Raiders of the Lost Ark - Bluray color balanced (LUTs Released) (a WIP) — Page 2

Here’s my version of a film like single LUT correction of the bluray:

LUT:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajUGl6MDJXbnZ3TDg/view?usp=sharing

Here’s how the earlier frames I posted would look:

The Marion frame seems a bit too green to me, and the saturation is a bit too high.

Here’s an update of the film like color grading, based on litemakr’s 35mm LPP preservation:

Here’s the LUT:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajcnVmN1M5TmRZbVk/view?usp=sharing

Overall, I personally prefer the earlier color grading, which to me seems more natural and balanced.

Turisu said:

Could you post some comparison shots with the unaltered BD?

Many thanks. Very excited to see where this is going. 😃

I’m on a two day holiday right now, but I will post some comparisons when I get back on Thursday.

Hey Dre, glad to see you back at it. But it’s really a mostly pointless exercise to try and recolor the blu-ray. The colors are too altered to fully fix without a lot of work, some of the original textures and colors are just gone. More importantly, the highlights are clipped in many places, then dulled to try and cover it. So you will never be able to recover some of that detail or get to the original contrast. I would personally much rather see you continue with the Wowow recolor. That is in much better shape color wise and is only overexposed to a minor degree. Or maybe a hybrid with the best sections from each version.

Yeah, I know. This is just a little experiment to see what can be done with a crappy source like the bluray. I’m also looking at the WOWOW.

Turisu said:

Although the BD does restore some shots that are digitally altered in the WOWOW such as the plane in the image above and the red ‘travelling line’ sequence. So given the choice between the two sources in terms of a single-pass colour correction, I would probably opt for the BD.

That being said, the BD has the digitally illuminated lamp in the ark-opening scene which is properly off in the WOWOW so a best-of-both approach would be amazing.

The BD has too many issues which can’t be fixed. Some things are too altered color wise or overexposed to the point of obliterating detail. The orange/teal color is inconsistently applied, sometimes to the point of erasing the original colors and some detail. The opening of the ark sequence in particular is recolored and overexposed beyond salvaging. It’s truly one of the worst examples of a famous scene being completely effed up. I can’t believe Spielberg ever approved it. The couple of re-composited shots you mentioned could be taken from the blu, but I would use wowow for everything else. And even that has a few problems. The only properly exposed official transfer of Raiders is the DVD, but there isn’t a good enough HD transfer of that available.

Glad to see this project back on the boil, DrDre. I think a corrected WOWOW could be spectacular in your hands. And thanks litemakr for the LPP preservation, it’s a personal treasure to me.

Here are two regrades of the bluray both of which remove the yellow color cast. One with a warmer color grading, and another with a cooler color grading.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded (warm):

Bluray regraded (cool):

LUT (warm):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajWkppQVZtemw5bEk/view?usp=sharing

LUT (cool):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajMnNST2dFZm9FOUk/view?usp=sharing

I definitely vote for the cool one, which is enough warm to my taste, with a balanced tonality giving a more natural and pleasant look. It’s a nice work and a good conclusion! 😃

Here’s a second set of regrades with the same settings.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded (warm):

Bluray regraded (cool):

No doubt about it, the cooler setting is best. It is obvious when you look at the sunset picture ! That’s good ! 😉

I actually like them both. The cooler color grading is closer to the theatrical color timing, including the sunset shot:

Also the bar fight sequence is much closer to the theatrical version for the cooler color grading.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded (warm):

Bluray regraded (cool):

Continuing with the screencaps for the rest of the film…

Bluray:

Bluray regraded (warm):

Bluray regraded (cool):

The latest shots actually show the problem with assuming a blanket color cast has been applied to a film, namely that they generally don’t exist. How well the assumption works depends on how consistently the color cast was applied across shots. In this case the shot of Indy and Marion escaping their tomb shows Indy with blue dust on his jacket for both regrades. The probable reason for this is, that the original photography was already pretty warm for this shot (it’s pretty warm for the 35mm LPP, which generally has much coolor tones than the bluray). As such it appears the shot was adjusted much more conservatively than the surrounding shots. Applying a single correction that on average removes a color cast will inevitably result in shots with overly cool tones, even when a conservative correction is applied. This simply is the nature of such “quick fix” methods.