I ran into an interesting predicament: I couldn't get the right color adjustment settings to work in my video editor to correct some underwater videos from a scuba diving trip. After much trial and error, I came up with an alternative method: I have been able to successfully edit underwater photos to restore their color, so I used FFMPEG to export all of the frames from the source video as individual images, then I used a script to automate my photo editor to batch process all of the images, then I used FFMPEG to reassemble the finished results into a new MP4 file.
The following video of a Goliath Triggerfish in Bora Bora shows a before and after of what that looks like. Overall, I think the results are promising, albeit via a weird and somewhat time-consuming hack.
Exporting Videos as Images with FFMPEG
Here is the basic syntax for automating FFMPEG to export the individual frames:
ffmpeg.exe -i "input.mp4" -r 60 -s hd1080 "C:\path\%6d.png"
Where the following items are defined:
| -i "input.mp4" | specifies the source MP4 file |
| -r 60 | specifies the frame rate for the video at 60fps |
| -s hd1080 | specifies 1920x1080 resolution (there are others) |
| "C:\path\%6d.png" | specifies the directory for storing the images, and specifies PNG images with file names which are numerically sequenced with a width of 6 digits (e.g. 000000.png to 999999.png) |
Combining Images as a Video with FFMPEG
Here is the basic syntax for automating FFMPEG to combine the individual frames back into an MP4 file:
ffmpeg.exe -framerate 60 -i "C:\path\%6d.png" -c:v libx264 -f mp4 -pix_fmt yuv420p "output.mp4"
Where the following items are defined:
| -framerate 60 | specifies the frame rate for the output video at 60fps (note that specifying a different framerate than you used for exporting could be used to alter the playback speed of the final video) |
| -i "C:\path\%6d.png" | specifies the directory where the images are stored, and specifies PNG images with file names which are numerically sequenced with a width of 6 digits (e.g. 000000.png to 999999.png) |
| -c:v libx264 | specifies the H.264 codec |
| -f mp4 | specifies an MP4 file |
| -pix_fmt yuv420p | specifies the pixel format, which could also specify "rgb24" instead of "yuv420p" |
| "output.mp4" | specifies the final MP4 file |