[GrandLotus] (Sharpened) Made in Abyss [BD 1080p Hi10 FLAC]

Good job!

Thanks! If only it wasn't High 10 though.... The most common unsupported format that got popular for a reason that is anyone's guess.

Looks like crap tbh.
Sharpened lines are so fucking awful. They blur stuff for a reason.

Ok, cool. Thanks for the useless comment.

In my opinion sharpened anime and all kinds of filters is not worth it. Leads to big file size for no reason.

Watch on a Sony TV, it has a reality creation feature which auto sharpens blurs. High end mobile phones also have this feature too.

Close to source is still the best.

Not all filters increase file size. In fact, de-noising -- which the majority of anime fans around here despise -- actually greatly reduces file sizes. Sharpening and upscaling are virtually the only ones that do increase file sizes. And there are several filters not based on taste, that are worth it for some releases. For instance, some blu-rays have banding issues, or bad halo artifacts, or bad aliasing. There are filters to help negate those issues, which are non-intrusive, unlike sharpening, and do next to nothing to change the file size. Closest to source isn't always the best. Which I say in regards to filter changes like some of the ones I just mentioned. For sharpening, that's completely subjective, and many do find it looks worse -- nothing wrong with that.

Thats interesting. I will use this knowledge to pick out good animes to keep. Still waiting for Made in Abyss season 2. ?

For sharpening, that’s completely subjective

Not really. The thing is, you're sharpening the black lines as well. It makes them very noticeable, and it objectively sucks. It's not supposed to look this. At all.

Yet another moron that doesn't know the meaning of subjective. Lol.

More like "subjective". Uneducated people just don't know they're wrong.
1000 years ago people had the opinion the Earth revolved around the Sun.
These days, people think that sharper = better.

Wrong then, wrong now.

Sharpening and upscaling are virtually the only ones that do increase file sizes

graaiiinnn

'hurr durr, I don't like sharp edges so EVERYBODY dislikes sharp edges. because my opinion is the only truth in the world.'
the pinnacle of your mental deficiency is your comparison of the copernican revolution while your concept is clearly the obsolete kamiyan93 centric. at least you gave me a hearty laugher.
by the way where are your comments below moozzi2's releases? can't find them at all. scared by the deluded fanbase and searching for a rather new submitter?

Sorry, but who are you, exactly?

graaiiinnn

I already mentioned how de-noising removes a lot of the file size. No point saying the obvious opposite being true, especially when basically nobody adds grain to a release.

Kamiyan93, your cognitive dissonance and stupidity is up there with DmonHiro. And it's actually hilarious you compare a visual preference to a thought-to-be-fact from a thousand years ago. Especially when it's not even true that people -- people being a majority, as you implied -- these days think that sharper = better. It's a small minority. The vast majority at Nyaa hate it, and casual anime fans who just stream shit quality likely wouldn't even care one way or the other.

oh boy another awful upload and comment chain ?

Just want to say that noise and grain are two different things. Noise is a visual artifact and grain is actually supposed to be there. So de-noise filters can improve the overall picture quality, but removing grain is actively removing detail. Whether or not you prefer that look is up to you.

I have admittedly used noise to mean grain, as people frequently use them interchangeably, but here I didn't say they were the same. Whether you're removing only noise, or also grain, the filters are called de-noisers, and the process - denoising. Even if removing grain.

And yeah, it's a personal preference whether you like the grain there or not. Just don't say that around Dmon. Went on and on in the Jormungand comment section.

especially when basically nobody adds grain to a release.

They should though

They should though

For the safety of your brain, do not look at my Jormungand upload, haha.

Sorry about the toxic community, GrandLotus. Don't like sharpened anime? Don't download it. Some of us actually like the look of it.

For the safety of your brain, do not look at my Jormungand upload, haha.

Not just for aesthetic purposes. Adding grain can help prevent banding from re-appearing during the encoding, so adding a layer of (adaptive) static grain is not a bad idea. "basically nobody adds grain to a release" is simply untrue.

@TheXevon I hate that argument and every time I see someone use it in a comment section, I get an aneurism. Just because we don't like it does not mean we are not allowed to critique it. Sure, there's people that only act likes assholes, but even they have critique that they should be allowed to voice without being bombarded by white knights.

Sorry about the toxic community, GrandLotus. Don’t like sharpened anime? Don’t download it. Some of us actually like the look of it.

Yeah, I mean, I literally put sharpened in the title -- and before even the name of the show, to the detriment of the the torrent name -- so that people know exactly what it is right away, and if they already know they don't like it, they can just skip it. Instead, it's like it attracts them.

Adding grain helps hide banding, not prevent it. Just like a blur doesn't remove haloes -- or what most wrongly refer to as ringing. It simply makes it less noticeable because the image is more out of focus. For example, I almost guarantee that's why Shirobako is even blurrier than other anime of its time. To try to hide it's obvious haloing.

@LightArrowsEXE What they're commenting is not a critique. At all. It's simply rude and pointless bashing. There's a difference. I don't expect everyone to like it. In fact, I only expect a small minority to. And everyone who dislikes it is more than welcome to have that opinion. But it's pointless, and just straight up wrong to say that releases like this are 'objectively' awful/garbage/trash, etc. Which lots of do say. I literally make the titles look horrible by putting "(Sharpened)" not only in the title, but right at the very beginning, so that people who don't like that style, can just go on their merry way. Instead, many like to purposely go out of their way to pointlessly say how much they hate it and that it's 'objectively' bad. Which, -- again -- is not a critique.

'We need to be able to "critique" something by being a complete asshole, saying it looks like utter garbage and anyone who likes it is trash, without being criticized for our asshole comments'. Yeah, okay...

You're free to dislike something. You're free to say something about it, if you want. But what they say aren't critiques, and there are ways of saying you don't like it without being an asshole. Which 95% fail to do. And why bother, anyway? I don't go out of my way to comment on every YouTube video I don't like, every IMDb page of every movie I don't like, every reddit post I don't like, every torrent I don't like, etc. I just move on.

Adding grain helps hide banding, not prevent it.

I said during the encoding, not the filtering. Even if I did mean during the filtering, dithering is added to the edges of gradients during the debanding to minimize quantization errors. So yes, the grain does in fact aid in preventing banding from (re)appearing. I suggest you read up more on it (this is not a defacto write-up on it, but it covers and references to it with examples used in practice). Here's another link. And another one. For good measure I'd also like to add that adding grain does not necessarily severely increase the filesize, again due to quantization.

As for the critique part, tell me in what way this is not a critique. Sure, he started off with just bashing but he most certainly gave an argument and instead of responding with a proper counter-argument you just cried "Oh, yet another clown that doesn't know what subjective means!" It's easy to complain about people just bashing you, but the least you can do is actually answer their critiscms when they do present it. And for those that do just do pointless bashing, I'd like to know why it's so hard to not feed the trolls.

For good measure I’d also like to add that adding grain does not necessarily severely increase the filesize

Well, yeah. Obviously. It depends entirely on how much is added. Some shows add a lot, and in those cases, it increases the file size by a staggering amount. I.E Jormungand.

I'm baffled you think his comments are a critique. His first comment is literally, "Looks like crap tbh.
Sharpened lines are so fucking awful. They blur stuff for a reason." Just an insult. And then what you link to, he's just claiming how sharpening 'objectively' sucks, and that basically the sharpened release would look fine if it wasn't sharpened. "Yeah, so that whole point of your torrent, that makes it different from the dozen other releases of the show? Yeah, don't do that. Then it'll look fine. Like the other 12." Have you ever looked at an image where everything but the black lines are sharpened? You wouldn't tell. It looks virtually the same. Pointless. So, this isn't a critique. It's not a critique when it's literally, "I hate everything you did. So...just do not that."

A critique would be something more along the lines of, "I don't like the sharpened look, but regardless of that, the halos could use a little more work to be less noticeable after the sharpening." Or even just, "This looks too over-sharpened. If you're going to sharpen it, then fine, but dial it back a bit. Especially with darkening the lines."

"The thing is, you’re sharpening the black lines as well. It makes them very noticeable" sounds like he had a valuable critique to me.

I do like to occasionally add my own sharpening as well depending on the source (although usually you don't have to if you properly descale and reupscale with a better scaling algorithm, like nnedi3_rpow2 or something), however I do notice that sometimes sharpening black lines specifically can make them a bit jarring to look at, especially when everything else is much blurrier. Could easily alleviate this with an edgemask, too.

My point was that he definitely has a worthwhile critique, but instead of questioning or even so much as acknowledging its existence, you instead went the route of shaming him. Going as low as he did doesn't make you look better, it just makes both of you look like asses. Instead of jumping to the easy-to-counter things someone says, properly answer what's actually important. I'd appreciate the same for my comments. Don't just nitpick the easy stuff, but talk about the more important stuff in the post.

Cries in comments taking me ages to write...

I kept replying because the dolt said it's objectively bad. Not for being an asshole. Even though this is the second time he's done it. Many others leave comments like that, without at least claiming their opinion is object truth. It's personal preference, and like the idiot DmonHiro, he tried to claim otherwise. That's where I draw the line. You want to say you hate it? Go ahead. It's a pointless waste of time, in my opinion, but whatever. Just don't claim a subjective thing is objective.

"The thing is, you’re sharpening the black lines as well. It makes them very noticeable..." That absolutely sounds like a critique. But, before it even gets to that, the comment is already blatantly setup to not be a critique, and rather a continuation of the bashing. Quotes me saying saying to another person that sharpening is subjective, and begins the reply with, "Not really." Already showing how the person hates sharpening so much that he doesn't even consider it a preference. And further negated as being any kind of so-called critique by -- what I already said above -- the fact that he isn't saying to sharpen the black lines less, but rather to not sharpen them at all. I had to cut a piece of an episode, encode it, make screenshots of same frame, etc, so this comment has taken forever lol. But here is what I mean. This is what happens if I do use sharpening, but none to the edges, as that person "critiqued". It does very, very little. I'm not saying I couldn't darken/sharpen the edges less. But that is NOT what this person has been saying. At all. He's just saying how much he hates sharpening in general, and especially on the lines. Rather than saying less, he's suggesting none, which takes out virtually the entire result of the sharpening, and therefore the release. And therefore isn't a critique of the release, but rather just saying to not do it.

Then stop feeding him.

I did. Once I felt I got my point across, regardless of whether he listens or not, I stopped. I didn't bother reply to his asinine "triggered" thing that honestly seems like it represents him more than me, considering it has a resemblance to his profile pic, haha.

Just in case it wasn't clear: As the sample I linked shows you, sharpening everything but the edges, as that rude person "suggested" does very little. Virtually nothing compared what I do. If I did that, there'd be no point in uploading. So, his "critique" isn't helpful. Sharpening without sharpening the lines is pointless and is essentially telling me to not upload. And I have no duty to explain any of that to him when all he does is make rude comments about how much he hates this stuff. To you, I explain it because you're being reasonable and open to discussion. Cheers.

iirc you're using LSFmod, so you can consider changing up some of the parameters. Like this one for example. What you can also do is try very strong sharpening until you see actual results, and then repairing or slowly lowering the threshold again.

I don't use vapoursynth, and going higher than 100 -- the default strength -- does nothing. Nor does changing the other parameters while the strength is already at 100. What I linked to you already is the maximum effect from sharpening with 1 instance of LSFmod if not sharpening lines. And, it was virtually nothing. Small difference in background detail, but I like the faces I'm spending a lot of my focus on to be what's less blurry. My personal preference.

thank you , and why the hell toxic on anime release, if you dont like it just use another release, your life must be very boring ...

Hey GrandLotus, thanks for your fantastic releases. Dropping by to ask if you could maybe reupload your ATLA comparison screenshots at your convenience. They were removed :(
I'd like to see v1 vs v2 for myself before grabbing one of them. Thanks ahead, and keep up the great work!

@GrandLotus I think you should probably leaving out the (Sharpened) in the title of your releases from now on as not only will this deter insignificant trolls like Kamiyan93 (as it's like your inviting these types anyways) but open up to some potential folks who may wanna get your share.

Just leave your description (as you have it above) as is should be good enough for your objective.

Also, I think you should use a different site to host comparissons screenshots. That site you use is shit and it doesn't last long on there. Try one of these:

https://diff.pics/
https://slowpics.org/comparison

I've only used diff so I can't speak on slowpics.

Dammit. I hadn't noticed the old links don't work anymore. Wouldn't have used it in the first place if I'd known it lasts such a short time.

@NoZa Yeah, I might remove it from the titles. But it's not like will actually stop trolls. Moozzi2 doesn't put it in his titles. And I've already released enough that many will recognize my name, anyway. If I had to guess, I'd actually say it stops more haters by having it in the title than not, since the ones who already know they don't like it generally don't care enough to go out of their way. It just attracts the few loser trolls who are willing to waste their time bashing and arguing. And, as I said, many of whom already know. This wasn't Kamiyan93's first time. I may still remove it, though. If, for no other reason, just to make the torrent titles look less shitty, haha. Also, thanks. I'll use diffpics instead.

@ jimj2mz Sorry about that. Here's what version 1 looks like, and here's version 2. Lastly, a comparison of version 1 & version 2. Not gonna lie, I'm so happy someone FINALLY said something about Avatar. Even if it was to say the links are broken... I've linked it with every torrent, haha.

Thanks for the reup on the comparisons. A rewatch of ATLA was planned for a while now and I initially started with some random BDs from a public tracker, but the quality just felt off, so I stopped. Then I came across your posts and decided to wait until you dropped a v2. Again, I appreciate your efforts!
Speaking of dead links, both torrents give a 404 now...

WTF. They...just got removed or something. They were literally still there at the time of my comment here last night, because I also made a comment on each of the ATLA torrents, to give a new working comparison link. TPB doesn't allow changing the description. Seems the account was deleted, too. Not sure why, or what to do, to be honest. I'd already tried twice to get temporary upload status on 1337x to put the ATLA torrents there, but got rejected twice. First time, immediately by a bot, despite it saying admins or mods or whatever look at and review them. Second time took a little longer, so I figure they did. Still got rejected, though. And RARBG, where I'd really like to have it uploaded to, hasn't allowed new uploaders in 5+ years.

Hi ! I like your uploads, can I share them on a private tracker with all due credit ?

Yeah, go ahead.

You're sharpened uploads are great my man, keep it up, would you ever plan on doing Haruhi in the future?

Is it okay if you could reseed this alongside Gosick?

https://nyaa.si/view/1144040

I appreciate your uploads!

Hey, I'm curious if your torrent of the last airbender still exists? Because that torrent link doesn't seem to work for me. Thanks for the response in the advance =)