Idea: 'Man of Steel' - color fix (lots of info) — Page 2

Jonno said:

kk650 said:

Nobody here has called regrading Man of Steel a 'restoration'. I don't see how it not being a restoration suddenly makes it a fanedit though. No editing has been suggested by anybody here, so the only change would be the colour grading, so clearly the 'fanedit' category you want to place this project in does not apply.

The thread title includes the word 'fix', and it's in the preservation thread - hence my concern about its taxonomy.

I think your hard and fast definition of 'editing' is reductive, and that a deliberate alteration of colour constitutes an edit, but to me the larger issue is that the film materials are being manipulated for the hell of it, as opposed to restoratively.

I absolutely agree that 'proper' image and sound for a given film is subject to interpretation, but for my money a well researched and evidence-based approach such as Harmy's is always preferable to 'what looks right'. The intent is markedly different - on the one side, trying to recover *an* original look for the film from all available evidence (however limited), and on the other using personal taste and judgement to make adjustments.

Whew! I hadn't intended to argue my angle quite so vociferously, but I think this particular case (and people's attitudes to it) is an interesting one, because the original video was touted, embraced and posted here as some sort of repair when it was clearly nothing of the sort.

In moviemaking terms the term 'editing' refers to choosing what footage appears and doesn't appear in a film, which is the domain of the film's editor, not how the film looks colourwise which is the domain of the film's colorist. If your definition of editing also includes colour grading as well, that's fair enough, we'll just have to agree to diagree on that.

I'm not questioning the merit of restoration/preservations, there's clearly demand for such releases. They're difficult endevours that usually requires shot by shot grading to get it right. I think comparing them to what you might call 'removing blanket tint' projects like I do (which is not really 'grading to my own preference' like you put it, but more revealing the original colours in the transfer beneath the blanket tint) is like comparing apples and oranges, they both have completely different goals.

Saying restoration/preservations are superior to other fangrades because they recreate the colours of previous home releases seems a little silly to me because as we all know, one film like Star Wars has had many releases with totally different colour grading over the years. Which home release do you regrade to, which is how it is 'supposed to look like'? Ultimately it always comes down to ones own preference, something subjective that many others will disagree with you over.

Objectively, the only release that be considered to have the correct colour grading and look 'how its supposed to look' is the latest official home release of that film IMHO, saying a certain home release is 'how its supposed to look' is just you expressing your preference for the look of a certain home release, a viewpoint that many will disagree with you on.

A theatrical release preservation/restoration of something like Star Wars of course is a completely different kettle of fish compared to home release preservation/restorations, the questionable accuracy of the single frames used as references for how the whole film was supposed to have looked in the cinema, compared to the colour grading of home releases that can actually be seen in their entirety, makes any preservation/restorations of the theatrical release that much more unreliable IMHO, not to mention unappealing to watch when you have drastic changes in overall colours/fleshtones in the same scene from shot to shot.

Rather than slavishly regrade to each frame, irrespective of whether they are accurate or not colourwise, I would personally choose a frame with colours that I think look accurate and appealing and regrade the rest of that scene to fit that colour asthetic in order to maintain overall colour/fleshtone continuety from shot to shot. That would fix the colour continuety issues that the current despecialised editions have. That would be a preservation/restoration of the theatrical release of Star Wars that I would personally much prefer to the current despecialised edition. I'm strongly of the belief that if there is conflict between maintaining frame colour accuracy and maintaining colour/fleshtone consistency, maintaining colour/fleshtone continuety must be prioritised above all else.

NeverarGreat said:

^The grading of Star Wars was originally very inconsistent, so wouldn't making the colors consistent remove some of the original aesthetic? I don't mean to argue that the inconsistent color grade was intentional or even appealing, but it certainly was a part of the film and any project that attempts to return to the '77 version (such as Despecialized) should endeavor to keep this look in my opinion. And if changes in color are unappealing, the same argument could be applied to the walls of the Death Star, which were also painted slightly different shades of blue/green. Should those be made an even color just because it is more appealing? Or what about hokey costumes that move oddly in some shots more than others? Should the offending shots be doctored? All I'm saying is that a preservation should preserve a movie, warts and all.

Well it really boils down to whether you consider all the reference frames the despecialised edition was based on to be 100% accurate to how it looked during the original theatrical release. Based on the amount of colour inconsistancies from shot to shot during the same scenes, I strongly suspect that is not the case, at least for many of those frames. Either that or the colour inconsistencies were introduced when the colours were being interpreted by harmy, I can't say because I haven't seen those frames. I know from my own experience regrading Star Wars that it is more inconsistant than other films i've worked on, I had to use 30-40 different settings across the whole film to get the grading fairly consistant, I just don't believe it was THAT inconsistant during its theatrical run.

Say for the sake of argument that all the reference frames are 100% accurate and the theatrical release of Star Wars was that inconsistant colourwise, it brings up the interesting question of what should be prioritised in a preservation/restoration, the colour expectations of the audience or maintaining the theatrical presentation exactly, however flawed it is colourwise.

Everybody I imagine will have a different opinion on this and what a preservation/restoration is meant to be exactly. Me, I think a theatrical preservation of Star Wars is ultimately meant to be seen and enjoyed by normal people rather than studied by film historians, colour/fleshtone inconsistencies get in the way of that IMHO, so I would personally prioritise maintaining colour/fleshtone consistency on a scene by scene basis, even if it meant ignoring certain frames that did not coincide with the overall colour scheme chosen.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Few minutes after I read this thread, I noted that the movie was programmed for this evening; watching the trailer, it seemed colors were more "alive" than the comparison video, so I decided to record it.

Apart the fact that, thanks also to following posts, I discovered the youtube video was modified, I wanted to see with my own eyes...

So, the movie, watched on an old CRT SD TV set had good, vivid colors in almost all the shots, and the few which were dull had their reasons; I compared the HDTV with the BD 2D, and they are almost the same - the small differences are probably due to TV recompression problems...

At the end, there is no reason (IMHO) to make a project, even if I must admit I was tempted just the minute I watched that youtube video; reality is the color grading is much better than many other recent movies!

So, as the old Mulder was used to say, TRUST NO 1! I add: make your homework, try to find as much proofs as you can, and then, eventually, *think* to make a project! (^^,)

If someone needs the comparison shots, I'll be happy to post them, but not now, it's too late...

Yeah I do agree that there is very much a clear purpose to the stylised colour grading here on Man of Steel, just like there was with 300, a film that I loved and wouldn't dream of regrading. If it was just me I wouldn't bother regrading it either, I didn't really like the film all that much.

In all honesty i'm only doing it because i've received a crazy amount of requests from Superman fans that remember the brighter/happier colours of earlier Superman films and have seen that youtube video. I just hope they don't expect me to work miracles, most of the natural colours are completely gone from the very aggressive digital grading, theres only so much that can be done without the original footage to work from. There is a strong blanket yellow tint throughout though so that does give the regrade more legitimacy in my mind.

NeverarGreat said:

I agree that inconsistency in color gets in the way of appreciating the film, but if it was originally inconsistent, that should be preserved in some fashion, and the original inconsistency should be available for film historians, something that just doesn't exist at the moment for Star Wars, except in Despecialized. But I also want nice consistent colors across scenes, so if there was a way to have both versions, that would be the ideal situation. But it would require some amount of artistic interpretation, as there are some scenes with just two shots of differing colors for example. Which one is right? Is either one right, or is the actual color somewhere in the middle? These are tough questions that don't have easy answers.

I agree that have having both versions would be the best solution, I would personally watch the colour consistant version and the film historians would have the version that exactly replicates the colour of each reference frame, however inconsistant.

I don't think it would require a great deal of artistic interpretation for the colour consistant version though, using lightsources, fleshtones and if necessary set photos from the shoot as guides, they would greatly help in choosing a reference frame that looks the most correct for that location and then you can go with that same colour grading for the rest of the scene.

anyone still interested in this? I have been working on Man of Steel ColorFix for a few months now and just about have it ready for a Custom BD50 Output.

It didn't need fixing.

dvdmike said:

It didn't need fixing.

 I can agree with that somewhat. The source is fine if you like the color scheme they used from The Dark Knight where the cast looks dead and nothing like they do in real life (color wise).

Watching it in color and not so desaturated though is a different experience which I feel fits Superman better. Just my opinion though.  

Hey, come now. The Dark Knight was nowhere as desaturated as Man of Steel. I just saw TDK in IMAX 70mm a few weeks ago, it did have a bleach-bypass look but it didn't have the pasty dishwater colors of MOS. Not by a long shot.

And TDK was shot on film and looks like it was actually photochemically timed. Nolan's color timing, as projected on film in a theater, is worlds away superior to MOS' color.

That said, you are right about MOS. Of all the classic superheroes, Superman NEEDS to have those primary colors. In some scenes his outfit looked almost black, that's how desaturated it got.

It was how it was shot, it's not a fix. 

It's a fan edit.

is indeed a fan edit. this thread should be moved and renamed. 

I just uploaded the regrade of Man of Steel i've done to tehparadox. Here are some screencap comparisons for those interested:

Blu-ray 1:



Regraded 1:



Blu-ray 2:



Regraded 2:



Blu-ray 3:



Regraded 3:



Blu-ray 4:



Regraded 4:

Thanks! I'm curious to see how Vinnie's regrade of Man of Steel compares colourwise.

The Re Grade Looks great.

http://i.imgur.com/HkDPS5A.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0GTlmKG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/o7yIK1H.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/slFRhX3.png

http://i.imgur.com/Xaz0f8F.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kkl6bdv.jpg

tried to compare mine to your screens....im sure timing is little off. will have proper screens up soon. along with the BD50 with BDInfo, MKV Remux, MKV 1080p Encode, MKV 720p Encode with proper media info.

Also will release a 4K remaster of my regrade in BD50...

Vinnie981 said:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/HkDPS5A.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/0GTlmKG.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/o7yIK1H.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/slFRhX3.png[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/Xaz0f8F.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/kkl6bdv.jpg[/img]

tried to compare mine to your screens....im sure timing is little off. will have proper screens up soon. along with the BD50 with BDInfo, MKV Remux, MKV 1080p Encode, MKV 720p Encode with proper media info.

Also will release a 4K remaster of my regrade in BD50...

Looks nice! I'm curious, is this your first regrade?

You have to use the Insert/Edit Image button to add images to posts here, the [img] tag doesn't work sadly.

Looking forward to checking out the full release. I've just put mine up on myspleen in case you're interested in checking it out as well.

Here's a screencap comparison between your last screencap and the same screencap from my regrade. I always find different regrades of the same film very fascinating, its almost like watching a totally different film:

thanks for heads up.....it is a shame that the img become doesn't work. this is my first so to say real attempt at a regrade. however I have been encoding for quite some time. Hope some will enjoy my release when i post them. May not be the best regrade but I'm very happy with it

Vinnie981 said:

thanks for heads up.....it is a shame that the img become doesn't work. this is my first so to say real attempt at a regrade. however I have been encoding for quite some time. Hope some will enjoy my release when i post them. May not be the best regrade but I'm very happy with it

Vinnie, if this is your first regrade then you're off to a great start :)

Ultimately the only thing that matters is that you are happy with it, regardless of what others think IMHO. That is certainly how I approach my own work.

I hope that you go on to do other regrades.