I appreciate the color situation but I wish the soldiers could be more blue.
It looks great though! I love the new color scheme, good job guys.
Actually after watching it again and looking at the GOUT in the upper corner, I think everything looks too yellow and there is not enough blue or red.
Just like in your ESB in an attempt to remove the over-saturated blues, I think they have been taken too far down. A little more blue is not a bad thing.
The skin tones and hallway colors are too yellow. Check out the hero shot of the old rebel soldier. He is very red in the GOUT and very yellow with these new settings. Also compare Vader's entrance its too yellow as well.
I would rather have the colors be closer to the blu rays than too far in the other direction. Just my opinion.
You have to realize that it is the GOUT in the corner, so the colours are not quite reliable, especially the reds, which are greatly exaggerated in the GOUT. But like I said, I did manage to make the uniforms more blue in those shots.
Troyig88 said:
What is a MKV? I assume it is some kind of format?
Not a format as such but a 'container file' similar to Harmys 'm2ts' files but more versatile. An mkv file can contain videotracks, audiotracks, subtitle files, chapters etc. And each of these tracks within the mkv can be in mutiple formats eg diVx, Xvid, x264, DTS, AC3, SRT, SSA. The beauty of them is that you end up with less clutter on your Harddrive or media server (one file instead of mutiple files). And you can edit tracks later by demuxing and remuxing them from and to the mkv container file.
To everyone mentioning the GOUT, keep in mind that the original theatrical prints looked nothing like the GOUT. The GOUT is originally a version made for video and laserdisc in 1993, right? And Harmy is, from the way I got it, trying to recreate the theatrical experience as good as possible, not the GOUT turned into HD.
Very good point.
looking for HDTV of the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Also HDTV of The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Harmy said:
But I just figured out something that may make this issue much better, it is a filter called Change to colour, where you pick a colour you want to change and a colour you want to change it to.
Sounds great! Such filters can be very useful but often comes with side effects. Just be careful like you said, with those artefacts and other colors being affected.
Anyway, for everyone interested, here's a couple comparison shots of the file I gave Harmy and the render he uploaded. I think especially the first shot here looks better with Harmy's adjustments.
Hey guys,
I'm getting married on Dec. 3rd and I am demanding that my wife-to-be watch the trilogy. Sadly, she hasn't seen them in their entirety yet. Can someone pm me a link to the downloads of Harmy's despecialized versions. Also, I'm debating on showing her the prequels but the thought of jar-jar and the nascar announcers during the pod racing scene make me cringe. I did some poking around on re-edits of those versions as well, but I can't really gauge which versions are the best. Not sure if I have time to analyze them right now...
thanks a bunch!
Read the first post in the thread for download info. Maybe download Star Wars last just in case 2.0 comes out before you need it.
Here's a shorter video showing some of the colour fixes applied since the last video:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HL77OP3M
and here's a screenshot from it to compare with what You_Too just posted:
Even though I actually liked the previous video's look, it does look more color-correct and RGB-balanced this time.
The Blockade Runner still have red details instead of maroon, and the explosion still looks a little reddish. Can you possibly try to tweak that shot further?
Also, the Blockade Runner's lasers in the flyover still don't really glow like they did in the pre-SE versions. You fixed the colorless Star Destroyer lasers back in 1.0, but the Blockade Runner lasers still look too thin, opaque and "flat" to me, especially when they're overlapping the Star Destroyer. Compare to the GOUT, the widescreen bootleg, and Puggo Grande. Even in the SE, the shot right after the flyover still has the Tantive lasers glowing correctly.
If you think these shots look fine as they are, you don't have to change them.
Now here's something interesting that I found, maybe something to think about when doing your final color correction for this scene Harmy?
Anyway, I was checking some Star Wars fansites on the web and found retrostarwars.com, where I found this picture:
Seems to me like a high resolution screenshot from a pre-SE version? Then I also found this photo, which I corrected a bit:
Keeping that photo in mind, I removed the pink tint from the first pic and color/level corrected it a bit to look more like that:
And here it is, compared to the file I gave Harmy to work with:
Quite a big difference! And remember that the file I gave Harmy was already brighter than the raw blu-ray. Now I don't know what this shot originally looked like in the theatres, (maybe someone else here knows?) but it's an interesting result I got out of this nevertheless.
It was never that bright AFAIK.
Yeah, probably not but I just tried to recreate how it most likely looked when they shot it.
It seems like the technicolor print would be the best reference for color.
Here is a pic of the of the next shot in that scene. I would think the color needs to be close to this.
I'm sure you guys have seen all these pics from the technicolor showing last year, but I just ran across them recently and thought they were amazing. I would have loved to have been at this screening. It just makes me furious though, that i probably will never see Star Wars again in this high of quality, and in its original form.
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
Yeah, think I'll keep the colours there pretty much the same as in v1.0.
But what I want to know is where that guy got some of these pictures.
These are apparently high def scans of the original version and for some reason they are cropped to 4:3. They could be some promo materials of course but still.
And this one is interesting:
It seems to be a 720p picture from the 04 version but the quality looks like a print scan.
Cobra Kai said:
It seems like the technicolor print would be the best reference for color.
Here is a pic of the of the next shot in that scene. I would think the color needs to be close to this.
Even that technicolor print has it's downsides as a reference. First of all, the contrast is way too high. Before rendering my version for Harmy, I tried replicating the technicolor print's contrast, and guess what, whites got crushed and the picture didn't look good. Also, the technicolor print has some tinting here and there. Look at the shadows in this picture for example:
The shadows are a mix of green and yellow here, and the whites are crushed by the high contrast. (or of the exposure of the camera that took this photo?)
And Harmy, correct me if I'm wrong but those shots of Vader and Leia on Tantive IV are not from the movie itself, but production photos. Either way, that guy sure has some nice stuff there. And how he got it? I guess like with all other stuff there's collectors and traders who exchange rare things, even photos.
about post 2342 & the high res 4:3 shots... I'm almost certain that shot of Leia & R2 is a promotional shot & not in the movie (the movie shot had more smoke in it, IIRC). I remember in the online ad campaign for the blurays that a shot like that was used & people thought maybe the blurays would look great until someone pointed out that it was clearly not a still from the movie but just a promo picture.
The Technicolor prints of Star Wars are not anywhere near as contrasty as those shots-from-a-consumer-camera-off-a-frigging-movie-screen. That is NOT what those shots looked like in a theater, and having first-hand experience with Technicolor prints of Star Wars, I can assure you that while Tech stock is "more contrasty" than some other stocks, we're talking about a tiny amount, and well recoverable in a good scan, provided you do it at multiple exposures, as any good scan would. These screen grabs look practically like bleach bypass prints, they're so exaggerated.
The density of film stock is amazing, and contains data that is rarely accurately realized because of the limitations of bulb brightness and screen reflectivity in a theater. This idea that Tech prints aren't suitable candidates for restoration is growing into an accepted truth when it's a complete myth, perpetuated by people who are not in possession of proper scans of Tech prints. Let's end this now.
_Mike
View the Restoration and join the discussion at StarWarsLegacy.com!
Yeah, that was my guess too. But the shots from the Falcon cockpit and the Vader with eyebrows seem to be legit, as does the sunset pic posted by You_Too (although the colours and gamma probably aren't quite accurate there). And yes, these Technicolor photos are not a perfect reference, more due to the overexposure of the camera than anything else, I suppose. (edit: Mike beat me to it).
Incidentally, Harmy, those shots are from the extensive library of photos and references from LFL known amongst collectors as the Kodak Photo CD set. There were many discs, and generally collectors have some, and incomplete, versions of them, and are looking to fill in the gaps and holes in their catalog through trades with other collectors. Because the images have consistent prefixes, suffixes, and shot numbers, it's easy to see what you're missing.
_Mike
View the Restoration and join the discussion at StarWarsLegacy.com!
Mike, of course you're right about them being photos of a screen. The print ITSELF scanned properly would be a good reference. That's a bit more like how I should've said it in my previous post. :)
You_Too I wasn't actually leveling my post at you as directly as it seemed :) There's just been this general idea floating around and gaining legitimacy, and it needs to be stopped, that's all. There are Tech prints out there, and they're just amazing, beautiful sources for restoration when treated properly. Bottom line, even at their absolute worst, they're better than what we have now.
_Mike
View the Restoration and join the discussion at StarWarsLegacy.com!
Harmy said:
Yeah, that was my guess too. But the shots from the Falcon cockpit and the Vader with eyebrows seem to be legit, as does the sunset pic posted by You_Too (although the colours and gamma probably aren't quite accurate there).
They are also from the LFL library, they're from the SE versions which all(?) indicate some changes made to the film like recompositing. Only one that isn't from the library is the first one with Ben, I think.
And in the time of greatest despair, there shall come a savior, and he shall be known as the Son of the Suns.