That looks good! Here’s a small update on the color grading, to fix an issue with the black levels, amongst others:
THIS. This is the best you’ve posted of this shot. Tarkin’s uniform still doesn’t look quite right to me, but overall looks fantastic!
But… You know me, I couldn’t resist working from it to try and bring it closer to what I think is accurate. I made his skin a bit too yellow I think, but the uniform and walls are better, albeit a little splotchy.
EDIT: I think it’s important to clarify one of Mike Verta’s points. Saying the walls are BIASED TOWARD blue, does not mean the walls are vibrant, saturated blue. I think what he’s saying is that the walls look more blue than any other color. They should read as grey, with subtle blue undertones, rather than jumping out at you as BLUE.
I would disagree. The 70 mm and Tech print scans show a saturated teal color, which when corrected for the green shift, would imply a more saturated blue:
I wasn’t talking about your last shots. I actually think those are very close. More just in general as some of the corrections I’ve seen from you and others recently are I think a bit too blue to the point where you’re losing the look of tarkin’s uniform. A couple have been so vibrant blue that it actually distracts from the focus of the shot, which is Tarkin.
My last correction I posted was from your shot, just adjusting the curves until tarkin’s uniform looked right. No change in saturation adjustments. And you can see adjusting for the look of his uniform brings the walls to a more subtle blue.
This is just my thinking and speculation based on how the image tends to look when adjusting for things like skintone and costume colors.
Disregard.
Then I misunderstood 😃. One thing I do notice for your correction, is that Darth Vader’s belt lights have turned blue.
bishabosha said:
Vimeo link to the Death Star Council Scene CC |-> https://vimeo.com/159645887
I tried to download “original” among the 4 video choices . .
. . but it comes up as “corrupted”. Any way to DL this version? I DL’ed the same resolution HD video.
Funny … now that I’ve DL’ed the HD one, it show “file not found” on all selections. So this is Vimeo? 😃
Then I misunderstood 😃. One thing I do notice for your correction, is that Darth Vader’s belt lights have turned blue.
Oh wow that’s very strange. I wonder if something weird happened with the green channel when I uploaded it to imgur or something. It isn’t like that on the corrected frame on my desktop.
Here are the two Motti frames with the latest color grading:
I think these last two still are a bit too green.
I don’t think it’s too green, I think it’s too cyan. You could do to add a tad bit of red to counteract it.
These two are a quick reaction to your lastest from that scene, in SSE, those two shots are very dark and I really had to push the limit of the shadow detail to get anywhere near as bright an image as you got from the bluray:
again those were a quick reaction comparison, orginally I had done a much darker CC, as I was just correcting colour bias
Here’s a set of the regraded shots:
Well, this conversation has been helpful. Lots of good info. I’m not liking Tarkin’s skin tones. Peter Cushing was pretty pale and never had much color (reference other sources such as his 2 Doctor Who movies) so I’m not in agreement with the coloring that gives him a nice rich skin tone. He and Leia should be fairly pale IMO.
That said, the conversation about the color of the Death Star Walls, coupled with using a separate level adjustment for each color channel has allowed me to fix my corrections (BR and GOUT) to show a slight blue to the walls and the green that was plaguing my previous BR attempt is gone. I’d post some screen caps but my system is busy trying to stabilize a video. I also haven’t finished tweaking it yet. I feel I am so close to what I think my final version will look like. I have to call what I’m doing to the BR a restoration because of all the gaffs I’ve found in the transfer that need to be fixed (and I’ve decided to remove that damned rock… can’t stand it). But I think I’ve found the single worst scene in the BR. When the Sand Crawler stops and the Jawas come in to select the droids to sell. R5-D4 is more pink than red. Any ideas on that shot? I thought I had it but I’m going to totally redo it.
Regarding Peter Cushing’s skin tones, he wasn’t tanned, but he wasn’t pale as a sheet either:
Here’s a set of the regraded shots:
[pictures]
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Impressive, young apprenticed! You’ve made the Star Wars Blu-ray watchable … at last! |  |
Here’s a set of the regraded shots:
…
…
Looks like an impressive gallery!
Except this one still looks like it has wonky contrast to me. 😃
Regarding Peter Cushing’s skin tones, he wasn’t tanned, but he wasn’t pale as a sheet either:
It all depends on which photos you go by. The ones I’m using as reference are in general lighter than what you are doing. Most of the photos of Cushing I’ve looked at tend toward lighter tones. I do like the feel of what you are doing, but tye midtones seem too dark and saturated for my taste. Considering what you started from, it looks incredible. A difference in taste does not deminish my admiration for your work.
Here’s a set of the regraded shots:
…
…Looks like an impressive gallery!
Except this one still looks like it has wonky contrast to me. 😃
Yeah, I don’t really like that one either… I also noticed R5-D4 has turned orange, which will need to be fixed.
But I think I’ve found the single worst scene in the BR. When the Sand Crawler stops and the Jawas come in to select the droids to sell. R5-D4 is more pink than red. Any ideas on that shot? I thought I had it but I’m going to totally redo it.
I’ve not looked at that shot yet, but from your reaction, I can probably conclude it will be a challenge 😉.
A little far away from Star Wars, but …
Slipstream (1989) laserdiscs (see the Slipstream thread, end of page 3), UK pan/scan & JP widescreen, have problems. To fix them, can your process take the pan/scan picture as a reference and alter the widescreen to matching colors? The caveat is that the widescreen’s blue channel has been mangled beyond my normal corrective measures.
BTW, if you can process just a frame to check the effectiveness with these captures, here are the fullsized Slipstream JP & Slipstream UK laserdisc snapshots. Thanks!
Also, would your technique work on the B&W R-G-B separations for the best(?) color matching result?
| JP – orig / Red / Green / Blue . . . . . . UK – orig / Red / Green / Blue |
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Spaced Ranger said:
Slipstream (1989) laserdiscs … the widescreen’s blue channel has been mangled … here are the fullsized Slipstream JP & Slipstream UK laserdisc snapshots.
BTW, as it looks like DrDre has moved on to another project, anyone please feel free to test this and post your results of the color regrade on this problem. Thanks!
I haven’t really moved on. It’s simply that in order to do an accurate color regrading, you need accurate references. Most of the references have undesired color biases. I’m attempting to first define what the colors of Star Wars should be like, before continuing the regrade.
Based on the results I obtained correcting the 70mm frames with an algorithm I developed for color correcting faded print scans, I’ve updated the color grading of the conference room scene:
If you adjust the brightness it looks a lot more natural and not so much like he just got back from Cancun.
I really do think most of the blu ray is darker than it’s supposed to be.
