Hi DrDre, I’d be interested to hear more detail if you were able to share on the specific processes as to exactly how you’re carrying out this work - to confirm, are you using AI (Topaz?) to upscale the original 1080p extended edition FOTR Blu-Ray to 4k and then recolouring the film or are you just recolouring the more recent 4k release of the film?
If it is the former, I’d be keen to understand specifically why you’d upscale the original Blu Ray version of the film and then recolour it as a pose to just recolouring the newer official 4k scans - on the face of it, sounds like it would be more work, so keen to understand the benefit.
For me personally the Extended Bluray was always the best looking releases if you just look at sharpness and detail.
Being a fan of natural Film-Grain I hate the use of DNR. If a movie is shot digitally, I’m totally fine with the clean digital look. But never, ever use DNR on a analog shot movie just because you hate Grain. But that’s exactly what Peter Jackson did on the old Theatrical Bluray and the newer 4k-Bluray and Remastered Bluray.
For the old extended Bluray of LOTR fake Film-Grain was added on all CGI-Elements to hide the fact that these elements were added in POST. Grain can add additional texture to elements which have little, like “Gollum” or the “Ollifants” in the movies.
If it weren’t for the horrible green tint in the first movie, the old Blurays would be my favorite release to this day.
From the looks of it DrDre 4k-Dremastered could be the ultimate version for all people who enjoy watching the extended Cut. Both in terms of Sharpness, Detail and color grading.