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Post #748799

Author
mverta
Parent topic
StarWarsLegacy.com - The Official Thread
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/748799/action/topic#748799
Date created
23-Jan-2015, 9:29 PM

Absolutely, and of course I compare the prints constantly.  That said, if you're looking at the negative and you see misalignments, you know that's it.  It's the negative.  If you're looking at a print?  Especially a Kodak print? That's an IP/IN and a print stage all of which might've done their own thing, and you just don't know what's what.  No print can be held up as a definitive anything. Now, because of the shitty B&L lenses they shot Star Wars with, chromatic abberations (which look like misalignments) are all over the entire film, so you have to sort of know which is which, and sometimes that can be hard to tell, as well.

But you know what?  If this was a "proper" restoration being done from the negative, I'll bet you anything they'd align the channels, because when you're looking at this stuff on a 4k monitor and it's giant in front of you, it looks so obviously wrong you can't really turn your back on it in good conscience.  You'd have to have a dictum from on high that said, "warts and all," and...man...that'd be so rare.  Still, I have to work with what I've got, and I always follow my instincts.  At least I know nobody will see this or any shot and think it looks bad. And for sure, I'd be doing things differently if I had the negative.  Aligning the channels yields a sharpness without having to sharpen, for example; a sharpness the negative absolutely would have over a print.  So you gain some quality, you lose some purity?  This is all maddening.  At least it's not a CG flyby done in Electric Image anymore....

_Mike