Not sure if I see a difference between on or off, but does anyone know exactly what this setting does inside the UserOption.cfg file?

Also Sharpen. What exactly does that do?

Color Grading is a technique used in films to change how you perceive stuff. When done to the overall image, this is known as primary colour grading, when done to just part of the image, it is called secondary colour grading. The most well known example of colour grading, is probably in the movie Star Wars. Whenever you see the good guys, and particularly when they are introduced - for example Luke Skywalker - upon his introduction he is seen on a planet with warm orange and yellow tones, to portray warmth and comfort, conversely, when we first see Darth Vader, he is seen in a clinical impersonal spaceship corridor with cold, blue tones, to enhance the impression that he too is cold in his demeanour. It's this, in combination with their introductory tunes which helps you determine who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.

When games use a simple 'on/off' setting for colour grading, it usually means when 'on', they are going for more cinematically pleasing tones on the image processing, and when 'off', they will be more like the tones of a typical video camera. You can see examples of this if you look at the colour grading options and lumetri looks in programs such as photoshop, premiere, final cut, after effects etc. You GPU may also be able to use such presets, or you can effectively do this yourself with sliders such as these on the ATI GPU's controls, in particular, the Colour Temperature one, which would alter the mood of MSFS considerably, a bit like that Star Wars example above:

For sharpening, typically, on digital image processing a technique called unsharp masking is used. What happens is the image to be sharpened is duplicated and the duplicate blurred slightly, then depending on a numerical setting level you specify, if the blurriness exceeds that level when the blurred duplicate is compared to the original, it is subtracted. Too high a number and you'll get over-sharp edges and image noise which can take colours out of the gamut range of the device being used to display the image.

A really quick way you can sort of demonstrate the gist of this, is to scan in an image from a magazine where the printed dots which make the image are visible, if you take that into a program such as photoshop, then blur it slightly and then sharpen it up again, the dots will to a large extent have gone. It's kind of like that nonsense in movies where some cop ask some CSI computer nerd 'can you enhance that for me?' and some picture which looks like it was taken with a potato suddenly shows massive amounts of detail. It's not that good in real life, but you get the idea. this sort of thing is genuinely done by CSI personnel; I know because I've trained a lot of them in UK police departments on how to do it in the past, but it's obviously not as easy to do as is typically shown in movies.

 

Edited August 8, 20214 yr by Chock

Well, well...I had had it off, because with the 'old' version of SU5,  some thought that you could dumb down the cartoon, or washed out pastel look .   So, now with SU5HF2, I threw the switch back to 1 and the same forestry area near Lake Huron, came right to life..

Before with it off, the trees tops were all the same basic color...even with the sunlight upon them.  Then, with ColorGrading back to 1....wow...the sun was SPLASHING across the tree tops..some because of the angle still darker then others...some as though fully illuminated by the sun  Same for the ground textures...so,  do I recommend you have this as 'on'. Absolutely, it was like another 50 percent 'injection' of R.W. view and appearance. I also had Sharpen off...and the textures were too muted...and fake looking. With it on (in sim, as WELL as in my nVidia mask...set to the default)  The ground textures and trees, are NOT pixelated. The the A.I. building, are razor sharp and stand out from the ground textures.   Win win, and win, for both features as on.

Ses

Edited August 8, 20214 yr by Sesquashtoo

I've always found the sharpening to be slightly overdone in MFS.. always bordered on grainy for me.   I turn it off in the config and control it from nvidia CP   (0.55 is perfect on my rig)

1 minute ago, The Moose said:

I've always found the sharpening to be slightly overdone in MFS.. always bordered on grainy for me.   I turn it off in the config and control it from nvidia CP   (0.55 is perfect on my rig)

I like to see the gals in their bikinis sun tanning around the pools...so I have both as on, lol.   Hey...what can I say?    

2 minutes ago, Sesquashtoo said:

I like to see the gals in their bikinis sun tanning around the pools...so I have both as on, lol.   Hey...what can I say?    

You enjoy watching them develop potential melanomata?

Not nice.

Hey...what can I say?  "That's what I say".

I have had sharpening turned off for a while and turned it back on for kicks.  I then realized why I had it turned off....didn't like how it looked at all.  I have not tried setting sharpening in Nvidia CP.  

3 minutes ago, Fizzelle said:

You enjoy watching them develop potential melanomata?

Not nice.

Hey...what can I say?  "That's what I say".

That almost spewed my coffee...funny and clever...lol.   I forgot to tell you that I was dropping Sun Screen 12 from little parachutes when I saw then around their back yard pools, or at the beach...I mean...as you say...you have to show your appreciation for the natural beauty of the scenery below your wing or rotor.....    So fear not...they are all taken care of, Fizzelle! 🙂

6 minutes ago, Flic1 said:

I have had sharpening turned off for a while and turned it back on for kicks.  I then realized why I had it turned off....didn't like how it looked at all.  I have not tried setting sharpening in Nvidia CP.  

With both on...the nVidia has a gradient box you can switch on,..and with both, in sim and through nVidia, they make for a great visual sharpening cocktail...

Sharpening =1 makes a massive difference on my 4k at 80%.  I can read all of the instruments and glass screens perfectly now. 

As noted above, it can be turned off and then set in Nvidia control panel instead to about 0.5 if people feel the sharpening is too strong.  I am used to sharpening = 1 in the user config file now so I will keep it.

As for the color grading, I am unsure if I see much difference, so I think it is very subtle.  I would like to test more but I keep getting CTD's today.

1 hour ago, bobcat999 said:

Sharpening =1 makes a massive difference on my 4k at 80%.  I can read all of the instruments and glass screens perfectly now. 

As noted above, it can be turned off and then set in Nvidia control panel instead to about 0.5 if people feel the sharpening is too strong.  I am used to sharpening = 1 in the user config file now so I will keep it.

As for the color grading, I am unsure if I see much difference, so I think it is very subtle.  I would like to test more but I keep getting CTD's today.

It is subtle...fly over a forested area with it off and with it on at around 7:00 am.  You should see the difference quite clearly....color gradient changes that evoke different intensity of the sun's rays upon the surfaces, that has color...(green foliage for instance).

I am seeing a lot of over-saturation and clouds are now terribly overexposed. I know this was supposedly fixed with latest HF but really not looking too great. The eye adaptation seems overdone now also. May try turning that off in the user.opt. Really hope Asobo gives us some sliders for brightness, saturation, bloom, etc at some point..

3 hours ago, jarmstro said:

Also Sharpen. What exactly does that do?

This should be self explanatory 

2 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

Sharpening =1 makes a massive difference on my 4k at 80%.  I can read all of the instruments and glass screens perfectly now. 

 

Going the other way - if you have surplus system grunt - setting render scaling to 125 or 150 makes a huge difference to the readability of the cockpit warnings and instruments.

Edited August 8, 20214 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick