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Project 4K80 (a WIP) — Page 5

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Hey, it says on the website that you “need to raise at least another $325 to get the whole print scanned and be granted access to the raw files.” but I’m pretty sure that number is not accurate and up to date do any of you guys know the current amount needed for the scan?

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 (Edited)

The $325 has been raised, the 16mm print has been scanned, and is ready for use as a color reference and for repairing/replacing damaged frames. The Fuji print has also been scanned, so now it is just a matter of time, rather than money - unless somebody has 6 figures they can throw our way, so that we can quit our day jobs and work on this full time.

Cleanup is very time consuming, as this real time video demonstrates:

https://vimeo.com/338040925/ca9015d4f8

In 13 minutes, about 30 frames (or just over 1 second of film) is cleaned. The frame is advanced, forward and back repeatedly, because it’s very difficult to see which white specks are dust and which are stars without checking to see which ones persist across multiple frames and which are only there for a single frame.

It’s quite boring to watch and it’s quite boring to do, but it’s also why there are so few updates about the project. This opening crawl sequence is 2000 frames and will likely take at least two weeks to clean. We all have full time jobs and family responsibilities, so an hour or two per day is the most we can usually devote to projects like this one. Two films in, this is all routine to TN1 at this point, so unless a new technique or new software is being tried, or something weird and unusual is spotted in the footage, time isn’t usually wasted creating videos or posts to update people about what’s happening. If this post takes 5 minutes to compose, that’s 10-15 frames that didn’t get cleaned.

Progress is slow, painfully slow, but it is happening. Every day more frames are being cleaned, color corrected, stabilized, deflickered, and repaired or replaced. (Though not necessarily in that order!)

Different reels are being worked on simultaneously by different people around the world, which makes tracking progress difficult. But don’t worry, when we have some news, we’ll let you know.

Thank you to everyone who has donated, and to those who are still willing to donate. At this point, if you’d like to make a donation to help projects like this one, I would recommend you donate to one of Poita’s projects - last I heard he needed the money for Hard Drives, without which work cannot continue, so donating to him will actually help get some of his projects get off the ground, e.g.:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-Original-Trilogy-restored-from-35mm-prints/id/49756

paypal.me/poit

Though of course donations to us are also always welcome 😃 We always need more software, Hard Drives, and other computer hardware.

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

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I feel like there has to be an easier way to clean a static starfield.

Since the automated dust cleanup presumably erases stars, have you considered stabilizing the shot, running the cleanup, and layering it over the original on ‘darken’? Then if you had just a single frame manually cleaned, it could be overlaid on top of that with the blending on ‘lighten’, which would return the accidentally erased stars.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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NeverarGreat said:

I feel like there has to be an easier way to clean a static starfield.

Since the automated dust cleanup presumably erases stars, have you considered stabilizing the shot, running the cleanup, and layering it over the original on ‘darken’? Then if you had just a single frame manually cleaned, it could be overlaid on top of that with the blending on ‘lighten’, which would return the accidentally erased stars.

True. This is actually a trick we’ve been taught at my film restoration business. We make two copies of the frame, and on one we apply an automatic dust and scratch removal, which removes some detail, but then put the dirty layer on darken and the quality is kept while only removing the dust.

https://www.instagram.com/servanov_/

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Servanov said:

NeverarGreat said:

I feel like there has to be an easier way to clean a static starfield.

Since the automated dust cleanup presumably erases stars, have you considered stabilizing the shot, running the cleanup, and layering it over the original on ‘darken’? Then if you had just a single frame manually cleaned, it could be overlaid on top of that with the blending on ‘lighten’, which would return the accidentally erased stars.

True. This is actually a trick we’ve been taught at my film restoration business. We make two copies of the frame, and on one we apply an automatic dust and scratch removal, which removes some detail, but then put the dirty layer on darken and the quality is kept while only removing the dust.

So, limited success on this one… The main problem is that both the dust and the stars are “light”, so using the automatic cleanup and blending it with the original won’t work here. Most of the dark dirt is lost in the blackness of space.

To illustrate the problem, here is a raw frame (this is from the pandown, to make it more obvious which stars are missing, but the same is true during the crawl where perhaps only a single star is accidentally erased):

Imgur

And here is the same frame after automated cleanup:

Imgur

Now If I put the original frame on top of the cleaned frame and set the blend mode to Lighten, all of the stars return, but so does the red line - in fact it looks identical to the original uncleaned frame. If I set it to Darken, it looks identical to the cleaned frame - the line is gone but so are all those stars. (This is a technique I’ve used before, and it works very well on a lot of shots, but unfortunately not this one.)

However, Using a static stars frame (one taken from right before the pan down), and placing it above the auto cleaned layer with the blend mode set to “Lighten” does work pretty well for most of the shot - though of course it can’t be used until the Star Wars logo has gone, or it adds stars to the black area inside the words:

Imgur

And it’s only good until the pan down, but that’s still a lot of frames.

Every frame will still need to be checked, but this should save me some time painting out the dirt and dust, so thank you for your suggestions.

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

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 (Edited)

Man, I wish I could help out I’ve done dirt clean up before. The thing is 1st you guys probably don’t trust me. 2nd I’m busy doing dirt clean up on two different projects. 3rd and most important my computer can’t handle 4K restorations, I’ve tried doing 4K restorations in the past, but PFClean keeps crashing on me. I guess all I can do is donate with I plan on doing later.

Until then keep it up you’re doing Gods work.

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Williarob said:

Servanov said:

NeverarGreat said:

I feel like there has to be an easier way to clean a static starfield.

Since the automated dust cleanup presumably erases stars, have you considered stabilizing the shot, running the cleanup, and layering it over the original on ‘darken’? Then if you had just a single frame manually cleaned, it could be overlaid on top of that with the blending on ‘lighten’, which would return the accidentally erased stars.

True. This is actually a trick we’ve been taught at my film restoration business. We make two copies of the frame, and on one we apply an automatic dust and scratch removal, which removes some detail, but then put the dirty layer on darken and the quality is kept while only removing the dust.

So, limited success on this one… The main problem is that both the dust and the stars are “light”, so using the automatic cleanup and blending it with the original won’t work here. Most of the dark dirt is lost in the blackness of space.

To illustrate the problem, here is a raw frame (this is from the pandown, to make it more obvious which stars are missing, but the same is true during the crawl where perhaps only a single star is accidentally erased):

Imgur

And here is the same frame after automated cleanup:

Imgur

Now If I put the original frame on top of the cleaned frame and set the blend mode to Lighten, all of the stars return, but so does the red line - in fact it looks identical to the original uncleaned frame. If I set it to Darken, it looks identical to the cleaned frame - the line is gone but so are all those stars. (This is a technique I’ve used before, and it works very well on a lot of shots, but unfortunately not this one.)

However, Using a static stars frame (one taken from right before the pan down), and placing it above the auto cleaned layer with the blend mode set to “Lighten” does work pretty well for most of the shot - though of course it can’t be used until the Star Wars logo has gone, or it adds stars to the black area inside the words:

Imgur

And it’s only good until the pan down, but that’s still a lot of frames.

Every frame will still need to be checked, but this should save me some time painting out the dirt and dust, so thank you for your suggestions.

If that’s the only issue with the Star Wars logo shot, you could always create a mask around the interior of the letters so they remain black, or shoot it my way and I’d be happy to do so for you.

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 (Edited)

Williarob said:

Servanov said:

NeverarGreat said:

However, Using a static stars frame (one taken from right before the pan down), and placing it above the auto cleaned layer with the blend mode set to “Lighten” does work pretty well for most of the shot - though of course it can’t be used until the Star Wars logo has gone, or it adds stars to the black area inside the words:

You can use the rotoscope tool in AE to easily create a mask for the interior of the STAR WARS title text to knock it all back to black. That’s what I did when I added the 1981 crawl to 4k77.

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Much of the technical stuff goes over my head, but I wanted to say thanks for the work everyone is doing on this!

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 (Edited)

ThrowMeTheWhip said:

Xorp said:

The Bull’s Eyed Womprat said:

YoshiKiller2S said:

Any updates?

https://www.thestarwarstrilogy.com/project-4k80/

Site is closed to the public now?

Server problems.

Oh whew… was worried there for a second. 2020 seems beyond unlikely, hopefully by the end of 2021? Love the SW and RotJ projects, really amazing job. Kudos to those working on this project, I can’t imagine how mindnumbingly boring it must get.

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 (Edited)

Any updates? Not just asking to see when it will be done, but also to know if you guys need more donations, help, or anything else. Thanks for doing this historic work.

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diegolondrina said:

Any updates? Not just asking to see when it will be done, but also to know if you guys need more donations, help, or anything else. Thanks for doing this historic work.

It appears the project has stalled, due to a death in the family ☹️

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CrazyLegsKane said:

diegolondrina said:

Any updates? Not just asking to see when it will be done, but also to know if you guys need more donations, help, or anything else. Thanks for doing this historic work.

It appears the project has stalled, due to a death in the family ☹️

That’s not the case, work on 4K80 is continuing AFAIK. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like that news really isn’t yours to share.

“Always in motion is the future” 🌌

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DMC said:

CrazyLegsKane said:

diegolondrina said:

Any updates? Not just asking to see when it will be done, but also to know if you guys need more donations, help, or anything else. Thanks for doing this historic work.

It appears the project has stalled, due to a death in the family ☹️

That’s not the case, work on 4K80 is continuing AFAIK. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like that news really isn’t yours to share.

I’m simply sharing something that has already been made public on forums.thestarwarstrilogy.com.

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CrazyLegsKane said:

DMC said:

CrazyLegsKane said:

diegolondrina said:

Any updates? Not just asking to see when it will be done, but also to know if you guys need more donations, help, or anything else. Thanks for doing this historic work.

It appears the project has stalled, due to a death in the family ☹️

That’s not the case, work on 4K80 is continuing AFAIK. And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like that news really isn’t yours to share.

I’m simply sharing something that has already been made public on forums.thestarwarstrilogy.com.

But you were quite tardy and it was quite clear all along that it had a minimal timing impact on the project. So I’m not sure why you bothered to post it here when you did, when it was very old news by that point.

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But you were quite tardy and it was quite clear all along that it had a minimal timing impact on the project. So I’m not sure why you bothered to post it here when you did, when it was very old news by that point.

Not sure why you’re adding to the irrelevance of a dead end back and forth. Bored?