Didn’t zombie write an entire article on savestarwars about his trip down to culpeper to help scan in and color-correct the LoC’s prints?
Maybe I’m remembering wrong, I couldn’t find the article on the site.
No that was me who went to culpeper. Nobody was “helping the LOC”. They’re professionals and do all their own scanning, restoration, etc. The trip was just an investigation of sorts to see what they really had in their collection because there was quite a bit of confusion at the time. The article never got finished because there were some disagreements behind the scenes and ultimately it was decided it was better for all to just drop it rather than have any party unhappy with the final publication. There was a preview posted temproarily but it was removed.
Ah okay, I kind of suspected that’s what I was misremembering after reading your post.
I can still remember reading that article and seeing the photo of the Library’s print of Jedi laid out on the light bed (or whatever it’s called) and my shock at how good it still looked after nearly thirty years. IIRC it was the shot where Luke cuts Boba Fett’s gun in half with his lightsaber. The color was still there in all its unfaded glory, from the orange sand to the glowing green saber blade.