Quick semantics point: I can't call Legacy a preservation. Only someone given the original negative and officially charged with preserving the film could say that. I probably shouldn't call it a restoration either, for that matter; it is not an official project tasked with restoring the film. Maybe reconstruction is the right word, who knows.

Either way, let's be clear that I don't clip out a single pixel of data, ever. Everything that was in the original scan is get-able after the fact; it's just a question of where they sit in the values. Now, regarding the garbage mattes, if they were visible 100% of the time on 100% of prints, like the artifacts under the landspeeder, I'd say they should stay. But that's not the case. And more importantly: when I set the pure black of space to 0, the ship mattes fall below visible black in P3 naturally, anyway. I don't have to adjust them out. So I'd say that ultimately, I'm leaving them in, but because my black is pure black, you just won't see them.