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How are the mosaic censors done?


finale00

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So we know a lot of japanese H and AV is censored, with varying degrees of censorship at times.

But how do they add the censor?

For example an artist draws his image, and then applies the censor afterwards? Or maybe the censor is drawn as part of the image so it's not like some sort of extra layer on top of the original work?

Some censors are just crude blocks covering the parts, so you can't really do much about that but what about the mosaics? Would it be possible to re-construct the original image given a mosaic if it is generated using some algorithm (like a mosaic brush lol)
 

kissofthehell

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Re: How are the mosaic censors done?

Some are directly drawn onto and some are just placed. Depends on the game and the maker. For videos its applied afterwards i think
 

Sairu

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Re: How are the mosaic censors done?

A little discussion about it that has some info about how the censorship is done for those who don't know. In essence it is the manipulation of pixels, by adjusting pixel location, color, or resolution This method is also known as pixelization.



For videos, the mosaic censorship is done during the encoding process. A filter or masking algorithm is applied to the raw media data before it is encoded and/or packaged for distribution. Depending on the type of algorithm used, it may be possible to take an encoded video and "reverse" the distortion.

For most forms of censorship, any disguising factors are added after the raw image/video is completed. For images, an artist made add the extra layer to censor then, flatten all the layers on the finished picture to prevent the censorship from being undone. Or with stills the censorship is part of the original image. In the former case, it may be possible to undo the censorship layer but that would depend on the type of censorship. The above link lists a program, Gmask, that may undo mosaic censorship of a host of file types. Did not look into that myself.

For videos they also link a program that may undo mosaic censorship.

Now while programs may exist to undo mosaic censorship of varying format it is likely that you will not be able to find them easily. One reason for this is the fact that, yes mosaic censorship is used in h and av content, but is also used by networks to maintain an individuals anonymity, such as in the show "COPS". While the algorithms might be different than those used by your desired industry, programs of this nature are not very common outside of the television industry.

Usually when an uncensored version of a movie comes out it is because a company has either released the uncensored version of their own coalition or they sold the rights to another company who released the original uncensored content. There may be cases of a 3rd party uncensoring videos or images, but none to my knowledge of the former.
 
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finale00

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Re: How are the mosaic censors done?

Link was an interesting read. Didn't know there were different techniques used to apply a censorship. Will give the gmask tool a try. Since I usually only collect lossless images, if it works well, it should produce better results than jpeg's.

But the program provides a lot of interesting image masking options in general. LOL and it's really fast at what it does.

I guess uncensoring images through some sort of algorithm does not seem to be feasible venture.
 
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