PDB said:
I’m kind of surprised that everyone favors the laserdisc regrade. Is it because of the skin tones?I hope I’m not too late to chime in on this. 😃
I’ve found that most any re-imagined coloring can be slipped in without protests if the skin color remains recognizable. As a quick proof-of-concept, I bumped up the Red color-wheel saturation of the original Blu-ray (and nudged up a bit the surrounding Yellow and Magneta for a smoother blend into the rest of the spectrum).
[TOP ROW shows the original BD compared to the BD-regraded-to-LD]
[BOTTOM ROW shows the original BD with extra Red saturation compared again to the BD-regraded-to-LD]
It’s interesting that both bottom row pictures now look perfectly good, and the extra-Red even gives the original Blu-ray a more “up to date”-tech feel.
(Maybe I should go work for Peter Jackson, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, et al ?)
Actually you are right on time. I have been back working on this for a few months after starting over from scratch. I was originally looking for more 35mm sources but ultimately decided to use the 1995 LD, like I did with Alien. The reason being there was enough evidence to suggest that like Alien, the 95 Aliens LD was color timed to be pretty close to a theatrical print. Many 35mm pics that I could find matched the disc. This wasfurther backed up by dvdmike who saw a 70mm print and compared it to the 95 LD that he had.
I did alter my orginal LD capture based on advice from SpoRv/Andrea, who reminded me that the LDs sometimes have the saturation boosted for the older CRTs. So I reduced the cap’s saturation 15% to get it around the same levels as the BD/DVD/etc.
I forget how to post pics now but here is that shot, color corrected in my new regrade:
http://imgur.com/a/f0PMn
and here are more pics from the regrade (BD-Top/Regrade-Bottom):
http://imgur.com/a/jGl3i
http://imgur.com/a/wKY6z
I’m starting with re-creating the TV cut in HD and regraded to the LD and then maybe the theatrical cut.
Maybe you should work for them. Stop them from changing the colors in every release.