Yeah, I took the blue a bit too far in those screens, especially in the first half of the duel. But in this scene, it shouldn't be green like in v2.0 either. I'll post a video later, which will have the final colors.

AntcuFaalb said:

Damn. It's different in almost every single shot.

Edit: Possible reference? http://starwarsaficionado.blogspot.com/2012/07/star-wars-at-35-preparing-death-star.html

Nice find! All these behind-the-scenes shots and videos are important references because of Lucas's manic revisionism and Lucasfilm's professional shortcomings on the "released" movies. It is a printed picture however (a zoom-in will reveal it), and while the Death Star walls show blue, they are slightly less so after color correction.

Unfortunately, Harmy's picture strip does show inconsistency from shot to shot. That's a lot of work to rematch them all -- thank you, George. :) Perhaps the new AE software will automate it (better?).

Harmy said:

I couldn't get rid of the green tint before without screwing up the sabres and skintones.

A test color correction on a frame from a revised v2.1 snapshot ...

... based on known grey areas (low, medium, high) in the picture ...

... as those points were greyed (R=G=B, using the highest value for this overly dark shot), produces new RGB curves and the corrected shot:

Although this looks close to v2.0, the "green tint" is reduced mostly in the lighter areas (ex: light saber, illumination panels) where it catches the eye.

(Note: RGB grey should never be exactly R=G=B, as true grey probably doesn't exist in a movie image ... but it's good enough for this proof-of-concept.)

At the risk of being a suck-up I trust Harmy's judgment. He has access to sources we don't, a, and b, it seems he's already putting a LOT more work into 2.1 than he'd planned. Give him time, folks.

I'm sorry but using a photo of a set as this literal a reference is completely misguided, because A) It's a photo apparently scanned from a magazine or a book, so it's most likely far from what the actual colors of the set looked like and B) even if it was a faithful representation of what the actual real world colors looked like, the film went through color-grading in post-production, so the real world colors are irrelevant.

True enough, with the exception that "Possible reference?" suggests making it a Rosetta stone or disregarding all the other sources. We're all here searching and surmising because we haven't worked on Star Wars in the 1970's, either.

BTW, did you know (perhaps by your workflow?) if you applied a 30% saturation increase and a 30% strength 9300K temperature (with "remove color cast") to the laserdisc capture of that frame (from the 2006 DVD), it looks amazingly like your v2.0?

Harmy said:

I'm sorry but using a photo of a set as this literal a reference is completely misguided, because A) It's a photo apparently scanned from a magazine or a book, so it's most likely far from what the actual colors of the set looked like and B) even if it was a faithful representation of what the actual real world colors looked like, the film went through color-grading in post-production, so the real world colors are irrelevant.

Agreed. Interestingly, I posted it in support of your color choice(s).

Spaced Ranger said:

True enough, with the exception that "Possible reference?" suggests making it a Rosetta stone or disregarding all the other sources. We're all here searching and surmising because we haven't worked on Star Wars in the 1970's, either.

BTW, did you know (perhaps by your workflow?) if you applied a 30% saturation increase and a 30% strength 9300K temperature (with "remove color cast") to the laserdisc capture of that frame (from the 2006 DVD), it looks amazingly like your v2.0?

Can you post a sample? I'd love to see this.

Spaced Ranger said:

True enough, with the exception that "Possible reference?" suggests making it a Rosetta stone or disregarding all the other sources. We're all here searching and surmising because we haven't worked on Star Wars in the 1970's, either.

Yes, but an on set photo just isn't really a good reference to take colors from directly in general, much less scanned from a magazine.

BTW, did you know (perhaps by your workflow?) if you applied a 30% saturation increase and a 30% strength 9300K temperature (with "remove color cast") to the laserdisc capture of that frame (from the 2006 DVD), it looks amazingly like your v2.0?

Yeah, I know, that's actually where the v2.0 timing comes from. I had to adjust the BD footage to look more like the GOUT (with saturation increased) to match the area surrounding the sabre. And then I wasn't able to regrade it without causing trouble in other areas, so I just pretty much kept it.

OK, here's the promised video:

http://uloz.to/xw7yFk7/duel-new-v2-1-compar-mp4

AntcuFaalb said:

Can you post a sample? I'd love to see this.

<-- laserdisc (2006 DVD "Bonus Disc")

<-- v2.0

Harmy said:

... that's actually where the v2.0 timing comes from. ... And then I wasn't able to regrade it without causing trouble in other areas, ...

I thought it was too coincidental that 2 settings (groups) brought it so close. :)

Adobe's website for After Effects didn't advertise functions to directly manipulate the RGB graphs. Does AE hide such details from the user (as does the above paint program's "saturation" and "temperature" controls)? Also, can masking be based on color(s) [level / hue / saturation / R / G / B / C / M / Y] to, for example, affect everything except the light sabers?

Would Star Wars "clapper" clips help as definitive color references and do we have them like the Star Trek community has (the black & white board would help, but one with a color strip would be better)?

Harmy said:

OK, here's the promised video:

http://uloz.to/xw7yFk7/duel-new-v2-1-compar-mp4

Absolutely nothing to complain about, Harmy.  Very nice.

Also, is it my imagination or are you no longer in your cubist phase?  If so, that's even better news!

On the contrary, I just did this for a school project:

nice.  Is it in 3D?

A lot of little detail in there too.

Yeah, it's a painting from Picasso converted to 3D :-)

michaelkirschner said:

Is anybody worried about Disney? As much as we are angry at George Lucas for screwing up Star Wars you do have to give him credit for not taking legal action against his fans. Now that a major corporation without its history based mostly on Star Wars has taken over I worry that Disney won't think twice before bringing the hammer down

Where am I?