Time for an update on the color grading. Since I’ve gotten no second opinions on the color grading, I’ve decided to go ahead with the Rec. 709 Fuji LUT for the grade. Several reasons. Reason #1: It’s my favorite of the film look LUT’s I have on DaVinci Resolve. Reason #2: It’s the bluest of the film look LUT’s, which works perfectly for T2 due to its already blue color palette. So, congrats Rec. 709 Fuji. You win by personal bias!
Smile for the camera, please!
So, with my LUT selected, I’ve gotten to work on the grade. I started off by changing the timeline color space from Rec. 709 (Scene) to Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2, which immediately fixed the brightness issue:
Rec. 709 (Scene)
Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2
It looks good, but there’s one thing that bothers me in this shot. If you look at the Rec. 709 (Scene) cap again, you’ll notice the power lines behind the T-800. Those details have disappeared in the Gamma 2.2. So, I decided to adjust the black levels using the curves. I tried adjusting the red, green, and blue channels separately, but this altered the color scheme of the film look LUT I was aiming for. So instead, I decided to combine the three channels together and adjust the Y channel, which is basically all three channels combined to make white. I decided to brighten up the black levels like so.
Rec. 709 Gamma 2.2 corrected
Next, I took on one of the biggest issues with my Skynet Edition blu-ray: the lack of detail. As mentioned in the blu-ray reviews in the main topic, this transfer suffered from the dreaded DNR that plagued a lot of blu-ray releases at the time. So I cranked up the midtone detail (abbreviated as MD) all the way up to 11. Midtone detail increases the perception of image sharpness, giving the image a fake ultra high definition look.
Before MD
After MD
I’m not sure if it’s an instant fix for more detail, but I will say that it does look a lot sharper. And in this movie’s case, that’s never a bad thing.
So, that’s the progress I’ve made so far. Let me know what you think about the above improvements.