Mike Verta seemed to think that the grain wasn’t original to the prints, and in his comparisons the Blu-ray grain is quite a bit larger and has much more color noise than the Tech grain. The increased contrast of much of my grade can make the grain appear more severe, as well as raising the brightness. The binary sunset in particular is unusable without noise reduction, simply because I have to brighten it so much.
I use Adobe Premiere Pro CC for this project.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Yeah, I saw a prores 4444 sample encoded directly from the 2004 master and the noise in the image extended into the black bars, so it’s clearly been added.
That’s right, I had forgotten that!
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
Here’s a few examples of an experiment I’m doing on the 4k77 print to reproduce a Technicolor color grading DrDre style using a single LUT to correct the Technicolor print scans 😉. These are bluray regrades based on this color grading:
It’s interesting to note, that with this correction the Tatooine scenes come out looking more desolate than before, and closer to NeverarGreat’s color grading of this shot, than my previous attempt:
Also, with this correction, there is no blue staining on the Sandcrawler as it is on the print, where there is no evidence of such color artifacts.
I’m not on my usual monitor, but these look a bit yellow to me?
It could be my screen though.
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I’m not on my usual monitor, but these look a bit yellow to me?
It could be my screen though.
I think you’re right. I’ve updated the examples.
NeverarGreat:
DrDre:
They are now very close indeed…
I’m actually curious what NeverarGreat is doing for this shot:
It is definitely green on the Technicolor print scans I’ve seen, but all home video releases, and the 1997 SE theatrical release have neutral colors.
I thought it was generally accepted that the Technicolor prints tend to naturally lean towards green, but that this was not indicative of the original colors. Yours looks a little too green here.
I thought it was generally accepted that the Technicolor prints tend to naturally lean towards green, but that this was not indicative of the original colors. Yours looks a little too green here.
I disagree, I applied a single correction to the Tech scans, which nowhere are as green as this shot. There are also many production photos, that show a similar shade of green for this scene:
Also not that the panels in the back are a neutral color in both my color correction, and the production photo.
Please don’t interpret my post as disparaging your abilities, that was not the intention. Yours is still much better than the Blu-ray, it’s just this one shot I thought was a little greener than usual. The photo you just posted looks just a tad less green to me too. But, I suppose I’m just used to the more neutral colors in the home releases, as you previously mentioned.
Please don’t interpret my post as disparaging your abilities, that was not the intention. Yours is still much better than the Blu-ray, it’s just this one shot I thought was a little greener than usual. The photo you just posted looks just a tad less green to me too. But, I suppose I’m just used to the more neutral colors in the home releases, as you previously mentioned.
I didn’t take it as criticism. It’s just one of those weird things in the Technicolor prints. Here’s another shot that from that scene:
Here you can clearly see, that while the foreground is very green, the background and R2-D2 are fairly neutral, which makes it seem as though the scene was lit with a green light.
Fascinating, the second set of screenshots makes a lot more sense in regards to R2’s coloring.
DrDre said:
Here you can clearly see, that while the foreground is very green, the background and R2-D2 are fairly neutral, which makes it seem as though the scene was lit with a green light.
That’s an intriguing notion. It would explain a great deal.
In the first version of my correction, these shots were very green. After living with them like that for almost a year, I decided that it was too distracting and I brought them into a more neutral color scheme, though still with some green. Basically I corrected the entire scene to the colors of the previous shot. In this hallway shot, you see some set elements such as the piping on the upper left and the dividing panels which also appear in the previous shot, albeit with different colors. So all I did was match the colors of those elements - the panels becoming gray/green, the pipe becoming somewhat blue.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
The green color is also not unique to the Tech print, and seems to have been in all 1977 prints. I matched the Vader arrival scene of the raw LPP scan used for the SSE to the Vader arrival scene of the Tech scan (which is a neutral scene), and the Leia/R2-D2 shot that follows looks like this (don’t mind the artifacts, the video I have is very compressed, especially in the dark areas):
In the first version of my correction, these shots were very green. After living with them like that for almost a year, I decided that it was too distracting and I brought them into a more neutral color scheme, though still with some green. Basically I corrected the entire scene to the colors of the previous shot. In this hallway shot, you see some set elements such as the piping on the upper left and the dividing panels which also appear in the previous shot, albeit with different colors. So all I did was match the colors of those elements - the panels becoming gray/green, the pipe becoming somewhat blue.
Yeah, it’s a really odd color choice. The other one is the blue R2-D2 when the droids enter the pod. This also only appears in the 1977 prints.
I just can’t imagine where they would have put the green lights in this scene. It appears that there is a light behind the camera which illuminates the edges of the panels, but this looks yellow if anything. The other two lights are at the end of the corridor, and are red and white/blue. Perhaps these lights were too strong on set (the red one is too strong in the Blu-ray at least), so in an attempt to reduce the red and blue of Leia and R2, the shadows became green for these shots.
You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)
I dug through my collection of topps cards to see what this shot looks like on them. Some may think they’re not reliable color references, but they’re in mint condition so they’re not faded and at least can give somewhat of an idea of the colors, if not a 100% accurate picture. In my mind, they’re useful. Unfortunately, this shot of Artoo and Leia isn’t on any of the ones that I have. However I did notice most of the tatooine shots are pretty neutral. Leaning a little toward yellow but in most shots the sand is almost white. I think the harsh yellows we see on the tech prints are almost certainly a product of technicolor, not so much of the original photography.
For instance, here’s the entrance to mos eisley.
I have two of this card. One is a bit more yellow than the other, but both are pretty neutral overall. And, at least to my eye, the card overall looks a bit more yellow on the bottom card, even past the borders of the image, which leads me to think this is probably a discrepancy of the printer, and the shot probably looks more like the top card, since the colors overall are more balanced.
Having seen Neverar’s color for the entire Tantive sequence, it’s absolutely ideal in my opinion. This isn’t at all a comment about how things should or shouldn’t be, just my own personal taste. Jumping into the extremely green shots just throws me right out of the film. And if that makes me a 1980s ANH revisionist, then so be it. 😃
Should Neverar ever change his mind, I’ll just make sure I hang on to the current version for my own use. 😃
On a similar note, Poita recently said that he thinks the Rancor being bright blue in many Jedi prints could be an issue related to the film development labs. As with the hallway shots here, I’ve got to say I prefer the home video (and onwards) look if what we’re seeing is really representative of the theatrical. But maybe they were variable?
To make myself somewhat inconsistent, I’ll say that I also like the decision to keep the nice blue color of the shots with R2 getting into the pod (another thing that was changed in the home video version, I think).
Dre: I think you’ve got the slightest edge on that Droid Sale shot now, with just a bit more flesh color on the skin. But they’ve become very similar indeed.
Having seen Neverar’s color for the entire Tantive sequence, it’s absolutely ideal in my opinion. This isn’t at all a comment about how things should or shouldn’t be, just my own personal taste. Jumping into the extremely green shots just throws me right out of the film. And if that makes me a 1980s ANH revisionist, then so be it. 😃
Should Neverar ever change his mind, I’ll just make sure I hang on to the current version for my own use. 😃
On a similar note, Poita recently said that he thinks the Rancor being bright blue in many Jedi prints could be an issue related to the film development labs. As with the hallway shots here, I’ve got to say I prefer the home video (and onwards) look if what we’re seeing is really representative of the theatrical. But maybe they were variable?
To make myself somewhat inconsistent, I’ll say that I also like the decision to keep the nice blue color of the shots with R2 getting into the pod (another thing that was changed in the home video version, I think).
Dre: I think you’ve got the slightest edge on that Droid Sale shot now, with just a bit more flesh color on the skin. But they’ve become very similar indeed.
I can symphatise with your reasoning. It does appear to have been delibirate though, as almost all the shots with Leia in the corridor have a strong green tint:
Just for comparison, here’s a scan of a 70mm frame of that same shot from jedi1.net:
It appears in the Tech scans, but also -1 LPP. I think MikveV once said, that some of the color choices in 1977 are a bit different by to today’s standards. Anyway for 4K77 I’m sticking with what’s on the print, and a Technicolor color palette, and I will hopefully get a chance to verify some of these points of discussion relatively soon during that screening.
Either way, I suspect NeverarGreat’s regrade will be absolutely stunning, and very representative of the original color grading.
I’m actually curious what NeverarGreat is doing for this shot:
It is definitely green on the Technicolor print scans I’ve seen, but all home video releases, and the 1997 SE theatrical release have neutral colors.
Not being bad or anything but unless someone went and changed the light bulbs from Red to pink in between shots then I think you can safely say that the Hue is incorrect compared to when Leia first pokes her head out with the Blaster.
So although people want to reproduce colors from different prints and so on I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. What ever is going on the film is somehow revising itself with different color hues.
The green walls make no sense what so ever it’s a problem with green in that technicolor print.
Trying to put things like this to bed should be easy I think, I don’t want to butt in and destroy things or anything like that and you never asked for my input. But this just seems a little to obvious what it’s meant to look like. From looking at the end of the film I think you can pretty much stamp “Watch out for color hues fluctuating” and not in any good way throughout the whole film. The question is what is the correct color hue?
If you put the lights red and tweak a small bit I think that now looks about right and R2-D2 and Leias dress now start to look a lot better. I can’t tell you if it’s in the right hue or not but I think the point is it is actually falling in to the bracket of color CORRECTION once the hue alteration takes place to take it away from pink and realize after all the lights were always red and the film made them pink. 😃
I think the big question is what is the correct Color hue? and it’s definitely not pink lights but it’s a shade of red whatever shade of red that is, is the final question… And I could not for the life of me tell you what shade of red it is meant to be 😃
This would need more Value added to it on the still I did which I have not done but that will bring out R2-D2 in a similar fashion or way to that of the Technicolor print. The exchange would rest on Green being the most luminous color verses simply replacing the Green with more Value probably in the Mid range (and top perhaps). So if you like the Value is correct of the technicolor print but it’s not as strong with Red and Blue or something like that. you just need to get the luminosity up to that of the technicolor print just not by using green.
Pushing Values slightly it’s around here somewhere… Like I said can’t tell you exactly and probably nobody else can either.
I’m actually curious what NeverarGreat is doing for this shot:
It is definitely green on the Technicolor print scans I’ve seen, but all home video releases, and the 1997 SE theatrical release have neutral colors.
Not being bad or anything but unless someone went and changed the light bulbs from Red to pink in between shots then I think you can safely say that the Hue is incorrect compared to when Leia first pokes her head out with the Blaster.
So although people want to reproduce colors from different prints and so on I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. What ever is going on the film is somehow revising itself with different color hues.
The green walls make no sense what so ever it’s a problem with green in that technicolor print.
Trying to put things like this to bed should be easy I think, I don’t want to butt in and destroy things or anything like that and you never asked for my input. But this just seems a little to obvious what it’s meant to look like. From looking at the end of the film I think you can pretty much stamp “Watch out for color hues fluctuating” and not in any good way throughout the whole film. The question is what is the correct color hue?
If you put the lights red and tweak a small bit I think that now looks about right and R2-D2 and Leias dress now start to look a lot better. I can’t tell you if it’s in the right hue or not but I think the point is it is actually falling in to the bracket of color CORRECTION once the hue alteration takes place to take it away from pink and realize after all the lights were always red and the film made them pink. 😃
I think the big question is what is the correct Color hue? and it’s definitely not pink lights but it’s a shade of red whatever shade of red that is, is the final question… And I could not for the life of me tell you what shade of red it is meant to be 😃
This would need more Value added to it on the still I did which I have not done but that will bring out R2-D2 in a similar fashion or way to that of the Technicolor print. The exchange would rest on Green being the most luminous color verses simply replacing the Green with more Value probably in the Mid range (and top perhaps). So if you like the Value is correct of the technicolor print but it’s not as strong with Red and Blue or something like that. you just need to get the luminosity up to that of the technicolor print just not by using green.
Pushing Values slightly it’s around here somewhere… Like I said can’t tell you exactly and probably nobody else can either.
Actually, the pink is not in the print. It’s just in the quick color adjustment I did with the color matching tool to get the bluray to look like the print. So, adjusting the colors to match the color red won’t do much good in this instance. The green might be a little less strong in the projected print when compared to the sample, but not by that much. Like I said, the shot that preceeds this shot is a fairly neutral color (Vader’s entrance), so unless that scene is meant to be a magenta color, the Leia/R2-D2 sequence is just very green for the 1977 prints, Technicolor or otherwise.
Like I said before, even 1977 production photos show a green color for the panels in the front:
The question to what’s the correct color hue is very simple. namely, that there isn’t one. There’s the original theatrical color grading with it’s flaws, which in print form will vary somewhat from print to print, and manufacturer to manufacturer. Then there’s what was actually shot, which may vary heavily depending on the conditions. So, in the end you either choose to match a particular print or use multiple prints to estimate the color grading of the original interpositive. Alternatively, you grade it to a color, that’s most appealing to you.
R2-D2 is not Cyan
And if a photo like that is really Cyan and green it’s not really reliable. But it is now a better indicator once you remove all the color that absolutely should not be there.
It’s also brighter because the smoke machine is not on. It’s clearly not the same take as in the film and the light is dimmer in the film.
Make the walls green if you want I don’t mind. but would it have been green when it was first struck and made very much doubt it. It’s probably gone green.
Things like that to me are just not worth the time of day. But I guess it’s fun if you want to watch a simulation of an old faded print add some dirt and flek and grime.
There is a very definite problem with fluctuating color hues at least at the end of the film. Not sure about this part the lights Red anyway.