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Just one ESB shot fixed, but I'm pleased with it and thought you'd like to see it

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 (Edited)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Yi0TbnYQQ

This is the shot of Luke’s X-wing floating over the swamp, which they really messed up for the Special Edition. The original shows light filtering through the trees on Dagobah; for the Special Edition, they darkened that light almost to nothing, which not only means you can’t see most of the matte painting, but also makes it look like night above and daytime below (so unless Yoda has a floodlight system installed in the trees, it makes no sense).

Luckily the matte painting is still there, it’s just very dark. I brought the levels back up, but then the X-wing was a bit blown out and needed rotoscoping so it could be brought back down. I ended up writing my own rotoscoping software, because the outline of the X-wing isn’t clear enough for any of the normal solutions to work.

As the work-in-progress had some interesting looking graphics, I thought I’d try and make a little breakdown of it, which is linked at the top.

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Looks beautiful! Not something I ever noticed.

Reading R + L ≠ J theories

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It is good… There is perhaps a simpler way there are many shots with similar issues.

Snowspeeder Hanger

Super star destroyer coming out of asteroid field

And i think a few more Luke’s cockpit on Bespin Luke in corridor sneaking around on bespin… Probably more.

If you line up the shot with crushed Black with gout you can Luma key from black the detail back in from the gout through the Black area. Framing is not always the same though…

Not entirely the same problem but detail can be Luma keyed back in through the Black where it is missing.

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Why not Lumakey key out the black / the crushed detail on the xwing and bring in the detail from the gout?

The whole back section of the x-wing still has lots of detail missing…

Then you can bring the conrast up on the overall video to where it should be.

The Gout is too dark but SE way overbright atmosphere has been lost. Mimic the Gout for the contrast but brighten a bit not the SE mega brightness.

https://images.app.goo.gl/EUyNhqJS8LaJ3Cob9

Sorry but not sure what the other change is?

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I did this for you.

Basically I will talk you through what I did.

Took An Image that had good detail on the Right Hand side and Altered Contrast Levels and Luminence

Put Part of the Missing part of the Matte Painting on the top Left Corner

Found another image that had more detail in the Left and then put this detail in also.

Hue shifted Red and Magenta to fix the Problem of Red being in the Wrong Shade as the x-wing markings were totally off base of what they should look like. Actually it applys to the whole image not just the x-wing as you can see there is more red in the shadow now of the roots and stuff.

Looked for Pure Black patches on the x-wing and colored them in erasing Pure black and keeping shadow Color Consistant where the detail is totally gone. I also took some Detail from the Right around the engines and flipped it.

I hope this helps you get it better still but It’s very much a case of the Luminence or exposure is all wrong and the x-wing should be Dark against Bright Light in the Background. 😃

The x-wing I think could still use the Grey sort of detail from the GOUT even if Blurred better than Pitch Black.

In the GOUT the painting has been altered for the Special edition on the top left so the background has been changed also… It looks like an insert painted part to join and then a part is missing on the far left of the frame in all versions…

here is an example although I am not 100% lined up but for a example it shows you X-wing and trees mixed together (on the top bottom SE) the special edition black keyed out to recieve the black shadow detail from the GOUT. I would use this for the x-wing and the trees to get more detail…

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You’re right, the X-wing should be darker than I’ve made it. The trouble is that that would mean keying around more of the stuff on the underside, which is fiddly.

The trouble with compositing anything in from the GOUT is that the composited elements are in completely different positions. Also what little additional detail may be there is low resolution and quite smeared by compression.

The change in the last video is Yoda.

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Perhaps just rotoscope the back middle section of the x-wing of the gout put this under your SE rotoscoped x-wing then Luma key through blurred detail or try to sharpen in?

What is the 97 SE like? Probably not as bad I would think? Or one of the old laserdiscs?

The trees you could put the shadow detail in on your background plate perhaps again luma Keying it through the black areas with no detail? You probably need to do to separate sections because the x-wing covers the painting…

All the shadow detail will add up though there is a lot missing in the dark areas so it will be noticeable.

If you post the background plate I can try and do that but the x-wing yeah you need to find a version that has more detail than bluray

Otherwise you could find a image from a scale model or replica and track that in obvioudly Luma key again you want to keep as much the original as possible…