@guest.r Is it possible to achieve a stronger bloom/halation substract ? I think it can improve the overall picture with high radius/sigma values. While keeping mask visible and less blurry around bright pixels.
Here’s the results with a preset that I want to tweak for bright pixels (if possible with substract).
With new release there will be options to adjust bloom and halation mask strengths at least (to very easily keep masks visible). Maybe finer bloom sampling could help, but i can only guess the overall situation. Otherwise magic glow can be a nice helper, maybe you could throw in a notch…
Edit: i could also return the negative bloom substract option for 'stronger results.
New Release Version (2023-08-10-r1):
Notable changes:
Download link:
https://mega.nz/file/g84GCA4A#gXM0mHUt3VXRuzIpgokJhXEOkt0-PwsHZx8mTtz2GdM
Wow,that was quick!
Ok I will try that and thanks again for your time 
. Downloading now.
I hope this doesn’t force me to retune a certain preset I intend to share as a file but haven’t because can’t think of what to name it.
Wait a minute…
*WTF BOOM *
Yeah, I know the the “wtf boom” meme implies something undesireable but it genuinely played in my head.
Played a little with mask strenght controls for bloom and halation, with moderately strong bloom, glow and halation values. Here’s what I’ve achieved: if the objective was to preserve the mask, success!
It’s a mask 11 NTSC preset, I use it for tests because it’s the most bright for 1440p and you have more room for toying with the brightness options.
Smartphone shot (those pesky vertical lines on Richter’s back gotta go, but with bloom and glow turned on it’s quite difficult):
What i like best is a new option to mitigate masks with a touch of halation on top of bloom without much tweaking. Ofc. the main issue remains with near perfect mask mitigation on scenes which aren’t reaching much brightness. If a game as a whole is designed in a similar manner then a per-game preset should work with some pre- and post- brightness tweaks.
A smart average-luminance solution for mask mitigation could work only on some cases, it would more or less fail with games as bubble bobble etc. where black and very bright graphics are mixed. Not to mention that ever-changing dynamic is bad.
Maybe you could try to zoom out mask 12 (7->4) or mask 13 (6->4). I usually like these better than mask 11 where color transitions between ‘phosphors’ are quite blocky.
This is what I’m getting with new options. Though I can’t extract enough luminance and keep the phosphors well lit like in these pictures:
For reference, in Royale I get this (even with wrong mask as there’s no BGR option):
I like the phosphors in guest’s and luminance in royale. So, it’s hard to improve each one. Any tips?
With luminance do you mean the overall brightness of the image? What I usually do is start from those three values: Brightness 1,05 (1,10 could be nice too), Halation -0,5, Post brightness 1,05.
Halation and Post brightness are more “mask killing” than Brightness, from what I’ve experienced, and they both produce swelling on white pixels, so I wouldn’t recommend going higher than 0,10 and 1,10, respectively.
About Halation, the positive value produces a more pronounced halo effect, while the negative is more white “inside” every pixel, adding brightness to the whole picture. For higher values I prefer the first, for lower ones the latter (-0,5).
Then you could try Mask bloom (not more than 0,10) and Mask boost (still experimenting with this though).
Mask Boost is a nice enhancer, also bright boosts. If you want overall brighter image then it’s also fine to lower gamma values in some cases.
My usual values and, in adding, Mask boost set to 2.0, can’t seem to find any real drawbacks!
@guest.r I’ve followed your advice for the mask, but I think that 12 and 13 in the NTSC are not updated, as zooming them out produces identical results to 10 and 11 (12 is RRGGBBX and 13 is magenta, yellow, white, cyan, blue, black I think). In the standard shader the subpixels are different (in the above image, Mask 13 reduced to 4 subpixels, they’re burgundy, yellow, cyan, blue).
Down zoomed mask 12 (7->4) is a bit less brighter and somewhat ‘rounded’. It looks subjectively better to me in many cases.
But are you talking about guest NTSC or guest standard?
What I mean is that Mask 12 and 13 in guest NTSC and Mask 12 and 13 in guest standard are different, as they have different color subpixels. This, even before zooming out.
Or maybe I’ve touched something I shouldn’t have.
Dunno, the mask code is identical. I checked it a minute ago. You can check if you don’t use a different mask layout between these two.
I can’t zoom your screenshot. Looks like you posted some thumbnail only.
It’s quite interesting to see you playing around with CRT-Guest-Advanced after I starting playing around with CRT-Royale after our recent postings and conversations in the Please show off what CRT Shaders can do thread.
What do we call this “cultural exchange” ? Lol
As for your question I got my feet wet using Mega Bezel Reflection Shader which has even more options for controlling and getting confused by these things and had only recently started dabbling in standalone CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC.
But generally I try to use things that dilute the Mask very sparingly and I sometimes tweak those things from very close to the screen. Even a little dose of Bloom, and a slight dash of Glow or Magic Glow and Halation can also contribute to overall brightness in addition to just turning the knob all the way to 11.
So it’s just up to us to know when to stop. Do we want things to have this much blurry side effects or not and stuff like that. I think tweaking close to the screen helps us to really understand what’s going on with each setting.
I use Gamma_C (Gamma Correct) a lot. I’ve tried approaches where I’ve used Post CRT Brightness more or as a starting point.
I’ve recently started using Bright Boost Light and Bright Boost Dark (which is a great contrast/dynamics fine tuner if you ask me) because it doesn’t dilute the Mask. It instead can clip though.
So each method has its pros and cons but I’ve learned a lot in a short space of time using Royale though and I can definitely see strengths and weaknesses when comparing both approaches to doing things.
Another thing to mention @Hyllian is are you using the same Luts/Colour Management between CRT-Royale and CRT-Guest-Advanced? Also do try CRT-Guest-Advanced-NTSC as it does certain things a little differently and you might appreciate the difference in the look of CRT-Guest-Advanced-HD.
Well, given the amount of knobs, it’s virtually infinite the number of visual possibilities with these shaders. I’m always learning.
About the LUTs, I’ve been experimenting some and I’m reaching the conclusion that the NTSC one is what I like more.
Ah, ok. Looks like you’re using a fat mask.
Don’t forget you can refine/resaturate your mask after dilution with the Mask Gamma setting.
