escape than fix. :-)

[@BlueMantleFilms]

I've pinned your comment at the top of the comments so that if this question comes up with other viewers that they'll be able to get a little more info from this exchange. Thanks again for your feedback!

[@paperwolfproductions4392]

Yo after trying this technique previously multiple times and failing, the combined stacking in OPs original video and your math have actually remedied it. Thanks so much!

[@lance_oquendo]

Andrey Mishchenko, how do you do that to denoise video? please teach me

[@satnzaalley]

Four hours faffing around with probing expressions in fusion with no luck and this fixes it in a couple of minutes. You deserve a medal.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

I had heard of a variation of this hack probably two years before I ever needed to use it, but then after a trip to Europe last year, in which I filmed a fair bit of slow motion footage, I ended up having a lot of footage with flicker, so thankfully was able to find this hack again. The version that I had seen (using only one extra layer at 50% opacity) didn't work for me, so I experimented with the settings and found this worked really well.

[@ippulnugroho]

I spent almost 6 hours searched all over the internet finding flicker free full version without buying them. But You you YOU REALLY REALLY DESERVE A MEDAL! THANKS, MATE

[@bruticusgamer1049]

@@BlueMantleFilms how to do it on a 3 minute vid with flicker?

[@lloydjefferies2048]

Thanks for getting straight into the fix and not making us 10 mins for a 5 second fix! much appreciated!!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

You’re welcome! As a frequent consumer of tutorials I also hate having to sit through fluff, so I figured it’s best to get to the point. :-)

[@mikofdz]

As a Blender user, you just SAVED my life with this trick, tons of hours trying to find a solution with programming and addons, and here it was, flickering solved in 2 mins. This is beyond, seriously thank you! the hero that you are

[@saniabhatiaa]

i spent a whole day shooting and didnt use the 180 shutter rule. checked and saw my footage had flickering shutter and this trick worked so well!

[@thefrikanih7390]

You know what I love about clickbait? When the title looks like but the video isn't actually clickbait. THANKS!!!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Meaning what you expect to see is what you end up seeing? Yes, I like that too. Thanks for watching!

[@aaronstestlab]

Life saver!!! Had about 50% of my clips near unusable due to some horrendous flicker. This technique just about eliminated it. It's not perfect, but totally good enough for my purposes. Thank You!

[@colbyfultonvideo]

This is genius. It causes a little frame blending on footage that is moving quickly, so I just masked out the area I needed to fix. Thanks a lot!

[@AreyasureCrew]

this is actually genius. One of those things where I'm applying it and asking myself 'who figures this shit out?!'. Nice one! Life saver.

[@Mikster2006]

This worked for me when the video was in the original 60 FPS. At 24FPS, there was ghosting and flicker was still present. I used three tracks at 67, 33 and 25% Thank you for this helpful tip!

[@rafaelosher8578]

bro, you are an absolute legend. thank you so much. you just saved me an hour and 45 minutes of important footage.

[@reinblunt]

One of the best quick-fix solution tutorials out there! Short, to the point and extremely helpful! Thank you

[@saistudent]

+1 to that. A life-saver! Thank you.

[@FindingTheForce]

You Rock!! 3 layers worked waaaay better than just 2... AND!!... you saved me 150$ from buying a plug in!! THANK YOU!!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! I recently went back to the same shot I used as the first example in this video, wondering if after a couple of years I would use a different method to deflicker it. After talking with people and reading comments from people who have seen this video, I was convinced that I must have gotten it wrong and that the proper opacities should be 100/50/33 instead of 100/67/33, but trying it again, I still got better results with 100/67/33. I'm sure it's entirely dependent on the particular flicker that people have (so it will depend on the framerate you're filming at, as well as the electrical frequency of the country you're filming in), but 100/67/33 worked better in my case.

[@yourperfectmemories8887]

6 years since your post, using a different software but this was a life saver. Thanks very much!!!!

[@jennrawlings8764]

I can't tell you how many searches I have done to find THIS answer! Oh my goshhhhhh, THANK YOU! That did it!

[@golazophotography4340]

Thank you for not trying to sell some extortionate plug-ins! This worked perfectly for me

[@lil----lil]

You're the type of people that make KZbin better. NO BS, flashing time wasting introduction. You get right to the meat. If I could've liked your video more than once I would!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Thanks! I try to approach tutorials from the standpoint of “what would I want it to be if I were watching?” And for most tutorials on YT I get annoyed with how long they are and how much unnecessary info is included, so I try to, as you say, get to the meat. I just wish the YT algorithm would pick up on that and show the video to more people. Instead any video under 10 minutes has little chance of being promoted by the algorithm. Oh well.

[@BradyandJayde]

Dude, this literally saved my day to night timelapse flicker. You are THE MAN

[@ThisIsOurLife]

Holy wow, this is the best tutorial ever. No fluff, straight to the point, and effective! Thanks!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Thanks! I do try to get to the good stuff quickly. Even when I do add some fluff, I try to do it after I've given the main point of the tutorial. :-) Thanks for watching!

[@inmagarcia1992]

I was so shocked by the result in my own video that I woke up my mum that was sleeping next to me, thank you so much for this tutorial 🙏

[@AshwinBhaskar]

I dont know why but this trick has never worked for me... :(

[@larbueno]

WAIT A MINUTE! You said I can fix video flicker in 30 seconds, yet the video is almost 3 minutes long! You lied, dude. I'm pissed!!! Really, though, I did as you said and it took away 80-90% of the flicker from shooting off a TV. I have a GH5 and used the synchro scan as best I could, but there was still lots of flicker. Thanks and well done. Concise. Subbed, Bub.

[@juanfelipegomez4213]

Thanks for making it SHORT, SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE. You rock.

[@RJPhotographics]

To echo many other comments - you are a hero. Also, odd coincidence, I got married in the church in your intro, to the lady who's footage gave us some flicker on our b-roll :D

[@ashaebi3269]

Less than a minute? Absolutely brilliant!

[@angelluzita]

When I do this, the result I get is like a gohst effect. dont get it.

[@vdmarame]

Did you "add" opacity?

[@josiemakes]

@@vdmarame Yes, that's whats causing the ghost effect. And it doesn't fix the flicker?

[@vdmarame]

@@josiemakes back to the drawing board - it worked for me once, I am having trouble in other

[@sarmalutadeidei9693]

try it with just 1 duplicate(50% opacity) over it and push the duplicate with 1 frame to the right and see if it fills the gap

[@amfre]

same here

[@_Aditya_Rai]

Wow.. I was very skeptic if it would work or not, but man this trick is very helpful. Thanks for this precious upload. Cheers mate.

[@bmccarty2012]

A good tip, but not a universal fix, unfortunately. Getting a perfect result like the one shown in the video seems to be tied to having a shutter speed that is double that of your frame rate - or something like that. Whatever the reason, using this method caused ghosting in my footage, which no amount of tweaking would remove. I resorted to trying the Flicker Free plug-in from Digital Anarchy, which worked perfectly. I'm not trying to plug that company or the product - in fact I'm not even going to link to it here - just offering an alternative in case you don't have luck with the method in the video. The plug-in costs $149, but may be worth it if you're trying to salvage footage from a shoot.

[@kayleighmay2557]

I've tried it on my footage and it works, I just can't get over how well it works, thanks so much, you da maaaaaan

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Isn't it great? This hack is a variation of one I learned of about three years ago. Until about a year ago I didn't have need to use it because I wasn't really filming in slow motion (which is where a lot of this flicker crops up) but once I started using this and experimenting with different numbers of layers and different opacities, I discovered that it works remarkably well.

[@kayleighmay2557]

I filmed in a house with LEDs everywhere (and we couldn't use natural lighting since it was supposed to be night time). We filmed anyway but I was very discouraged and ended up thinking that it would all be unusable. You proved me wrong :) I saw below that you can use a similar technique for noise reduction. Would you mind explaining how that works? Do you also need to move the layers along a frame or only change the opacity? Thanks! + 1 subscriber

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Same technique. It essentially averages the difference between frames, making it so that noise is reduced since the specific noise of one particular frame is unique to that frame. You can get a similar noise-reduction effect if you speed up video to 200% and choose "frame blending" for interpolation. Having real-time footage playing at 200% would be weird, but if you're working with timelapses this is a nice way to reduce both noise and flicker from the footage.

[@3DSage]

You saved my day! Short, clear, and easy technique! You're the best.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Glad it worked for you.

[@Matony]

Oh my god, really? There is a plugin that does this and it costs 150 US dollars 😄 I know this is very basic but it just saved a project that I messed up by shooting in the wrong FPS. Thanks a million Matt!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

You're welcome!

[@NicolasN]

2000 video selling plugin and one good man ! thank you

[@catholichack]

Loving the quality of your content... looking forward to watching you grow!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

+Joe McClane thanks, Joe! I'm excited about the Mastermind! A lot of work ahead of us!

[@xsimko]

For the dynamic video I tried to move third clip just for one frame, and motion blur went away almost fully. This is a trully amazing fix, thank you a lot!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Glad it worked.

[@JRaft0518]

I’m getting a ghosting effect with this menthod any way to correct?

[@RC-tg9ci]

This is awesome man. I have so much footage I can't use and now I can.

[@mysli2370]

thank you so much for this helpful video. but what can i do when there is movement in the video? i used it for my footage and the flickering lights are gone but the movement in the shot is looking weird...thank you.

[@OLIVERBRAND1]

this video just saved my life! AND this is how tutorials should be! -no bla bla bla. right to the point. thx!

[@Searching4Solitude]

Thanks for this tutorial. Appreciate you getting right to the point. Saved a bunch of my footage with this trick!

[@ChristopherIsak]

I had issues to use the slip tool but I figured it out now. You can't just slip, you need some sort of time within the clip that allows you to slip. So if you trim the two frames of all three clips, you can later also slip by 1 and by 2 frames.

[@alexandrupohata9235]

0:16 - 0:48 "and there you go" I LOVE YOU!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Glad it was helpful!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

+Alexandru Pohaţă thanks! Happy you liked it. :-)

[@KonstantinosVasilakakos]

Hi there, Greetings from Greece. I'm Konstantinos and I just wanted to tell you that you just help me alot with a very bigh problem. I use my camera, nikon d850 to capture videos of the night sky with the stars etc. The only problem is that sometimes i have that flocker when I use high Iso like 25600 or even 104.000. A long time now I have captured amazing stils but the video flicker was so but... Thank you, yes, it did an amzing work on high iso in low light conditions..

[@preond]

thank you so much..it is an amazing trick..instantly rid of the flickering..wish could give more than 1 thumbs up..

[@spookyanimator4695]

seen and tested a few different solutions but this one is far the best! and simplest. Thank you!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

It has worked very well for me for four years now. I occasionally find myself needing to do something else (such as ReVision Effects DeFlicker) but this little trick covers probably 98% of my de-flickering needs.

[@gabrielmiller7435]

Thank you! Thank you! And, thank you for quickly getting right to the point!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

I always prefer tutorials that get right to the point. I wish the KZbin algorithm would reward what people actually prefer watching rather than what keeps people on a video the longest...there are so many tutorials that are overly long (admittedly I've even unnecessarily extended tutorials by a bit) because the algorithm is more likely to promote them when they're longer. Oi.

[@davidamosphotography]

Thank you so much you just saved me $149 for a plug in

[@amyoungil]

I was hoping to also save $149 on a plug-in for stop motion flicker, but this doesn't work for that. Cool technique though. Thanks for posting.

[@koyomisfigures]

Truly appreciate it. I had two light sources, I believe, so the flicker also flows across. I couldn't solve it fully, but it is at least markedly improved over my original capture and far less likely to induce headache.

[@vladimirnavratil4320]

In which program are you making this adjustment? I have a similar problem and wanted to try your method.

[@alanparra6415]

Seen this trick some months ago, came back to it as it helped me out. Thanks a lot!!!

[@TanyaItsaProfile]

Love how you are to the point! WORKS a treat on the flicker - but the person moving and talking now looks out of sync/blurred (yes I have muted the two copied layers). Any advice?

[@1221mediaent]

Straight and to the point! Everyone else's video last 5 times as long - thank you!!!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

+1221 Media & Entertainment yep! Making this one (which will also be my approach for future tutorials), I wanted to keep it short and sweet. I love +Mango Street's channel for that specific reason: short and to the point. Are there any topics you'd be interested in seeing some videos/tutorials made on?

[@RainyDayForge]

This worked pretty darn well. My clip is a little ghostly but whatever, it won't cause seizures anymore.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Yep, it usually does leave a little ghosting, but as you allude to, that's better than the video flickering all over the place.

[@sandaymedia8593]

found this on 2020, my life saved..... thank you dude you are awesome ;)

[@charlesmorris4120]

Holy smokes! What an intuitive and cool fix. Thanks so much!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

I'm glad this was helpful. I can't take credit for the initial idea...it was something I learned from a Philip Bloom tutorial. I did modify it a bit so it would work with my footage (he used only one layer at 50%, but in my case I found it was necessary to use two). Anyway, I do agree this trick is crazy and awesome, and it has definitely saved a bunch of footage I would otherwise have not been able to use.

[@gaboaaa23]

I LOVE YOU because you saved my video footage of my laughing baby while it was sleeping....

[@PeterHopton]

you're a life saver, thank you!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

You're welcome! I'm so glad this is helping people. I feel like flicker is cropping up so frequently now that most cameras can film at 60fps or 120fps (or higher). So this is a nice trick to have in the bag when I get my settings wrong.

[@traveldiaries8135]

thank You and what I liked the most is that explained everything till the end. Life saver

[@ccpdomain284]

Hey Matt, amazing!! Thanks so much for such a helpful tute. I've not been successful fixing this issue previously (and I've watched Philip Bloom's videos too). You are truly a hero!

[@AndrewCrossley]

I might be doing something wrong here but I did exactly what you said but then the footage seems to be having some sort of ghost effect?

[@DaysOfFunder]

moved too many frames, or you may be filiming in a lower frame rate.

[@Ezis9]

WHAT!!! THIS IS FREAKING MAGIC!

[@muhammadzulfikarabdillah4763]

you"re best of the best teacher...i love you education teacher

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Ha! Thanks.

[@PressPlayPhotography]

Matt - you are THE MAN! Brilliant tutorial - thank you SO much! The quickest fix ever!

[@srmjr4200]

Great tip! Adapted it to a nodal system. Works like a charm. Thank you.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Like Resolve? Or something different? (I don't know much about Resolve, but I think it has the option to be a nodal system, yes?)

[@donrubes]

Thank you for this! Fixed my shot with 2 lamps on dimmers problem!

[@AlyenasKitchen]

Thank you so much for this helpful video. Nesting and sharpening really improved my video as it had motion. 😊🌺🌼

[@dhrubasaha08]

Only working tutorial available,thank you :)

[@angah38]

Thank you very much!! I thought it was impossible. You saved my job :)

[@paulmckenna5224]

Short and to the point! Nice! (I hate it when someone stretches out a 45 second explanation into a 12 minute video!)

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Agreed. When I started doing tutorials I specifically thought to myself "how would I want the tutorial to be if I were watching one that someone else made?" and one of the main things was "short".

[@CommHive]

Huge thanks. I'm editing a video that starts with successive clips at the indoor entrance of an office that had horrible flickering. (One bad ceiling bulb I didn't notice while I was there) Your solution worked well. Even better when I selected Optical Flow on the clips at issue.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome!

[@geigy]

woo hoo - so simple and yet so few people know about this. Great stuff, thanks.

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Thanks! I can't take credit for the idea. I first learned of it from Philip Bloom...but I did modify it (by doing two layers and different opacities) so it would work better with the flickering I was dealing with.

[@RockStreetStudios]

You are a GENIUS!! This worked flawlessly, can't thank you enough!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Wish I could take credit for this, but alas I can't. I first saw it from Philip Bloom, who does awesome video work around the world. I did modify his technique a bit so that it would work better with the footage I was dealing with, but the principle isn't unique.

[@StriderPictures]

Mannnnnn you just won a subscriber with one single video !

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Welcome to our channel! Please forgive the delay in follow-up videos. I've been so behind on editing of some for-hire projects that I've decided it's better to spend a few weeks trying to knock those out, get a little ahead of the game, and then I'll be posting more KZbin videos.

[@NoxMush]

Right? Same for me! Saved my arse brother!!

[@iviaverick52]

cool trick! obviously it softens the image a bit, but in some scenarios it's definitely worth it to get rid of the flicker

[@kodewill]

Earned your sub in 50 seconds total. Well done mate!

[@HTWithDave]

Dude, glad I stuck around til the end for the mask part, this was huge, and it totally fixed the flicker! Thank you so much!

[@foreignerintaiwan]

Your advise is really helpful. It worked wonders. Thank you!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Awesome! Glad it helped!

[@NomadHills]

This is EXACTLY whatI needed, many thanks!

[@chrisyatesweddingfilms65]

Straight and to the point, and worked like a charm. Thanks!

[@ethanseneker3337]

You're so clutch. Thank you for this no bullshit tutorial.

[@VaibhavsTech]

I love you for saving hours of my footage - liked and subscribed! :)

[@FiveMinutePitchTV]

Wow this works. Thanks very much - was about to phone up a client to get them to record some footage again!

[@InspiringTeachers]

Thanks for the clear explanation, this did not end my flicker, it made it smoother. trying to adjust

[@yogaindrawijaya]

it worked really well, huge thanks

[@NightDocs]

This is genius

[@mathieulalonde]

Actually, if you use three layers, the second one should be 50% and the third one 33% (if you want them all to be at equal opacity)...

[@BlueMantleFilms]

+Mathieu Lalonde why's that? In my mind it makes sense to me that you'd divide 100% by the number of layers, so if you're doing only two, then the top layer would be 50%, but if you were doing four (which would make for terrible delay/multi-exposure) you'd do Layer 2 at 75%, Layer 3 at 50%, and Layer 4 at 25%. I'm genuinely curious, because I have wondered if different opacities would give different results, but I've been happy with this method.

[@ThompsonSean]

@@BlueMantleFilms because the top layer at 33% cuts down the 50% layer by 33%, leaving 33% remaining (0.5*(1-0.33)). Same as the top layer. The bottom layer was cut down by 50% by the second layer, leaving 50% showing. Then 33% of that 50% by the top layer. Now all three layers account for 33% of what you're seeing.

[@fahimmuntasirniloy]

Dude, you are a lifesaver. Thanks

[@GeorgeThoughts]

I had ghosting at first when I pressed Y and used the Slip Tool to move the clips, even when I moved them and then moved them back and then just used the cursor to move them one frame. If I deleted the duplicated clips on layers 2 and 3, then copied them fresh and ONLY moved them using the cursor point tool, not the Slip Tool, then it worked perfectly for me. I also only needed one duplicated layer at 50% opacity. If I made two layers it would add ghosting again. So that may depend on your footage, perhaps on the framerate of it.

[@GingerGaiden]

It seems like this worked perfectly for everyone else but me :c Followed this perfectly

[@GingerGaiden]

I think its cause my clip has soo much movement

[@BlueMantleFilms]

@@GingerGaiden Does it get rid of the flicker but has bad ghosting? Or does it not get rid of the flicker? Some flicker just isn't fixable. This trick works well for many clips, but unfortunately not all. And, as you mentioned, if your clip has a lot of movement, then even if the trick does get rid of the flicker, the ghosting could be so bad that it still doesn't "fix" the video. In this case, if you absolutely have to have the clip you're working with, then you'll probably need to get a deflickering plugin. I eventually had to do that myself one time when I had a flickering flip that this trick didn't work for, and I had to pay $250 for the plugin DeFlicker. Having the plugin is nice, though, because I know I have that to fall back on if the method from this video doesn't work.

[@AJUconcretelifters]

Now that's a creative fix!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

Wish it was my idea, but alas I learned it from others before me (specifically Philip Bloom...he posted a variation of this hack on his Vimeo channel a few years ago). Still, it's great to have this in my bag of tricks to use when needed.

[@bankrptfilms]

Easy and straight to the point, thank you

[@eskimogold3430]

Great tip! However, I wanted to put your video into one of my private playlists to be able to watch it again if I have the same problem and YT does not give me the option to do so. Is that a feature that you have disabled?

[@kom-unik1915]

It works perfectly! Million thanks!

[@carlabellot7124]

Very helpful! This saved me a lot of headache. Thank you!

[@BlueMantleFilms]

You're welcome, Carla!

[@roberto-maddaloni]

Saved my butt with this one

[@warren_harrison]

Very helpful for a quick fix. Thanks

[@ว่างแล้วค่อยไปกัน]

Thank you. This clip changed my life.

[@brianepping5828]

Good trick I’ve needed many times..thank you

[@MichaelConferPhoto]

wow. awesome. took me 1 minute to fix my issue. Thank You

[@AndrewCrossley]

Thank you man, I tried so many different ways and this is the only one that worked

[@kon_ger]

wow, thanks for this fix! This was so helpful :D

[@BlueMantleFilms]

You're welcome! Glad it could help.