logo Sign In

The Original Trilogy restored from 35mm prints (a WIP) — Page 35

Author
Time

Any of the Tatooine scenes, mainly the shot of the landspeeder coming to Mos Eisley, or the “orange forcefield” shot

Author
Time

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it. In essence when our eyes cannot see detail, we expect noise. If we detect neither something is amiss, and we get that heavy DNR effect. So, I believe noise reduction should always be in the service of detail recovery/enhancement, but not be a goal in of itself.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

DrDre said:

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it.

Would stacking multiple scans of those 139 frames (channel aligned, free of warping) help reveal detail?
I’ve watched a few of the videos and am still not sure if verta used more than one print source on that shot to get ride of the noise to get closer to what the original negative looked like.

Did Harmy rotoscope some of the recomposited blu-ray background (buildings, etc) into the TN1 scan laserschwert cleaned up?

Author
Time

I’d really love to see what amount of detail you could get from the speeder shot. You could always add grain to it afterwards to make it appear more natural. Since cleaning up the shot at all is already revisionism in itself, I’d say it’s fair to cheat a bit like that.

Also to clean up the non-Blu-ray parts of that Despecialized shot, I used AviSynth (and some manual painting in AfterEffects), which quite likely might have produced inferior results to what your new tool might do.

Furthermore we now have much better sources for that shot available (like 4K77).

Author
Time
 (Edited)

a_o said:

DrDre said:

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it.

Would stacking multiple scans of those 139 frames (channel aligned, free of warping) help reveal detail?
I’ve watched a few of the videos and am still not sure if verta used more than one print source on that shot to get ride of the noise to get closer to what the original negative looked like.

From what I understand most of the noise and dirt seen in that sequence is not print grain, but also on the negative. Any dirt and grain specific to the print can be strongly reduced by using multiple prints. Additional detail may be recovered by stacking multiple frames. However, you would recover detail, that wasn’t on the negative to begin with, and would thus be outside the scope of a restoration in my view. Personally, I don’t see much difference between stacking multiple frames to recover detail, and to do what Lucas did, which is to go back to the original elements, and recomposite the image digitally. In either case the purpose is to enhance the image beyond what was capable in 1977. So, if you’re going to be revisionist, why then not use the technique that provides the most detail?

Author
Time
 (Edited)

Laserschwert said:

I’d really love to see what amount of detail you could get from the speeder shot. You could always add grain to it afterwards to make it appear more natural. Since cleaning up the shot at all is already revisionism in itself, I’d say it’s fair to cheat a bit like that.

I would say cleaning up the shot to approach the image on the original negative is not revisionism. Cleaning up the shot to recover the maximum amount of detail using modern techniques with the purpose to recover an enhanced image beyond what was possible in 1977 is revisionism in my view.

Author
Time
 (Edited)

DrDre said:

Laserschwert said:

I’d really love to see what amount of detail you could get from the speeder shot. You could always add grain to it afterwards to make it appear more natural. Since cleaning up the shot at all is already revisionism in itself, I’d say it’s fair to cheat a bit like that.

I would say cleaning up the shot to approach the image on the original negative is not revisionism. Cleaning up the shot to recover the maximum amount of detail with modern techniques with the purpose to recover an enhanced image beyond what was possible in 1977 is revisionism in my view.

Well yeah, I meant cleaning up the dirt that was created during those optical printer runs is revisionism. But most of the dirt in that shot came from that, and not from striking prints of the final shot. It’s never going to look much better than what we have now anyway. But that’s why I’d like to see HOW much better Poita’s tool can make this look (including removal of the defects that were created during compositing) without recomposing it.

I have to admit though that this cleanup wouldn’t have a place in a preservation, but in the Despecialized Edition.

Author
Time

That speeder shot isn’t cool though guys…

Author
Time

dahmage said:

That speeder shot isn’t cool though guys…

But the Greedo shot was SE’d by adding some additional content at the end, which is just as easily deleted from the bluray. The rest of the scene is untouched. So I’d vote for “Look sir Droids” scene, or the Sandcrawler coming over the dune. Or the Speeder shot, but I think one of the other shots I mentioned might achieve more impressive results.

TheStarWarsTrilogy.com.
The007Dossier.com.
Donations always welcome: Paypal | Bitcoin: bc1qzr9ejyfpzm9ea2dglfegxzt59tys3uwmj26ytj

Author
Time

DrDre said:
With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it. In essence when our eyes cannot see detail, we expect noise. If we detect neither something is amiss, and we get that heavy DNR effect. So, I believe noise reduction should always be in the service of detail recovery/enhancement, but not be a goal in of itself.

I don’t think Verta ever intended to “preserve” the negatives. Those were already gone before the 97SE according to him, and there is no fool-proof way to separate dirt and noise that is from the camera and dirt/noise that was introduced when they were handling the negatives for the first time, or the 31th. He has always said that his restoration is an idealized version of Star Wars that tries to match the original intention, the original photography and all the detail that can be restored. Even his main version of Legacy doesn’t have the shaky logo from the original 1977 prints.

Author
Time

DrDre said:

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

is there an nfo on what the software actually does?

based on what DrDre said maybe we should look at a lightsaber shot? or a shot from the dogfight that was replaced in the SE

Author
Time
 (Edited)

I will write up an overview of the software next week if I can get onto it.
It is using deep learning, basically I am training the software with thousands of dirty/noisy images and clean images and then utilising the deep learning algorithms to clean up the shots.
There is a ton of prep at both ends before the algorithm kicks in, I’ll try and put together an explanation of how it all works that will make sense to people. I’m working on this on behalf of the company, so I won’t be able to share the code, but hopefully I can give enough detail to let others develop something similar themselves if it works well enough for production use.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time

poita said:

I will write up an overview of the software next week if I can get onto it.
It is using deep learning, basically I am training the software with thousands of dirty/noisy images and clean images and then utilising the deep learning algorithms to clean up the shots.
There is a ton of prep at both ends before the algorithm kicks in, I’ll try and put together an explanation of how it all works that will make sense to people. I’m working on this on behalf of the company, so I won’t be able to share the code, but hopefully I can give enough detail to let others develop something similar themselves if it works well enough for production use.

Very interesting, poita! Very curious about the results!

Author
Time
 (Edited)

So I guess it is similar to NVIDIA’s OptiX denoiser? You teach the software by providing image pairs of an uncleaned shot and its cleaned-up counterpart, so that it knows what different noise-patterns look like once cleaned.

Author
Time

Not really, but I guess you could say it is similar in as much as there is image training occurring.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time

He must have been auditioning for Terminator 2.

[ Scanning stuff since 2015 ]

Author
Time

Wow, George Lucas is a Founder from the Dominion? Suddenly all of it makes sense!

Author
Time

If anyone lives in LA and could help with picking up and dropping off a couple of reels of film this coming week during business hours, please drop me a PM.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time

So what happened with the unfaded Empire print? You purchased it, but, do you still need more donations?

Author
Time

I have just over half of the purchase price sitting on my Visa card at the moment, and still need to pay for cleaning and scanning, so yes, donations are really welcome!

It is in transit currently, it should arrive later this week.

Donations welcome: paypal.me/poit
bitcoin:13QDjXjt7w7BFiQc4Q7wpRGPtYKYchnm8x
Help get The Original Trilogy preserved!

Author
Time

Poita, did you get my email the other day? No worries if you haven’t had time to reply, I just wanted to make sure it went through.