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Info Wanted: Removing Black Crush in Star Wars

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It’s no secret that the digital home video releases of the OT have always been terrible – from the non-anamorphic GOUT to the SE Blus, something is always wrong.

One issue that I hear brought up multiple times in regards to the current masters of the SE is BLACK CRUSH (or crushed blacks). I understand the term in concept, but was wondering which films in the Blu-ray set suffer from it? I’m assuming that all three OT films have crushed blacks, but I noticed that TPM seems to be darker too. Do AOTC and ROTS suffer from this problem?

I took the Blu-ray files and threw them into Vegas and boosted the gamma a tad, does this look to eliminate the black crush, or am I doing it entirely wrong? If so, what is the correct method to fix crushed blacks?

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/182686/

“That said, there is nothing wrong with mocking prequel lovers and belittling their bad taste.” - Alderaan, 2017

MGGA (Make GOUT Great Again):
http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Return-of-the-GOUT-Preservation-and-Restoration/id/55707

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Looks better, quite good in fact. If details can be retrieved from within the blacks they are per definition NOT crushed, though. I believe the black level on these films was deliberately set to hide the garbage mattes as much as possible.

Visit my *NEW* Star Wars on Video Collection site:

http://www.swonvideo.com

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There are two different color spaces. Most media players and media formats clip the whites and black. Some of the missing color is actually still there, just not shown. Properly rendered media takes this into account and has the darkest and brightest colors that should be viewed set within this range. To correct it, you have to change the levels. Upping the gamma will bring back the blacks, but wash out the whites. You have to bring up the black level and bring down the white level to reveal the cut off colors at both ends.

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yotsuya said:

You have to bring up the black level and bring down the white level to reveal the cut off colors at both ends.

I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t that make them both overblown in the process?

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toykyle said:

yotsuya said:

You have to bring up the black level and bring down the white level to reveal the cut off colors at both ends.

I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t that make them both overblown in the process?

There are input levels and output levels. You have to use the right one. You can also reduce the contrast to get similar results.

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Video Collector said:

Looks better, quite good in fact. If details can be retrieved from within the blacks they are per definition NOT crushed, though. I believe the black level on these films was deliberately set to hide the garbage mattes as much as possible.

Indeed, true black crush implies the details are lost. There are only 256 possible intensities for each color channel for 8 bit color. The original film has a practically infinite number of intensities. If you crush the blacks, it means that you adjust the color curves to such an extend that dark colors all have such low value on the intensity scale, that in the 8 bit color space they all become 0 or black. Additionally, even detail that is still slightly visible, will not be fully resolved, resulting in steep color gradients/artifacts, if you attempt to retrieve detail.