kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released) — Page 4

StarThoughts said:

I think that it's undeniable that different lighting situation will give different values to each of the colors in the shot. If you keep giving us more shots, I think the same thing will happen; there will be some cases where setting A just happens to look better, whilst in others setting B does. Unless you're going to regrade the film on a shot-by-shot basis, you're going to get some variation in responses.

Yeah indeed and this is doubly true for star wars because it is a particularly inconsistent film when it comes to colour grading, certainly by far the most inconsistent film i've ever graded. Getting the colour grading 100% consistent would require a very slow and thorough shot by shot regrading of the film, knowing what the lighting conditions were for each scene and what intentions GL and co had in terms of colour grading each scene. Only the original cinematographer most likely would have the knowledge and skill to be able to achieve such a feat accurately.

As things stand, we have to make do doing the best we can with what we've got. My main priority is that its appealing to watch rather than it being 100% 'accurate' colorwise.

NeverarGreat said: Good luck to you, but I would warn against examining the movie too much if you're not planning a shot-by-shot correction, or it will suck you in as it did me. ;)

lol :)

yes and whatever you do don't start looking at multiple sets of references because you will start to lose a firm grip on the cherished star wars in your mind and then start posting those references in other peoples threads in a desperate hope they can rebuild what you've taken apart 

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=23th9uf&s=5#.UuWFyLTFLIV

NeverarGreat said:

kk650 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware that is how light works.

Ouch.

haha it wasn't my intention to be catty there, I remember reading somewhere that the cinematographer is usually the best paid job on a set, even above the director, because it requires the most qualifications, painting with light and all that. I'm just an amateur, my profesion has nothing to do with grading or cinematography or filmmaking at all so there's a hell of a lot I don't know about light, that comment was simply acknowledging that, so any sarcastic tone was completely unintentional.

Here's the shot you posted:

And here's the same frame with my current settings:

If you changed the fleshtones of your shot to match the fleshtones in my shot, I expect that the colour of the clothes would be fairly consistent with the colour of the clothes in my later shot that you refered to. That said, with this film, you have to be willing to accept a certain degree of inconsistency in what I like to call 'rogue shots' compared to the overall colour scheme if you want to regrade the majority of it using only one setting to maintain some sort of colour consistency across the film without having to very carefully regrade it shot by shot with a very specific colour scheme in mind.

With my first release I only really stepped in to selectively regrade shot by shot with the Tantive IV sequence at the beginning when all the rebel soldiers are running to their positions, waiting for the stormtroopers to break through. The colour grading is so inconsistent there between shots that it was totally unacceptable IMHO, amazing that they released the blu-ray like that. The lightsabers has to be selectively regraded of course to fix the colours and a lot of the tarkin shots were way too saturated on the blu-ray so they had to be selectively regraded to reduce saturation and bring them to acceptable limits.

Apart for that though I felt the colour grading on the blu-ray was fairly consistent across the whole film (not good colourwise but consistent as least), give or take a few 'rogue shots' here or there that I personally felt didn't deviate enough from the overall colour scheme to warrant selective regrading of those shots.

frank678 said:

NeverarGreat said: Good luck to you, but I would warn against examining the movie too much if you're not planning a shot-by-shot correction, or it will suck you in as it did me. ;)

lol :)

yes and whatever you do don't start looking at multiple sets of references because you will start to lose a firm grip on the cherished star wars in your mind and then start posting those references in other peoples threads in a desperate hope they can rebuild what you've taken apart 

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=23th9uf&s=5#.UuWFyLTFLIV

haha yeah I think I know what you both mean. Obsessing about getting every single shot 'right' in this film really would drive even the most sane person mad.

Of course I would never use a shot like that to judge correct fleshtones because they are too many unknown factors in play like lighting and the grading GL and co chose to apply to that scene. That said, to my eyes the second shot, that uses my current settings, look fairly accurate to me. C3PO looks gold, R2D2 looks blue, the sky looks the correct shade of blue, so it would follow that the fleshtones should be fairly accurate as well.

It was these shots between leia and darth vader on tantive IV though where I really decided what settings I would most likely use for overall fleshtones. These screencaps below are using my current settings, just like the second screencap you posted above:

poita said:

To me R2 is far too blue, 3PO too yellowy-gold, and too much yellow in the entire scene. (The method is also bit backwards, if you get the skintone right, then the other colours usually fall into place, but, if the other colours are in place, it often doesn't automatically equate that the skintones are okay. See youtube link at the end for a demo).

The colour looks too saturated in the leia scene on the Blurays, we shouldn't be able to make out her rouge so clearly. Working on films from that time, we used to have to overdo the makeup as it was done *knowing* that the saturation would be lost by the time you went from Negative to IP to print and projection. The idea was that by the time a print was struck, the clownish makeup would tone down to a natural look. The official BD hasn't taken that into account.

But anyway, that is the thing really, everyone has their own opinion.

Just as a general thing (not specific to this project), when I was a wee lad being schooled by the senior colourist, the rule of thumb, regardless of the scene,  is to get the skintones right, unless they are specifically lit not to be (under-water, standing under a red light etc.). It will rarely be the director's or colourist's intent to have the skintones not look right, without a pretty clear reason (sickness, zombie etc.) . Skintones always lie in pretty much the same point on the scopes, whether you are black, white, yellow or anything inbetween, there is only a small amount of variation. So the I-Bar on the scope is a good guide when in doubt.

There is a great talk on this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX45Yi1spY4 for anyone interested. Now I'll stop clogging up this thread and get back to work.

(skintone section of talk starts at 23:40, and is worth watching, the rest is too, but that part is invaluable. Plus Larry Jordan looks a bit like Obi-Wan). Also good chapters in Hurkman's books on this.

Oh I see where you're coming from. I've been going for a technicolour look for this film so the grading and therefore fleshtones are more saturated and reflect that. That's why you've been finding the fleshtones too saturated.

If I was going for a more natural look for star wars I would use different settings to grade the whole film, something like what I have below:

I think I might have to release these new semi-specialised releases as two versions for each film, a natural version and a technicolor version, the technicolor versions might be too much for a lot of people haha

poita said:

I really like the last images you posted a lot. I'd probably rework the highlights just slightly to breath a bit more life into it

What do you mean when you say rework the highlights? Are you talking about a slight contrast boost, that'd brighten the highlights but also push down the blacks? Or are you talking about just brightening the highlights slightly while leaving the blacks alone?

I'd really appreciate it if you could modify the last screencap I posted to show me what you mean.

poita said:

Quick question, do your images look the same in your editing program as they do pasted into this forum? I've found some images here look identical on the page as they do in the editor and some are quite different.

Anyway, here is an exaggerated version to breathe a bit more life into the face, leaving the blacks and midtones alone, and concentrating on getting the skintones to look less flat and a bit more alive.

I have overdone it a bit just so it is more visible.

To answer your question, the jpg screencaps I posted were taken straight from my editor, I save them as bitmaps and then convert them to maximum quality jpgs using photoshop, then upload them and post them here. They look pretty much identical on this page as they do on my editor. How do some of the images look different to you?

The program I use is not able to selectively target highlights only but from what I can see from your shot, it looks like you've essentially brightened the image and then boosted the contrast to bring the blacks back to the level they were before, is that about right?

poita said:

Nope I don't touch the blacks at all, Davinci has tools to just work with individual components of the signal, so I probably have a very different workflow to you.

Your images posted here look very different when I bring them into photoshop, but it is most likely just a colourspace thing. I was just wondering if you load these images from OT.COM back into photoshop if they look different to you.

e.g. if you save http://imageshack.com/a/img837/5302/7tsj.jpg and load that into photoshop, does it look the same as it does in the browser here. Wanted to make sure we were both looking at the same thing :)

Anyway, it's not all that important, was just trying to quickly whip up a rough image to illustrate what I meant by making the skintones less flat.

Some people prefer the flat look anyway, I personally feel it looks a bit lifeless, but I've had some clients disagree.

No I wasn't suggesting that you had followed those steps, only that using my program that is what I would probably have to do to recreate what you did there. What I worry about is blowing out highlights if you brighten and boost contrast too much, any change like what you've done there would have to be pretty subtle, certainly more subtle than what you've demonstrated but I get the gist of what you're saying, adding a little more 'punch' to the image to make it more lifelike.

I've found it can be a slippery slope though in film grading because in the past i've got carried away (I remember especially having this with star wars the very first time I started grading it, pretty much the first regrade I ever did) and boosted contrast too much to get that extra punchiness. I've then played back the video on my tv and almost burned my eyes out the contrast was so strong hehe film grading is very different from photography grading in that sense, you have to be a lot more restrained and have far less leeway as far as boosting contrast and adding punchiness is concerned, it least from my experience, that is if you don't want to burn viewers eyes out hehe.

That soft filter is definately a step too far for me though, looks too much like DNR for my liking and i've had enough of that in blu-ray transfers of my favourite films to last me a lifetime. Anybody wanting to soften up star wars can apply DNR filters on their TV and achieve the same effect. I'm not planning to take away people's choice to watch the film with as detailed an image as possible, like the studios did with the DNRed Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones blu-rays.

I just tried saving that image and opening it in photoshop, it says an rgb profile is missing, I select 'leave as is, don't color manage' and the image loads up looking very desaturated and different to how in looks when I open it in acdsee or when I look at it on this page. Is that the same thing you're getting? Must be some sort of color profile issue.

poita said:

I thought that even with that soft filter applied, it looked sharper in most places than your original image. I was doing a quick compensation for the quick and dirty processing I did which created some sharpening, so I had to tone it back down again when done. Film does this automatically, it is much softer than the neg.

If doing the grade properly (i.e. if  I spent more than a few seconds on it) then the filter wouldn't be needed at all.

The trick is never to blow out the highlights at all, this might not be possible with what you are using, but any decent grading software will allow you to tweak the highlights without blowing them.

Basically you want to increase the dynamic range in the skintones, bring up the highlights that should be there, typically along the bridge of the nose, the sparkly highlights in the eyes, the whites of the eyes and the gloss of the lips and hair etc.

This gives a much more natural and alive look with depth, rather than the flat leathery faces of the BD. The film prints have much brighter highlights than the BDs do.

It would be really helpful to me if you could regrade this shot below to look exactly how you think it should look:

Then using your regraded shot as a reference, I can work out how to achieve what you've done by isolating highlights. I'm pretty sure its possible with the program I use to isolate highlights if I experiment a bit with the different settings but I need an end point, ie. your regraded shot, in order to be able to experiment and work out how to get there from my current settings.

It's FREE!? OK downloading now-- ooh, not available for my OS. 

I keep finding reasons, but not cash, to upgrade my 7-year-old Mac.

poita said:

Grab a 2nd hand intel imac with a 2560-by-1440 screen and dedicated graphics card, you won't know yerself.

Thanks for the excellent advice!

I'm running a MacBook - It's an intel C2Duo but the graphics card prevents it from being able to use 3D in any of the CS6 Suite, and  Lion (Not Mountain Lion) is the last supported OS.