kk650's Star Wars Saga: Regraded and Semi-Specialized (Released) — Page 18

nightstalkerpoet said:

Loved the screencaps for Star Wars... These ESB shots all seem a shade too yellow for my liking, and also makes a few of the shots appear more washed out (the details are there, but less visible). Just throwing in my $.2

Fair enough, I can see where you're coming from. The overall colour grading settings for this are pretty much the same as Star Wars, only the image dynamic settings are different, so I didn't want to start making unique overall colour settings for ESB. I did that with my first Semi-Specialised releases, Empire Strikes Back had markedly different colour settings from Star Wars and Return of the Jedi and I always regretted doing that because it made this film feel the odd one out compared to the other two.

My number one aim with these releases this time was to maintain a sense of colour consistency across all three films. That meant using the same overall colour settings across all three films. If Empire Strikes Back looks slightly more yellow than absolutely neccesary in certain scenes I can live with that. For all I know, that's what it looked like in the cinema. Of course, removing a bit of the yellow would mean boosting the blues on Hoth which i'd imagine a lot of people wouldn't like, so there's that to consider as well.

Empire Strikes Back has always been the big unknown for me of the Original Trilogy in terms of colours, there's so much unnatural lighting in it that its very difficult to get a handle on it. I honestly have no idea how exactly this film is meant to look colourwise or how it looked in the cinema. Star Wars and Return of the Jedi are much easier to get to grips with and these colour settings are pretty much spot on for those two IMHO so I'll leave Empire Strikes Back with the same settings just for the sake of maintaining colour continuety.

For the record, I personally really like how Empire Strikes Back looks, its a big improvement colourwise over my first release, fleshtones especially, and it has a nice warm feeling to it.

p.s. is it possible that the washed out look you're refering to is more to do with the reduced contrast than the colours? I reduced the contrast relative to the blu-rays to give the three films more filmic looks, the blu-rays are much too contrasty/digital looking for my liking.

How's the project coming along? :-)

Just thought I would check in to see how things were going with your project and if it might be on hold?  Been awfully quiet! ;-)

hi kitt1987, its been awfully quiet with this project because I've been focused for more than a month solely on creating an IMAX release of Guardians of the Galaxy with the constantly changing left sidebar selectively cropped by the exact amount required on each specific shot throughout the whole film.

It took a hell of a lot of time to create but its now finally finished. I'm very satisfied with how it turned out, not having the left sidebar changing width all the time and distracting from the film is really great, a big improvement on the official blu-ray IMHO. A visually impressive film that reminds me in many ways of Star Wars, an irreverant space opera, I wouldn't be surprised if it goes on to be considered by quite a few people, especially the younger generations, as the Star Wars of this generation.

For those interested in checking this IMAX release out, as always it can be found on tehparadox by searching for 'kk650'.

As for these Star Wars Semi-Specialised Editions, I was really hoping that after 3 months there would be feedback here about the two V2 Semi-Specialised Editions I have already released from those that have seen them. What to people think of the overall colours of Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, the image dynamics, the colour/saturation of the lightsabers?

Nothing is set in stone so everybody's thoughts would be very much appreciated. Is there no feedback because everybody likes what they're seeing or is there simply no interest for these Semi-Specialised releases here? I know this site is dedicated to getting the release of the unaltered original trilogy but from the previous pages in this thread I was under the impression that these Semi-Specialised releases interested quite a few members here. I'm very confused by the lack of feedback after 3 months to be honest.

@nightstalkerpoet: Apologies for the delay in replying, been very busy with Guardians of the Galaxy and other releases like Once Upon a Time in America. In all honesty I needed a break as well from Star Wars to be able to take a step back and look at these releases again with fresh eyes. Thank you for your thoughts. You've given me a lot to think about. I'm beginning to believe that a one size fits all approach to the colour grading of these three films might not be the way to go. Looking at those Empire Strikes Back screencaps now with fresh eyes, I believe that I may have been overzealous in removing the blue tint, thereby boosting the yellows more than is necessary.

I agree that fleshtones look correct but the overall balance of the colours are leaning too much towards yellow, giving the appearance of a blanket yellow tint. Looks like I have no choice but to use different colour settings for each of the films and follow my instincts on what looks balanced colourwise.

Okay guys, would I be right in saying that everybody is happy with how latest Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition looks? Can I lock the settings on that one or does anybody have any issues with the overall colours or colours of the lightsabers? Here are the screencap comparisons between the latest Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition and the official blu-ray below:

Blu-ray 1:



Regraded 1:



Blu-ray 2:

Regraded 2:



Blu-ray 3:



Regraded 3:



Blu-ray 4:



Regraded 4:



Blu-ray 5:



Regraded 5:

I think i'm definately going to have to adjust the settings for Empire Strikes Back to reduce the yellows and rerelease it though. I'll see about possibly boosting the contrast as well.

Glad to see you back!  Sorry I'm guilty as anyone for not lending more verbal support for your project but as for my opinion yes I definitely appreciate your corrections and am happy if you go ahead and lock the settings in.  While I am not a professional by any means at this type of thing, I can say that I prefer your settings over how the blu rays look.  Your settings give the image that look of being projected by an older projector with the older style bulbs which give it that warmer feeling.  Really look forward to the larger file size format with the DTS soundtrack when you get that finished!  Happy new year in advance!

I like your corrected pics

Yeah, I'm happy with it.

Thanks guys! Can you please check out these two clips from Star Wars and let me know which one you prefer the look of:

Clip 1:

https://mega.co.nz/#!ClRlHLTA!3smGNx5LP02u1oW6hQhyxP4b7zGk0wCZ3jLVMcXNWbA

Clip 2:

https://mega.co.nz/#!3kRxXKLB!elZxrPt19T_MlYUX6gT0Q4P3PB7MqeUDJN255fuRqyw

kk650 said:

Thanks guys! Can you please check out these two clips from Star Wars and let me know which one you prefer the look of:

Clip 1:

https://mega.co.nz/#!ClRlHLTA!3smGNx5LP02u1oW6hQhyxP4b7zGk0wCZ3jLVMcXNWbA

Clip 2:

https://mega.co.nz/#!3kRxXKLB!elZxrPt19T_MlYUX6gT0Q4P3PB7MqeUDJN255fuRqyw

 Is 1 a shade bluer? I think I prefer 2, but admittedly they looked similar enough to me that I considered that you might be testing us with the same video, and I might be failing.

Close enough for me that if it were my own setting I was tweaking, I would want myself to stop fiddling before I start going in another direction and making things worse. They look good. :)

I agree with towne32 i'm just not seeing a difference between the two. I still think it looks great though.

@towne32: No no they are definately different, I wouldn't do a test like that to make people feel foolish when you're all helping me out.

I admit that they look quite similar though I can definately see a difference between the two. Of course I know exactly what to look for which makes all the difference. I suppose what i'm asking is which one 'feels' better to you on a gut level or is more comfortable to your eyes and i'm very glad you said clip 2. 

Clip 1 is actually the same settings as the latest Star Wars Semi-Specialised Retro V2.1 release. Looking at those settings with fresh eyes, I feel theres slightly too much red in those settings and that the saturation is a little too high so I reduced the red slightly and reduced the saturation a bit for clip 2, giving the film more of a natural matte feel. I think Clip 2 looks just right and i'm very glad that you agree with me there, even if its just a gut feeling. I'm planning to rerelease Star Wars using the settings for clip 2. Thank you for checking them both out. :)

DoomBot: Thanks for checking these out! With such subtle changes its more about how the film 'feels' on a gut level, how comfortable on the eyes it is. Clip 2 is more comfortable on the eyes for me so that's what i'll go with.

I think to avoid confusion i'm going to ditch the whole Retro, Classic and Technicolor labels as well, this release is going to be called just the Star Wars Semi-Specialised Edition V2.2. I will also go ahead and straight away create a 16GB release as well as an 8GB release, no waiting for the new cinema DTS audio tracks to be done. When they're finally finished, i'll release another 16GB release that includes them as well. Sound like a good plan to you guys?

Ok i see what it is now, i'm going to say #2 because of it being slightly darker.

I think that would do just releasing the 16gb now with out the DTS but what i would do is when you have the new cinema DTS completed, just release the audio by it self and we can mux that in with the 16gb that you upload first. Saves the time of uploading the movie twice and people having to download it twice.

I think ditching the 'retro classic etc' labels is probably wise. There were always only minor differences between two of them, and not much enthusiasm behind the Technicolor. If people care all that much about such differences, they can achieve a similar result by adjusting their displays. 

The way you were discussing it, it would have been 6x ANH and ESB uploads, and 12x RoTJ. That would have been a ton of poorly seeded torrents before too long.

@_,,,^..^,,,_: A Happy New year to you too Andrea! I'm looking forward to all your new projects this year as well. :)

@DoomBot: I'll upload the audio tracks seperately as well of course but I want to keep things as simple as possible as well for all those less tech savvy than us by providing a version that includes the cinema DTS track.

@towne32: True enough. Really though I just want to keep things simple and not have people confused about which version to get. With just one release there should be no confusion whatsoever.

@dclarkg: Its not there on myspleen because I haven't created the ROTJ V2.2 release yet. As soon as I release Star Wars V2.2 and modify the ESB V2.1 colours a bit and release that as Empire Strikes Back V2.2, Return of the Jedi V2.2 is next on my to do list.

sounds awesome, this is a great time to be a SW fan, with your project, team -1s project, Harmy's, Adywan's, and then the Force Awakens by year end! :-)

kitt1987 said:

sounds awesome, this is a great time to be a SW fan, with your project, team -1s project, Harmy's, Adywan's, and then the Force Awakens by year end! :-)

I agree! :)

What would really make my year as a SW fan would be a blu-ray release of both the Unaltered Original Trilogy and the latest Special Editions (with no more changes please, except maybe to fix matte boxes and lightsaber colour consistency), preferably both remastered in 4k with all the lovely film grain intact and decent colours. If that were to happen, you can bet that i'd get to work asap on Semi-Specialised Edition V3 releases! Please Lucasfilm/Disney, make it happen!

@kk650 If possible, can you fix the uploaded.net links for TPM, AotC, and RotS? They're all showing 404 Errors