DrDre

There appears to be a problem with the After Effects LUT. Williarob tested it, and while it loads, it gives the screwy results. So, I’ll have to check what’s wrong.

Either that or we just witnessed the greatest coincidence in history.

No, I mean that each color channel is transformed from an integer to a double. For an 8 bit color color space, there are 256 possible color intensities. For 16 bit there are 256x256 possible color intensities. Doubles have a practically infinite number if possible numbers, and thus color intensities.

Repeat

The shirts of the soldiers are blue, the pants are grey. This 35 mm frame from -1’s 1997 SE print scan shows the difference (although the colors are not accurate to the print, and the blues are a bit much):

The corrections with the algorithm are always done at an “infinite” color depth. In other words the rgb values are always converted to a double with range 0 to 1 for both the source and the reference. Although I agree that in some cases “stressed” color may be a problem, especially with color crush, blown out colors, and compressed images, I believe in the example you posted, you may have actually smoothed skin texture reconstructed by the color correction algorithm. The downside to every smoother, is that you always sacrifice detail for smoothness, although some definitely work better than others.

Here’s the ColorCorrect tool v2.2. It has the possibility to export two types of LUTs:

1. For Davinci Resolve (DR)
2. For Adobe After Effects (AA)

In addition LUT creation is now faster.

Here’s the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajQkRZcGtMRlVscjA/view?usp=sharing

Please let me know, if there are any problems using the LUTs.

There’s been a bit of a delay in the update, but I will finish it as soon as possible. 😃

The Luke shot is now actually a close match to the Senator print photo.

Senator print:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s an update of the grading of the Lars homestead scene. Especially the Luke shot has been much improved:

After I finish an update for the color correction tool, I will be away for a few weeks. We’ve bought a house, so there will be little time to spare…

Here’s an improved regrade of that shot:

It actually unintentionally very closely matches an unfaded still I found on the web, so I’m pretty confident the color grading is accurate:

So, why do my regrades have so much more color, when the Technicolor IB print scans suggest that the Tatooine footage is fairly monochrome and desaturated? Well, it’s because imo the Technicolor print scans most of us have been using as a color reference, has many color issues. The saturation, brightness, contrast, and tones fluctuate wildly. Take the scene of Luke, R2-D2, and C-3PO at the Canyon, just before Luke is attacked by Tusken Raiders. This is what it looks like on the Technicolor print scans:

It looks like ****. It’s desaturated, and lacks contrast. There’s a pink shift. It’s just awful. Of course I thought: it’s a Technicolor IB print, so these must be the colors. Tatooine is supposed to be a barren wasteland. Maybe it’s a delibirate choice? Then again the Senator print photos didn’t look so lifeless.

I also came across this still frame from the same canyon sequence:

It’s then that I realized that Star Wars actually is supposed to have color, and that the print scans, although still a valuable reference, require substantial corrections. Consequently, one reference source was not going to be enough. So for my final color grading for this scene, I corrected the print scans, and ended up with this:

Applying the same technique on the Luke Skywalker shot, the colors thus go from this:

to this:

As with the canyon scene the color dynamic, saturation, and contrast have been much improved, compared to the faded colors of the print.

Here’s what the Luke shot looks like on the Technicolor IB print:

The problem with the weird green cast on the Death Star can easily be fixed with the ColorCorrect tool. I’ve checked the Tech IB scan, and it’s not there at all, so it’s definitely an anomaly of the bluray that is exacerbated by manual curves adjustment.

Darth Lucas:

Darth Lucas with correction:

Here’s the color correction model I used:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajSG5Yd2MtVFkyc2s/view?usp=sharing

Just export the frames of that shot to an image sequence with Virtualdub. Import the color correction model into the tool, and correct the frames.

Thanks G! I’ve adjusted the brightness of both my regrades somewhat:

Here’s a comparison with the Senator screening photos (that has the yellow flowers and food, and a blonde Luke Skywalker 😉), that were not used for the regrade, since they are not very reliable:

Senator screening:

Bluray regraded:

Senator screening:

Bluray regraded:

Darth Lucas said:

I personally just hope you make his hair bright yellow like the old Kenner toys.

How about this?

That’s just what Mark Hamill’s hair looks like on the print and real life (40 years ago). I don’t want to get rid of anything that’s supposed to be there. He has dark blond hair, which may appear brown under some lighting conditions, and blond under other lighting conditions.

Just look at this still from the end celebration (it actually looks like this on the print as well):

towne32 said:

Looks better. But Owen’s skin and robe look a bit green. I don’t know why he looks so utterly bizarre in some of the 04/11 blu-ray shots in this scene.

Damn, that will teach me to use my uncalibrated monitor. It’s been corrected. 😃

Here’s another shot from the same sequence.

Funny tidbit: on the print the food in the bowl is actually orange/yellow. Good ol’ George probably thought people didn’t like yellow food, so he turned it into gray goo for the bluray release. Some of these changes are just weird.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s version of the Luke at dinner shot.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

yotsuya said:

What I’ve found as I’ve worked on my own color regrade is that the shots of Ben when he first meets Luke are desaturated compared to the surrounding shots. That changes the moment they go to get C-3PO. It is the only spot I’ve found to be undersaturated when I compare it to the GOUT DVD and other sources. I don’t like the JSC because the colors seem more off than the Technicolor. C-3PO is positively orange in the first shot and from all the source material I have, he is supposed to be brassy gold (like you have him). The GOUT DVD is both higher resolution and has better colors (once you correct the brightness).

I think in many ways the JSC has more accurate colors than the GOUT, but the problem is the primitive techniques with which the source was scanned. This results in color balance issues, where there often is too much red in Star Wars (resulting in orange C-3PO), and too much yellow in TESB and ROTJ.

Thanks for the praise! I will take a crack at that shot tomorrow, as I’m on a trip today.

Cheebo said:

Looks amazing! Incredible work. I know we are likely a ways off for ESB or ROTJ, but any rough idea yet when you think ANH will be ready?

Turns out it’s a lot of work, if you want to do this correctly, so it will be a while before even ANH is finished.