msycamore said:

Harmy said:

Well, not necessarily. I think what DE did there is just about perfect, because it gets it much closer to what it would have probably looked like on an earlier generation print.

No, the built-in dirt was very much seen even on brand new '77 prints, I just hope -1 doesn't clean it up.

Do we have a Verta reference for comparison? While I'd agree it's just a dirty bad-looking shot and it should continue to look dirty and bad in a 35mm preservation, is the AMOUNT of dirt variable depending on print generation and other factors? DE's shot looks cleaner (and more importantly to me, sharper) than I think this shot SHOULD look, but I imagine his method could still be used for a more restrained cleanup, if we see evidence that cleaner prints existed. Also, for merging into a preservation that's already using cleaned-up sources like Harmy's, the clean look of DE's shot would blend better, although the sharpness still looks too much even for me.