Surfing the net the other day, I came across this document on the subject of cinematography.
The author uses paintings to illustrate some of the principles of composition. One of the paintings is this one by Gustave Caillebotte, showing a Paris street on a rainy day:
Chris Chomyn said:
Notice how the rain and fog which constitute atmospheric diffusion, soften the details and mute the shadows into shades of gray.
Compare with this shot of the entrance to the Hoth base from Empire:
The problem is clear - the “cave” entrance is not a shade of grey, it’s almost pure black. It shouldn’t be. If you can imagine standing at that location, a distance away taking a photograph, the wind kicking up fresh snow, there is no way that shadow would appear as pure black. The '04 shot just looks worng.
The '93 transfer, notwithstanding its horrible DVNR, at least gets this right:
Chris Chomyn also said:
The natural diffusing quality of this light helps to reduce the saturation in all the colors, creating a very subtle palette.
Now, here is a shot from the Tantive battle in Star Wars:
Look at the red, yellow and blue lights in the background. Mike Verta is more qualified than me to explain this one:
Mike Verta said:
There’s just simply no way that photographically, these lights would register this way through all that atmosphere. They’d look the way they do on the DE LD. But they’re subtly ruining the frame for me: my eyes read them as impossible, and out of character with the photography.
For reference, here is the same frame from the GOUT/DC LD transfer:
