Your PM box is full, so here's my private thank-you:
Harmy, you are the man! I can't guarantee my school's shittastic internet will let me get a hold of it but I'll give it a shot.
A Goon in a Gaggle of 'em
I want to download the workprint too...
I'll be glad to look it over also. Might be slightly delayed since I've got other things going on, but consider me quite interested.
PMs sent :-)
Finally got some free time - would love to take a look at it, Harmy. Thanks.
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
First I'll preface my comments with the fact that I'm watching this on my Laptop's LCD screen which is most certainly not properly calibrated for video. I've tried to keep this in consideration when watching so I hope my observations help.
So, I've watched the first 8 1/2 minutes (everything up to the point we leave the Tantive IV for good).
My first reaction has to be... The crushed blacks! Where did they go!? I'm totally amazed at what's been accomplished here! I realize that my laptop screen is not accurately displaying brightness, black levels, etc. But there's no way that's enough to explain away what I'm seeing. You've pulled detail out of the shadows that I thought was gone forever in this transfer. I really wish I could put this up on my tv & see how it looks there, but I'm not that tech savvy... Anyway, it's so nice to no longer feel like I'm staring into a black hole when they do a closup on Vader's helmet!
Regarding the colors, I must say that the explosions and flashes look SO much better now. No more neon pink glare! However, for the rest of the colors, I felt like they might be toned down a little too much. It's subtle, but I feel like the over all color saturation could use a small boost. And, I realize my next comment is treading on very dangerous territory (especially when considering my comments about the flashes & explosions) but I think the reds in particular have been toned down too much. Keep in mind this is VERY slight. But I do think a slight increase in red saturation could help. But again, VERY slight.
Anyway, I need to keep watching but I'm loving what I've seen so far. I think what you guys (I'm assuming you_too helped) acheived with pulling more detail out of the crushed blacks is just blowing me away.
The thing is that the Blu-Ray has less of the black crush to begin with - but with the BD's too dark settings you can't really see that, but You_Too and me were able to pull a lot more detail out of the blacks, which was eaten up by compression in the DVD and HDTV broadcasts.
As to the red saturation, you're probably judging this mainly from the walls being a bit blue still but they are this way even in the GOUT, which already has a red boots, so I'm pretty sure that that's the way it should be.
To be honest, it was quite hard to decide whether to try and make the walls truly white (which I would have actually preffered) or try and stay faithful to what various references seem to point to. In the end, I decided for the latter.
Not to open a can of worms, but I was actually looking at skin tone (in particular the closeups of Leia while she's talking to Vader that You_Too mentioned) when talking about red saturation. The guy who stands next to Vader while he's talking to Leia & then walks down the hall next to Vader also looks a little brownish. But again, it's subtle & wouldn't take much of a red boost to look great.
Okay Harmy, apologies for the delay, the clip's pretty long so I've been waiting to free up enough time to be able to go through it in its entirety. To speed things up in relation to pinpointing certain shots, i'm going to just state the frame number of the shot rather than the timecode in the clip, I hope you're fine with that. I not, let me know and i'll use the time codes instead. I'll put to one side my own project's colour grading in order to try and give as objective feedback as possible. All the shots I don't mention I think are fine as they are and this is of course all just IMHO. Here goes...
616: blue lettering is too dark
1151: 'Star Wars' letters and prologue scroll too dark
3934-3935: lighting inconsistent between the two shots
4223-4224: lighting inconsistent between the two shots
4287-4288: lighting inconsistent between the two shots
4999-5000: lighting inconsistent between the two shots
6283: too much red in shot relative to previous shot of c3po
6325: too much red/orange relative to previous corridor shots
6353: too much red/orange relative to previous corridor shots
6488: too much red/orange relative to previous corridor shots
6692: shot too dark relative to previous shots
6853: shot too dark relative to previous shots
7094: shot too bright for dark surroundings
8044: little bit too much red/orange relative to previous corridor shots
9124: shot perhaps a little too bright for dark surroundings
9200: shot perhaps a little too bright for dark surroundings
9261: shot a little too bright for dark surroundings
9288: shot too dark and inconsistent with previous shots of leia
10286: shot perhaps a little too dark relative to previous shots
10547: shot perhaps a little too dark
11029: shot a little too orange
11109: shot too orange, making leia's flesh tone overly orange
11165: shot a little too orange
11270: shot too orange, making leia's flesh tone overly orange
11377: shot a little too orange
11457: shot inconsistent with previous shot of leia, far too orange
11591: shot a little too orange
11618: shot inconsistent with previous shots of leia, far too orange
11645: much better, this is how whole scene should be colour graded IMHO, with a bit less orange to fit with the next shot
14830: sky too red
16115: sky a little too red relative to previous shot
16383: looks a little to red/orange compared to proceeding shots
22165: clouds/sky too red relative to previous shot with storm troopers
22570-22571: too bright at the end of shot, inconsistent with next shot
23185-23186: brightness/saturation inconsistent between shots
24218-24219: brightness/saturation inconsistent between shots
24305-24306: brightness/saturation inconsistent between shots
Going to take a break for a little bit but i'll be back to finish off. Hope this helps. :)
@canofhumdingers: I don't know, wouldn't red make it even more brown? If anything, I'd say it would need more blue and then the walls get too blue. And if you boost reds, the walls become purple.
I downloaded it, but when I tried playing it it says error. Why? Don't forget there are other thing to look for besides color.
looking for HDTV of the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Also HDTV of The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Harmy said:
@canofhumdingers: I don't know, wouldn't red make it even more brown? If anything, I'd say it would need more blue and then the walls get too blue. And if you boost reds, the walls become purple.
Yes exactly, in order to remove the orange tint and get those walls closer to white, I believe you would have to actually reduce the reds a bit rather than increase them, then boost the blues by at least double the amount you've reduced the reds, in some cases a little more, in some cases a little less. That's what I've found from messing about regrading some of the scenes from your workprint anyway.
Harmy said:
@You_Too: Thank you for these observations, I must say that most of thm differences are fairly minor - I mean, I do see them but just barely and considering the time it took to balance these shots out to their current look, I think I'll leave most (not all) of the as they are now. But I'm definitely not saying that they're out of place and I'll sure look into what I can do about them.
First, just a question, is your monitor calibrated? I mean, you say you see the things I pointed out but just barely. No offense!
Some of the things are less important of course, but make sure you at least fix the part where the picture goes darker in an eyeblink after R2 and 3PO runs across the screen, since it's a very visible and fast change.
And in my opinion the change in this point is very visible too, especially on a calibrated screen:
By the way, about wall and skin tones, I'd say this production photo shows almost what it probably looked like, if aiming for natural tones:
You_Too said:
By the way, about wall and skin tones, I'd say this production photo shows almost what it probably looked like, if aiming for natural tones:
You_Too, I personally think the walls, the white light on the ceiling (yellow light in this case) and flesh tones are too yellow in this still and don't look 'natural' IMHO.
EDIT:
Just regraded this shot quickly so it looks more natural, at least to me. The walls/light look fairly white to me now, but the yellow tint is still noticable, annoyingly. Their faces could perhaps use a bit more red to make the flesh tones more natural. Saturation might also need to be boosted slightly. Anyway, definate improvement IMHO:
Jeez, I did say that I don't see much of a difference in some of them, didn't I ;-) I do clearly see the difference in the one you just posted and I do see that part where it gets darker (I did that to compensate for the blown out explosion but I might need to back up there), which is exactly one of those I meant when I said I was gonna try to fix some :-)
Also OMEN, I'm not sure if your monitor doesn't add a bit of a yellow tint, you seem to see yellow a lot, where I don't see it at all. From what I see, the wall in the picture of Leia and Vader Yoo_Too posted, the walls are slightly bluish white with a bit of purple in the darker areas and I don't see even a hint of yellow anywhere in the walls. The faces of the people there seem to be a sort of pinkish orange, which I think is exactly what a normal natural skin colour. Actually, I'm sitting in a café right now and when I look around, people's faces seem even more orange than those in that picture.
EDIT: And in your regraded version, the walls now have a bit of cyan tint in the highlights and the faces seem unnaturally pale.
Harmy, Omen - just wondering, are you guys working on a calibrated monitor?
“In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be “replaced” by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.” - George Lucas
Well, I never had any professional calibration done, since it's hard to do anything like that on a laptop but it seems to generally show what most people agree on.
EDIT: Well, according to this article, my monitor is quite well calibrated but it has terrible viewing angle and bad response time.
Harmy said:
Also OMEN, I'm not sure if your monitor doesn't add a bit of a yellow tint, you seem to see yellow a lot, where I don't see it at all. From what I see, the wall in the picture of Leia and Vader Yoo_Too posted, the walls are slightly bluish white with a bit of purple in the darker areas and I don't see even a hint of yellow anywhere in the walls. The faces of the people there seem to be a sort of pinkish orange, which I think is exactly what a normal natural skin colour. Actually, I'm sitting in a café right now and when I look around, people's faces seem even more orange than those in that picture.
EDIT: And in your regraded version, the walls now have a bit of cyan tint in the highlights and the faces seem unnaturally pale.
I definately agree that the faces are pale, which is why I suggested boosting red slightly or increasing saturation. As for adding yellow tint, its possible I guess but I don't think so, my monitor, a dell ultrasharp u3011, has been colour calibrated.
OMEN!-_-! said:
You_Too, I personally think the walls, the white light on the ceiling (yellow light in this case) and flesh tones are too yellow in this still and don't look 'natural' IMHO.
EDIT:
Just regraded this shot quickly so it looks more natural, at least to me. The walls/light look fairly white to me now, but the yellow tint is still noticable, annoyingly. Their faces could perhaps use a bit more red to make the flesh tones more natural. Saturation might also need to be boosted slightly. Anyway, definate improvement IMHO:
After a closer look and point sampling in photoshop, I can only agree. It was slightly too yellow. Your regraded version is slightly too blue though. So anyway, I did a final version, letting photoshop auto-balance the levels and now the RGB levels for white are very close. I also increased saturation slightly. So this will probably be the cleanest look for this image.
And Harmy, sorry for spamming your thread with pictures!
I still think you're doing a great job, and that you probably put a lot of thought behind your color-decisions. I just point out things to make sure you'll be able to make this the optimal restoration of the movie using the sources we have.
Harmy said:
@canofhumdingers: I don't know, wouldn't red make it even more brown? If anything, I'd say it would need more blue and then the walls get too blue. And if you boost reds, the walls become purple.
@canofhumdingers: That is a good point. I think that we are most of the way there, because we are disputing the smallest changes in hues and tints! At least the "blue filter" of the official release is gone.
That said, it would be a shame to get almost there and give up because it is too difficult.
Also, to put it out there, my monitor is not calibrated, but is mostly correct (lines up with what others are seeing).
You_Too said:
OMEN!-_-! said:
You_Too, I personally think the walls, the white light on the ceiling (yellow light in this case) and flesh tones are too yellow in this still and don't look 'natural' IMHO.
EDIT:
Just regraded this shot quickly so it looks more natural, at least to me. The walls/light look fairly white to me now, but the yellow tint is still noticable, annoyingly. Their faces could perhaps use a bit more red to make the flesh tones more natural. Saturation might also need to be boosted slightly. Anyway, definate improvement IMHO:
After a closer look and point sampling in photoshop, I can only agree. It was slightly too yellow. Your regraded version is slightly too blue though. So anyway, I did a final version, letting photoshop auto-balance the levels and now the RGB levels for white are very close. I also increased saturation slightly. So this will probably be the cleanest look for this image.
Your whites are still a little yellow there You_Too (at least on my monitor) but I like the flesh tones here the most of the three so it definately gets a thumbs up from me. Has your monitor been colour calibrated as well?
Absolutely, You_Too, your approach is good: look for inconsistencies - I think we already established that the colour settings are quite subjective but when one shot has some colour and then another shot showing the same thing shows completely different colour, it's safe to assume it's a mistake.
I think the way you see colours also greatly depends at how long have you already been staring at your monitor, sometimes I colour-grade something in the evening and it looks fine and then I look again in the morning and it looks off.
Another thing is that letting photoshop balance the image will probably make it look more natural, which isn't always necessarily correct for the film.
@canofhumdingers: Yeah, another thing is that the colours couldn't ever be perfectly consistent shot to shot in the original due to the nature of how colour-timing was done at the time - they would have been pretty much consistent but would never withstand this kind of scrutiny. But I think that it can be said with certainty, that the walls sure weren't consistently deeply cyan like they are in the 04 master, and I think that was accomplished quite well here :-)
canofhumdingers said:
For the record, I think the walls looked fine and (while recognizing the pretty anal nature of my own points) think some people* are on the edge of ridiculousness with how anal they can be about the tiniest hint of blue or yellow or green or what-have-you. No doubt the official releases have atrocious colors that needed fixing, but I think we're pretty much there as evidenced by the fact that we're nitpicking over the smallest increments of color shades and tints.
*I'm not trying to single any particular person out with that comment. If we weren't all pretty anal about Star Wars to begin with, none of us would be here.
You wouldn't be talking about me by any chance? lol
Harmy said:
I think the way you see colours also greatly depends at how long have you already been staring at your monitor, sometimes I colour-grade something in the evening and it looks fine and then I look again in the morning and it looks off.
Man, do I know exactly what you mean there. I think for this reason its best not to work for too long in one go on colour grading.