Well, that's why I put "based on evidece" in brackets after "I think." Seen through this logic,  most even scientific facts are speculation - they are conclusions based on some kind of evidence. And while there is evidence that points towards the richer colours, I have yet to see any proof of the opposite.

It's a matter of evidence. As you said, no one can know 100%--not even George Lucas and the DPs of the films. So you have to go external.

There is ample evidence to indicate the bolder colour choices are what the film looked like.

What is there backing up the muted colour? The GOUT? What else? We know the GOUT is desaturated, so that rules that out. In the end, we have a couple of odd 1980s home video releases that have a slew or problems, like being bright, soft, colour-shifted, etc., because they are 1980s analog home video sources. So if you want to go with this colour scheme--what is your reasoning?

It seems more and more like it's purely personal preference. Which is fine.

I have said it before: my favourite transfer of the GOUT is the 2010 Editdroid, which is the most muted and therefore least accurate transfer to date. But it looks the most pleasing, in part because the GOUT has a lot of colour popping problems. Just like the 2004 SE. But I realise its not what the film should look like.

zombie84 said:

It's a matter of evidence. As you said, no one can know 100%--not even George Lucas and the DPs of the films. So you have to go external.

There is ample evidence to indicate the bolder colour choices are what the film looked like.

 

There is even more evidence to indicate that Mark Hamill was not bright orange during the making of the film. This stuff gets so damn subjective that the reference point that makes the most sense to me is skin tones. We pretty much know what white people's skin looks like, and if the characters end up looking like they're wearing spray on tan I don't care how much evidence supports those levels. I don't know shit about this stuff, but I do know when skin tones look weird, it's hard not be distracted by that.

He didn't actually shoot laser beams out of his blaster either. Maybe we should take those out, as they're not true to the real-life, on-set guns.

That's what I was trying to say about Harmy's shots in comparison to the Technicolor caps. There's a red bias in Harmy's original shot comparison not seen in the Technicolor print and that is what makes faces look so occasionally odd (look at R2's red light, Luke's face, etc. like I said before) so it's not just a matter of saturation but color timing, so even if you're going to have it be oversaturated you can still have the fleshtones look more natural.

RedFive said:

He didn't actually shoot laser beams out of his blaster either. Maybe we should take those out, as they're not true to the real-life, on-set guns.

 That's a really great point, but please don't interrupt when grown-ups are talking.

I'm sure Mark Hamill was not bright orange, when they filmed the sunset shot, but I'm quite sure the sun illuminating him was. I'm also quite sure he didn't have a sickly greyish skin during the shoot either. I'd say his skin probably looked something like it does in the pictures on the right:

People got so obsessed with the sunset shot, that no-one even commented on these. You can't honestly tell me that these are oversaturated. Look, even Fredie's skin is more orange than Luke's in those pics.

Rob said:

RedFive said:

He didn't actually shoot laser beams out of his blaster either. Maybe we should take those out, as they're not true to the real-life, on-set guns.

 That's a really great point, but please don't interrupt when grown-ups are talking.

Using old material is so gay, but not in a good way.

I'm curious about the "too purple" comment earlier...we know what skin tones are supposed to look like (at least I thought we did), but how do we know what a made-up planet's sky is supposed to look like?

I have no problems with those shots. Man I hope you don't mistake our participation for criticism Harmy. Everyone here is so excited that we've been whipped into a frenzy. You've gotta understand, this is the first time that the real deal has ever been within our grasp. We've waited years for you to return to Earth Harmy, so of course everyone simply has to throw in their two cents. Whatever you decide to do with minor details like these is neither here nor there in the end, you've saved the Original Trilogy and that's all that really matters. I'm gonna go watch Empire again.

TV's Frink said:

I'm curious about the "too purple" comment earlier...we know what skin tones are supposed to look like (at least I thought we did), but how do we know what a made-up planet's sky is supposed to look like?

 Don't pay attention to that guy man, nothing is ever purple enough for him.

Actually, if a bright orange light is shining right in your face, your skin will look orange. Stand right in front of a sunset sometime, Harmy's example may not be perfect but I'm not sure I would characterize it as "spray on tan." The raw GOUT has a spray on tan look, if anything, because it has no highlights, but Harmy can't really change that. It's unfortunate that the source material will make any derivative look bad to one degree or another.

Rob said:

I hope you don't mistake our participation for criticism Harmy. Everyone here is so excited that we've been whipped into a frenzy. You've gotta understand, this is the first time that the real deal has ever been within our grasp. We've waited years for you to return to Earth Harmy, so of course everyone simply has to throw in their two cents. Whatever you decide to do with minor details like these is neither here nor there in the end, you've saved the Original Trilogy and that's all that really matters. I'm gonna go watch Empire again.

I completely second that. 

Don't worry guys, I can take some criticism. Actually I think I need it. With all the positive responses I'm in danger of becoming a little full of myself and I wouldn't want that ;-) 

OK, I'm at the lightsabre duel and it is a bigger mess than you could possibly imagine. I'm not sure I'll be able to do much about it, even Ady couldn't (I'm actually using his AVCHD version for the duel, because he at least fixed some of the lightsabre colours). But both Obi's and Vader's LS still keep changing shades and Obi's tunic keeps changing colour ranging from red over brown to outright black and when I try correcting it, it just fucks up everything else, so I'll just try to kind of smooth the changes over and leave it at that.

On a happier note, I should have the first complete workprint by the end of the week, so if anyone was interested in testing for me, I'd be glad.

Yeah, but I'm not crazy. I'm definitely not doing that, it would be an incredible amount of boring tedious work and I just don't have the patience for that.

Harmy said:

On a happier note, I should have the first complete workprint by the end of the week, so if anyone was interested in testing for me, I'd be glad.

Me me me me me

Harmy said:

On a happier note, I should have the first complete workprint by the end of the week, so if anyone was interested in testing for me, I'd be glad.

Kick ass!  Any chance you'd be able to post a test of the battle of yavin before that, or is it still being worked on?

I'll settle for an "as close as possible to original" HD edition than no original HD edition at all, myself.

This project may not end up being perfect but then again what ever is...

I mean if Lucas decided to release the original theatrical versions in Bluray tommorow there would still be people not satisfied with something. The fact is that every official release of the OT for the home and theater was a little different in some way.

Color me interested! I know I wasn't much help with your ROTJ workprint but I have plenty of free time right now so I'd love to watch.

Thanks guys.

As to the battle of Yavin, that's still not finished. I've already got all the separate shots ready but I'm putting it together chronologically, so I didn't get to that part yet.

I also just watched the LS duel and it's not perfect but it doesn't look bad.