Star Wars saga - Extra Extended Edition (1080p) (* unfinished project / WIP *) — Page 6

MWilson, thanks for the function; sadly, it doesn’t replicate Ronster’s one…

Top ColorBalance, bottom Ronster:

still too magenta.

A bit better than before, but magenta is still there… 😦

The scene by scene (or, worst, shot by shot) color grading is beyond the mission of this project; I just want to have a “set-and-forget” setting for the whole trilogy, and, using RaiTre as color reference, the results are good in almost all the shots… I mean, I could live with some magenta-ridden shots during explosions or laser blasts, if the other shots look like good; at the contrary, I can’t stand with green or yellow snow to get good colors on explosions shots - plus, even if explosion itself has better color, the other colors shift too much…

What I used for my regrading is the HDTV (and/or BD) luma, and color matched RaiTre chroma; this is because RaiTre brightness and contrast are off, and, using its luma will lead to worst results, due to both brightness/contrast issue, and the fact that aspect ratio is different and the color match script often is prone to artifacts.

If someone took time to read the article whose link I posted before, the RaiTre and DVD menus have very similar color grading, and different from all the other known versions; I think this is a nice grading; is it the “proper” one? Maybe, probably… who knows!?!

Another test I made, to be sure at least that RaiTre are not just an “auto whited” version of another grade (at least on Hoth, where the snow shots are almost all really white-ish), I compared (in a 2x2 grid) the HDTV-RaiTre regraded, the HDTV, and their respective autowhite’d counterparts; well, the RaiTre is definitely not autowhite’d; sometime both autowhite’d versions are similar, but often the HDTV is way worst than HDTV-RaiTre; in the latter, there is that touch of blue on Hoth shots that works… not too much, just not exagerated like in the HDTV (BD).

And, RaiTre is not lacking saturation in comparison to HDTV/BD, well, not always… I do love blue Executor and its red-glowing engines!

Top, HDTV-RaiTre regraded, bottom HDTV:

Thanks for the input benduwan!

Today I tested further the RaiTre regrading, and I discovered some things… first, as noted before, its contrast is off, but not for every shots; some are perfect, many are not; so, using the HD luma is the best compromise. Meanwhile, I worked a lot at the color matching script, and now the revised one should render around 90/95% of the scenes almost exactly; in the other cases, I should switch to another type - which works bad in the previous cases, but it’s optimal for the few exceptions.

An example of the last version - top new regrade (type 2), bottom HDTV:

I worked also to a “patched” version, where the HD luma is merged with RaiTre chroma; it is the perfect solution, because the colors are not recreated, but they are the original ones; it’s a pity RaiTre is missing images all around the borders… so, when I overlay the HD luma/RaiTre chroma on the regraded version, the borders have different colors… I spent many hours testing this option, just to decide to not use it: I prefer to have a, let’s say, 98% matching regrade on the 100% of the image, instead 100% matching on 90% of the image, and 90% match on the borders, where the difference can be easily spotted.

I started also to work to scene cleaning, desert storm, in particular: it’s really difficult to get rid of all those big scratches without losing details… I must find the right compromise, not an easy task. Treadwell is worst, the first shot is really hard; but I guess it could be easy to reuse previous/next frames (or part of them) to remove residual dirt. Now, if someone has cleaned some deleted scenes, and would like to share them, it will be a great help for the project!

That is impressive, honestly if every deleted scene looked like this he I’d be happy I can’t wait for the final cut of these extended versions, it’s gonna be so cool to see everything added back in seeing a glimpse of what could have been and how it changes the movie is sure going to be an experience for me, especially for something I know so well and and used to seeing, I imagine it’s like someone giving you cake and then saying there’s a little bit of extra filling in there too, the same delicious taste with a few new ingredients lol

Thanks for all the inputs; they will be investigated!

Fred’s avisynth script: yes, I’m using (also) this to clean scenes, and it works well in the vast majority of the cases; probably a professional software (and a more skilled editor) could do better; so, if there are some available restored deleted scenes/shots that could be used for this project, please PM me with links.

Just discovered that Deleted Magic Revisited has a nice preview crawl, never seen before (by me, of course…); another great find!

pittrek said:

The Deleted Magic intro is fan made

Oh, didn’t know that… thanks for the info! Experts like you and benduwan are really needed here 😄

benduwan said:

^…^ said:

pittrek said:

The Deleted Magic intro is fan made

Oh, didn’t know that… thanks for the info! Experts like you and benduwan are really needed here 😄

but…i´m the guru…😄

Yep, sorry, “mister” Guru, I apologize… 😄

Wow, I need some time to check’em all!

Well, the last link is really interesting, don’t you think? 😉

benduwan said:

check this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(radio)

https://archive.org/details/StarWarsRadio

maybe could use for voice over or deletet scenes.

That’s a great idea indeed especially since the cast actually were the ones providing voice overs, I know someone also mentioned this before but the question is does anyone have the broadcasts preserved for use

benduwan said:

check this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(radio)

https://archive.org/details/StarWarsRadio

maybe could use for voice over or deletet scenes.

I thought to do that, too! Is there the sandstorm scene?