Harmy's STAR WARS Despecialized Edition HD - V2.7 - MKV (Released) — Page 120

If its not too late, Id love to take a gander at the work print. Thank you Harmy.

I'd love to see this latest work print Harmy.

I feel kind of guilty asking, since I never got around to giving feedback on the last work print, so... here it is.  Better late than never I guess:

During the binary sunset scene in your last work print, I thought the sky looked terribly dark/dull, and the sun at the right too red (this seems to have been a problem since the SEs).  I've always remembered the sky and the sun at the right as being much lighter, so I checked three different sources for comparison (albeit all VHS recordings, for what that's worth) -- a TV broadcast from 1983, the original P&S VHS box set, and the Faces VHS box set.  Although they all suffer from blown out white levels, the sky is nevertheless much more lavender-coloured and the sun on the right more bright orange than what I was seeing in your last work print.

I tried (unsuccessfully) to take a photo of the TV screen for comparison, but the results weren't too accurate, so I did a rough mockup of what I'm seeing on the VHS sources:

Harmy's previous workprint:

VHS rendition:

Again, this is just a very rough approximation of what I'm seeing on the VHS sources, but you get the idea.  Conversely, the close-up of the binary suns that occurs moments later in your last work print seems spot on in terms of colour (containing nice vibrant violets and leaning a bit more toward orange/red compared to the previous shot, just as in the VHS sources). 

I feel a bit silly using VHS cassettes to make my case, but they are the colours I grew up with, and I'm sure in this instance they're more accurate than the official DVDs or BDs.  Can anyone else confirm my opinion about the sky's colour in this scene?  Or am I completely out to lunch? :)

One other thing I noticed in your last work print Harmy: in the scene immediately following the binary sunset scene, where 3PO jumps out from behind the speeder in the garage, his eyes appear blue before cutting back to Luke:

EDIT: by the way, amazing job on that last transition!  I watched it half a dozen times and think it's flawless.

I'd also love to take a look at the latest WP. i dunno if my monitor is big enough to have three playing at once though

OK, the WP is encoded and actually even uploaded but I just skimmed through it and already found quite a few things I want to fix, so I decided to fix those things and re-encode.

I would love to see this latest work print harmy!

TServo2049 said:

Harmy, I get what you're getting at, I don't think it's supposed to be THAT bright, but in the various bootlegs and other sources I've seen, the sky looks a little brighter and has a little more color in it, and the foreground seems contrast...ier?. In yours, the contrast still looks dull (though some non-SE/non-GOUT images, like the Topps Widevision card, look like that too).

Here's the Puggo Grande, which is what Corellian's mockup reminded me of. Obviously, the sky is too blown-out:

And I keep coming back to Moth3r's version of the '77 widescreen boot (even though the color gradiation of the horizon doesn't really register in this transfer):

Also look at the clip at the beginning of From Star Wars to Jedi - on the Japanese LD transfer, it doesn't look overly bright or blown-out, and even though the sky looks a little too bluish in the Luke closeup, the first shot seems "right"...

If anything, please fix that blood-red sun. It's supposed to be orange, and it is not supposed to look as saturated, sharp-edged or opaque as it does in the '04/'11 transfer. Right now, it seems to pop out from the background - it almost looks like it's pasted over the sky, whereas it used to actually look like it was in the sky.

That's not exactly how Puggo Grande looks though, your example looks very familiar to how I boosted the brightness on it in an example in this thread here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Colortiming-Cinematography-was-What-changes-was-done-to-STAR-WARS-in-93/post/429548/#TopicPost429548

This one is untouched:

The same goes for Moth3r's bootleg which looks very different than his original source material it was made from:

Just thought it was important to point it out. Anyway, I actually think it's near impossible for Harmy to make this sequence look like the original scene, not only must he treat it like a special effect as it was digitally messed with in '97 and '04 but the color grading is also so screwed up here that anything he can do to improve it is an major accomplishment in my book.

Pardon my ignorance, as I don't know a lot about video editing, but wouldn't it be possible to color correct the sky and sun in one frame, then with that create a mask for all the other frames in the sequence?

TServo2049 said:

msycamore: I agree. Though I reiterate, I would at least like to see the red sun fixed. It literally sticks out like a sore thumb.

It's very similar to the red lights seen in the blockade runner shootout or the red light seen on the Falcon in the Hoth hangar, completely unnatural. The atmospheric depth is gone making the reds look like it was painted on top of the film in the 2004 transfers.

Harmy said:

OK, the WP is encoded and actually even uploaded but I just skimmed through it and already found quite a few things I want to fix, so I decided to fix those things and re-encode.

 

And this is why we love you dude :)

So I'm uploading the WP to MU now but it's going really slowly, so how about I upload it to uloz.to, which would only take a few seconds and then provide MU mirrors for those who need them?

OK, in the end I decided to use RS. I'm going to start sending PMs.

ooh goody...

It tried once but I remember having some trouble with it.

OK, PMs sent. Let me know if I forgot someone.

Harmy said:

OK, PMs sent. Let me know if I forgot someone.

OMG. So I do not have a discerning eye or great memory. I urge everybody to watch 1.0 and this side by side with the volume off. You'll be blown away. Of course it won't be 1:1 because the workprint is 25fps but you'll get the idea nonetheless...

you are awesome man.  downloaded all the files in one fell swoop. rapidshare must have been feeling generous.

Yeah, free DL from RS is somehow really fast now and upload too, that's why I chose it in the end.

@builditup:

Thanks. I actually just did that and I must say even I didn't realize how much of a difference there was.

Check this out (v1.0 top v2.0 bottom):

I dare say the crushed blacks aren't even going to be an issue this time.