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Neverar's A New Hope Technicolor Recreation (Final Version Released!) — Page 4

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NeverarGreat said:

Will the proper highlights import into Vegas Pro 10 do you think? Because if that's the case I can render a corrected version from there to use in Premiere. Or perhaps there is an Avisynth script that can change the video attributes so that Premiere handles it correctly.

 Yeh, it imports the highlights perfectly. like i said, you just need to adjust the lows to go from 16 to 0. Just render it out from vegas to import it into premier

Harmy said:

Is this the case with all three films?

 Well i haven't got around to ROTJ yet, but it is the case with ANH & ESB ( with ESB being the worse because they have blown the highlights out in places anyway)

ANH:REVISITED
ESB:REVISITED

DONATIONS TOWARDS MATERIALS FOR THE REVISITED SAGA

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Fortunately (or unfortunately for those waiting) I am only a third of the way through the film, so I'll be sure to fix those highlights before continuing. Comparing the Blu-ray recovered highlights to the HDTV broadcast highlights shows almost negligible improvement to the detail, so rather than redo what has been done, I'll leave the broadcast highlight details for the first third of the film and improve the process going forward.

I'm just amazed that there was an encoding issue like this for the Blu-ray. Did nobody watch this on a normal TV before sending it out?

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Hello again after...(checks calendar)...7 months!

There's been progress, unfortunately not too much. I'm halfway through the film, but I'm continually learning and making improvements to my technique along the way. On that note, I have taken advantage of the 30 day trial of Adobe Speedgrade and made a LUT! It has about a dozen secondary color adjustments within it, fixing most of the global problems with the blu-ray in a single convenient package. I use the Luther.LUT with a curves adjustment before and after it in Premiere Pro. The first curves adjustment brings the highlights in the Superwhites down to legal levels, then the LUT is applied and then the final adjustment brings the highlights back up to proper levels. The good news is that there's more highlight information than I originally thought, and it's easily accessible with the curves adjustment. Here's the LUT file for those of you who want to experiment:

https://mega.nz/#!ndMg1Q4S!ro5BIbfxhJMyrjcMTGzHrD0ZYT8PmhvBlTPPJf-3XvQ

And some comparisons showing it in action with the curves adjustment:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130898/picture:0

One of the issues in the Blu-ray is that some of the mid-highlights are shifted green, whereas other areas in this region are shifted red. I've done my best to normalize these shifts which are clearly visible in the Tantive corridors. The oversaturated magentas are now within manageable levels, and the red lights in the last comparison which were blown out have been brought down a bit throughout the film.

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/130901/picture:0

Here you can see the color shifts in the highlights, specifically in the stormtrooper helmet vs body and in the lights beside the door, which have been normalized and brought back down to legal limits. In the next comparison, the blues which had been boosted in the Blu-ray have been brought back down, and finally the oversaturation in the greens of the final shot has been dealt with somewhat.

I'm definitely using this LUT going forward, and perhaps even going backward to apply it to some of the first reel.

So again, sorry about the apparent lack of progress, but there's a whole lot going on right now behind the scenes, mostly work correcting the HUNDREDS of places in the Blu-ray where colors are simply gone and I need to pull color information from other sources entirely.

The work continues!

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Wow! Those look fantastic! The only thing I'd suggest is to try and bring out some more detail in the dark areas as well but otherwise these look amazing - the increase of detail in that explosion is especially eye-opening!

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Thanks! Yeah, the shadows are trouble. I experimented with pulling up the black level, but that caused more problems than it solved, and the convolution kernel idea simply increased blurriness. Despecialized 2.1 (the version I have for reference) seems to have gotten a bit more detail in the shadows than I've been able to do, how did you manage that? When I view the superblacks in speedgrade I see a bunch of information down there just like in the superwhites, but I'm at a loss as to how to bring this back up.

Thoughts?

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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It's been a long time but I think I just used curves in Premiere to raise the black level.

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Pulling up the shadows with Premiere Pro introduces a lot of ugly noise that's hanging out down there, so I've gotten the trial of AE to see if the noise reduction effect will work for the shadows, and it doesn't look very good. fine detail is obliterated with that effect. Perhaps some sort of Super resolution effect would work.

Purely hypothetically, if the original grain plate which was used for the Blu-ray was found, would it be possible to cancel out the grain?

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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I don't think that would work. And the built in noise reduction effect in AE is pretty bad - you'd need some plugin like Neat Video or Dark Energy Antimater for that and even then you'd still need to separate the shadows so as to only clean up the most noisy areas.

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https://mega.co.nz/#!nU9DkRAB!ogmGQcqxeXD9mpdlMNVeLyAVkhOGd5QINHyPFhVsN-0
Here's an updated LUT, which now retains as much of the shadow detail as possible. I've also slightly backed off the magentas in the green highlights, as well as a few other tweaks, but it's very similar to the previous one in most regards.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Impressive! I hadn't seen your June 11 update until now. How do the magenta lights look in this shot, which mike has great disdain for?

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The magenta push is gone, but the lights are still somewhat red. This is mostly fixed by correcting the luminance of the shot, which I have done separately throughout the film:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133233

The boosted reds are also brought down somewhat, and the purple tint to the entire picture is brought to a warmer, more natural hue.

I'm correcting this film shot by shot, as there is sadly little consistency to the color problems. When I get to this one, I'll be reducing the saturation for sure.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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For me the balances on those control room shots look perfect. This matches how I remember the colors being in my memory - more like primary colours (redder-reds not magenta-reds). Brilliant job!

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NeverarGreat said:

The magenta push is gone, but the lights are still somewhat red. This is mostly fixed by correcting the luminance of the shot, which I have done separately throughout the film:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/133233

The boosted reds are also brought down somewhat, and the purple tint to the entire picture is brought to a warmer, more natural hue.

I'm correcting this film shot by shot, as there is sadly little consistency to the color problems. When I get to this one, I'll be reducing the saturation for sure.

 Thanks. I was just browsing through the film with your LUT applied. It works very well. The film is a bit less washed out than age's correction, so I like it better, but people will probably prefer one or the other depending on their tastes. Though I haven't compared some of the darker scenes, or parts that the blu-ray is known to have crushed blacks.

The hanger shot does indeed remove much of the magenta. The engines of the CGI ships in flight are also much improved. One place where this LUT really excels over the older ones is the initial droids in desert scene. While not perfect, it has gone a long way to remove R2's strange pop-out blue color. 

Is the LUT intended to be applied during the intro/title sequence as well?

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No, it shouldn't be applied to the intro crawl, as it desaturates highly saturated yellows. This LUT will make most scenes better, but of course it will have issues with any scene that is supposed to have a magenta push, such as the Binary Sunset. The end credits also shift ever so slightly green. I'd disable it in those three areas, but other than that, it should be good to go.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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Geez your screen grabs look like someone just turned on the lights! Keep up the good work.

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They really are great, NeverarGreat! I look forward to more!

-G

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It does look more favourable. Although I do have to correct the luminance myself, but it's good!

Ol’ George has the GOUT, I see.

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Looks great! I just wish it were integrated with Harmy’s DE 3.0 along with TN1’s Silver Screen Edition. 😃


**😮ver&out:
**mumbles

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Hello there. Anything new to report? I’ve got a feeling this is going to be the best color correction yet! 😃

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Your insight serves you well. I’m about 5/6 finished with the first pass of the film on a shot by shot basis. However, since the recent release of superior color sources, and since my methods have improved, I will be re-examining some of my earlier work. I intend for this to be the definitive color correction of the Blu-ray.

Thank you all for your near infinite patience! The end is in sight 😃

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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mumbles_ said:

Looks great! I just wish it were integrated with Harmy’s DE 3.0 along with TN1’s Silver Screen Edition. 😃

We have been cooperating in the background for quite some time now. Neverar will have a big hand in the colors of the new versions of despecilized.