Thanks for all the feedback guys!!! :)
@Harmy: Yeah, the change in brightness is quite subtle, at least it seems so in this scene. I'm glad you think its a step in the right direction here. :)
In the clip with the wampa though, you saw how the same brightness increase was really pushing the white highlights to the limits of acceptability. This brightness increase really is the upper limit for ESB IMHO. Right now, I'm really leaning towards increasing the brightness, it just makes the image more appealing throughout the film, even if a few whites here and there get blown out in the process, I definately think its a worthwhile sacrifice to make for a better image overall. 100% agree with you about the set, it definately supposed to be quite dark and murky, with lots of shadows.
@Darf Muffy: Thanks for showing interest in this project! It's guys like you that make me more motivated towards finishing this asap. My plan is to have these ready to upload by the new year, about the same time as I should be getting a big upload speed upgrade.
Don't worry about all the background creatures in Mos Eisley (I like the extra hustle and bustle as well), they're all still going to be there, the only thing being cut is the droid being knocked to the ground (it cuts to when the speeder enters the frame) and the Jawa falling off its mount and swinging from side to side, everything else is still there.
The wampa scene in the cave is definately staying untouched (Luke's lightsaber might require a slight change of colour in one shot where it becomes darker just for the sake of consistency) but removing that dual CG hatch could be a problem. As far as i'm aware, only the GOUT has that clip intact without the dual hatch and I don't want to mix GOUT footage with the blu-ray footage in such a small shot, it'll be too jarring. Perhaps Harmy's done another great matte job to get round that as well and he doesn't mind me borrowing that as well as the fantastic work he's done with the Sarlacc pit.
The humungous door from Return of the Jedi is definately gone, i've reinstated the original shot from the german hdtv stream without any problems so it flows seemlessly. And Jedi Rocks is definately gone and Lapti Nek reinstated, that bit is so awful in the special editions, it just kills the whole shady gangster vibe that Jabba's Palace has going until then. Lapti Nek just fits that seedy atmosphere so much better IMHO.
@You_Too: It's great that you and Harmy both think that it's better a little brighter. I agree 100% with you guys so I think i'm definately going to go with brightening ESB now. Thanks for all your feedback and helping me to finally make my mind up! :)
Yeah, the changes in colour and brightness are pretty subtle, at least in that scene between Han and Leia. When there's snow or anything else that's meant to be white like the Hoth battle, the colour change is a lot more obvious. The star wars original trilogy on blu-ray is far from the colour grading mess that was the FOTR EE blu-ray, so the colour grading change doesn't need to be so extreme IMHO. For ESB, i'm only using one setting to remove the blue tint throughout, much like you are with the Star Wars blu-ray, I think it works pretty well that way, so i've had to be very careful with the amount of blue I remove. If you go any further than I have in removing the blue tint, I find that the whites and the image as a whole starts to turn a little too yellow for my liking, especially the snow during the Hoth battle and the walls when they're running around the corridors in Cloud City at the end of ESB.
As you know, it's a really fine line when you're using only one setting, you're having to balance so many different scenes and locations throughout the film. Ultimately, it also boils down to ones own colour preference as well without any 100% reliable theatrical source to use as a reference for colour grading. I hope i've struck a fairly good balance in that regard.