Just out of curiosity, did you happen to figure this out? Pretty much everything you’ve stated was all greek to me but I know there’s some DVD .iso’s of the '97 trilogy ripped from the LD with menus on the spleen if you’re just looking for the transfer. Though everything you just said does seem to be present on that rip I have, gray blacks, lots of noise, and lines on edges. Just curious as I’d like to clean up my rips as well.
If you are dead set on having the laserdisc versions. I have uploaded my preservation of the 97se laserdiscs onto the spleen. They are synced to the theatrical DTS, include the laserdisc 5.1, etc.
I don’t normally go around promoting my laserdisc preservations but I’ve seen a lot of people ask for these lately. The link below will give you an idea of what you can find.
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Laserdisc-Preservations-See-1st-Post-for-Updates/id/15283
I’m afraid that I’m new around here and have no access to myspleen, and (having done some reading) am not silly enough to ask for it. 😛
My efforts with regards to the laser disc versions are because I know of no other way of getting a decent copy of the 1997 Special Edition; The laser discs are the best version available that I know of, for this. The 35mm project does seem good though, and I am considering donating to that, however it is doubtful I’ll ever be able to see the finished result myself, so my project still has merit to me!
As for progress, I’ve been proceeding to rip the other laser discs, whilst hoping I’d get further replies to this thread that would advise me on what I should do (or at least point me in the right direction). However, on the assumption that I would get no replies to that effect, I have tried to do some more research of my own, and have happened across a plugin called ‘Gradation’ by ‘Alexander Nagiller’ (http://members.chello.at/nagiller/vdub/tutorial/tutorial.html). It is my hope that I can perhaps use this to correct the colours. I think it must import a file generated by Photoshop, but I’m unsure what, however manual adjustment of the curves does produce interesting results. It doesn’t support curves files exported by the Gimp, unfortunately.
I have been rather busy of late though, so progress has been slow.