DrDre

I’ve tweaked the colors slightly removing some red and magenta and adding some yellow:

Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback! I’ve tweaked the colors very slightly mostly by removing some red and magenta and adding some yellow:

Here are the two sets of regraded 4k77 samples with more shots added:

KranixZero said:

I was already excited for 4k77 but this looks amazing!! Will you be doing the same regrade for the DNR version when it comes out?

Thanks! I might, although it might actually be easier to apply DNR to the color graded version.

dlvh said:

DrDre said:

The bluray regrade, which will be done in parallel with the 4k77 color grading, has been updated:

Looking pretty good, Dre, but it still seems a bit dark…IMHO. If you bump up the Gamma/Brightness/Contrast a bit, to the level of NeverarGreat’s Tech V1 version, wouldn’t that be a bit better?

For me personally these contrast settings look a bit more film like to me, but nothing is set in stone. The contrast settings are inspired by Mike Verta’s samples, which are a bit darker than Neverar’s settings, although not much. Adjustments may be made once I’ve looked at it in motion.

darthrush said:

That’s gotta be from 2.7 right? I remember his technicolor grade to be a bit warmer.

No, that’s Neverar’s v1. For anyone interested in the differences in our color gradings, here are comparisons for the two sets of shots of the bluray regraded:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/KDLLNNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/FJBJNNNU

Thanks everyone for your feedback! 😃 Here’s NeverarGreat’s version of the soldier shot:

The same color grading will also be applied to the bluray, using NeverarGreat’s Technicolor regrade as the main source:

For more information, and discussion:

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Star-Wars-Trilogy-SE-bluray-color-regrade/id/48327

The bluray regrade, which will be done in parallel with the 4k77 color grading, has been updated:

Here are two sets of in-progress shots:

Here are the comparisons to the current release:

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/KLZGNNNX

http://www.framecompare.com/image-compare/screenshotcomparison/FBCCNNNU

This thread will serve as the vehicle for updates and feedback concerning the shot by shot color grading of the 4k77 scan. The goal is to obtain a color grading that is consistent from shot to shot, but still adheres closely to the look and feel of a projected technicolor print. Please share your thoughts. As always this will be a community effort, so each opinion matters.

So, here is a set of completed shots:

More will follow…

Ronster said:

Williarob said:

The DNR version is coming along quite nicely I think:

Ok so I get you are preserving the color of “the print” this is without the light shining through it…

So if this has a purpleish tone and the light from a projector has a yellowish tone would this not equate to the image looking more or less neutral basically what the home video releases tried to achieve?

I find it quite fascinating how when confronted with the problems the answers reveal themselves and you have to do the same sort of thing that has already been done but the full understanding becomes apparent?

But obviously not drastic yellow faces just it comes up neutral in most instances I would imagine.

I’m not exactly sure what happened (some color conversion issue?), but upon closer inspection these look a lot more pink than I intended. The clouds in the Sandcrawler shot are supposed to be white. This is what these two shots are supposed to look like after applying the LUT:

I’m working on a shot by shot correction for 4k77. Here are a number of in progress shots. These are regrades of the bluray, but the 4k77 version will be pretty much identical. Now that 4k77 is released, I will apply this color grading to the 4k77 shots. A separate thread will be created for discussing the ongoing work on this shot by shot regrade. In the mean time here are the color graded shots:

TV’s Frink said:

Ok but “Luke becomes a hermit” is entirely on TFA’s docket.

I agree, I should have better phrased my argument. I like Luke’s arc, but I feel it requires too much of a leap in logic for Luke to become the type of hermit he is in TLJ.

TV’s Frink said:

DrDre said:

Luke becomes a hermit, because RJ wanted him to be, not because it flows naturally from previous installments in the saga.

RJ?

You seem to have skipped a movie.

Before TLJ we didn’t know why Luke went to Ach-To looking for the first Jedi Temple. The bleak I came here to die, Jedi must end, being disconnected from the Force, killing my nephew, etc, are all TLJ’s contributions. TFA left it all a mystery. TLJ didn’t really provide any answers for those mysteries, except in the most superficial manner possible. It doesn’t provide much context or motivations for Luke or Kylo. Kylo is just a bad egg, and Luke a far more flawed Jedi and person than we were led to believe, the latter being RJ’s interpretation (or distortion) of the character.

Jeebus said:

darthrush said:

Jeebus said:

Luke is out of character in TLJ.

I liked his character but this is the most understandable complaint I have heard of against the Last Jedi. I completely see where people are coming from cause it was a bold and risky decision.

Just to be clear, I make a distinction between thinking he’s out of character, and not agreeing with the direction his character was taken. I agree that it was really bold to do what they did, and I understand that some people just wanted to see something different. I very much disagree with the notion that he is “out of character,” though.

Well, I don’t dislike the direction Luke’s character was taken, but I do think it was out of character, because in my view Luke’s motivations for contemplating to kill his best friend’s and sister’s son were not properly developed. Seeing darkness just doesn’t cut it in the context of the rest of the saga, and doing it while the boy is sleeping doesn’t seem that Jedi like either. Then there’s the idea that Luke just abandons everyone, and leaves the galaxy to Snoke and Kylo. This just doesn’t make sense, because even if Luke wants the Jedi to end, his first priority should be to stop “dark Jedi”. I mean, what’s the point of ending the Jedi, if two other force users are wreaking havoc on the galaxy? So, yeah Luke’s character arc in TLJ is good, but the backstory and motivation are very poorly developed IMO. So, Luke’s change from hero to hermit seems like a plot device. Luke becomes a hermit, because RJ wanted him to be, not because it flows naturally from previous installments in the saga.

MWilson said:

That oddly reminded me of the end of Raiders 😮

poita said:

I will write up an overview of the software next week if I can get onto it.
It is using deep learning, basically I am training the software with thousands of dirty/noisy images and clean images and then utilising the deep learning algorithms to clean up the shots.
There is a ton of prep at both ends before the algorithm kicks in, I’ll try and put together an explanation of how it all works that will make sense to people. I’m working on this on behalf of the company, so I won’t be able to share the code, but hopefully I can give enough detail to let others develop something similar themselves if it works well enough for production use.

Very interesting, poita! Very curious about the results!

Laserschwert said:

I’d really love to see what amount of detail you could get from the speeder shot. You could always add grain to it afterwards to make it appear more natural. Since cleaning up the shot at all is already revisionism in itself, I’d say it’s fair to cheat a bit like that.

I would say cleaning up the shot to approach the image on the original negative is not revisionism. Cleaning up the shot to recover the maximum amount of detail using modern techniques with the purpose to recover an enhanced image beyond what was possible in 1977 is revisionism in my view.

a_o said:

DrDre said:

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it.

Would stacking multiple scans of those 139 frames (channel aligned, free of warping) help reveal detail?
I’ve watched a few of the videos and am still not sure if verta used more than one print source on that shot to get ride of the noise to get closer to what the original negative looked like.

From what I understand most of the noise and dirt seen in that sequence is not print grain, but also on the negative. Any dirt and grain specific to the print can be strongly reduced by using multiple prints. Additional detail may be recovered by stacking multiple frames. However, you would recover detail, that wasn’t on the negative to begin with, and would thus be outside the scope of a restoration in my view. Personally, I don’t see much difference between stacking multiple frames to recover detail, and to do what Lucas did, which is to go back to the original elements, and recomposite the image digitally. In either case the purpose is to enhance the image beyond what was capable in 1977. So, if you’re going to be revisionist, why then not use the technique that provides the most detail?

poita said:

The speeder shot is probably never going to look much better than Harmy has done with it, but if it proves the most popular, I’ll do it.

If the purpose of the demonstration is to show the strengths of the software you have developed, I would suggest also picking a sequence where you expect the maximum benefit of the software.

With regards to the speeder shot, I’m curious to know the maximum image quality that can be pulled from the prints, without reverting to the in my opinion somewhat revisionist techniques employed by Mike Verta to clean up the speeder shot, and essentially remove all the color noise that most likely also existed on the original negative. The downside of removing all the color noise in my view is, that you will never recover the detail that should be associated with such a clean image, and thus the cleaned up image may actually appear less natural without the noise than the image with the color noise in it. In essence when our eyes cannot see detail, we expect noise. If we detect neither something is amiss, and we get that heavy DNR effect. So, I believe noise reduction should always be in the service of detail recovery/enhancement, but not be a goal in of itself.

poita said:

DrDre said:

I stand corrected. Not all home video releases show the Leia/R2-D2 corridor scene with neutral colors. I looked at the first 1982 laserdisc release and guess what:

Sorry I’ve not read this thread before, and am late to the party, but those panels are in fact quite green. I saw one of them out at the ranch in tjhe mid 90s when I was there.
Also, on the SE prints, they are pretty much as green as on the IB Tech prints.
The Tantive corridor panels also had a very slight mint-green to them, at least the ones I saw in person did. I also saw the head of the droid in the Tantooine shot, it was more yellow than orange, but not quite as crazy yellow as the bootleg.

The home releases are all over the place, telecine operators tend to balance towards neutral and colour correct on the fly. The operator would have made many decisions that had little to do with how the prints looked in cinemas.

As for R2 looking cyan in some shots, and arguing he should be white, well of course he is painted white, which means he will pick up any reflected light and take on some of that hue. In a predominantly greenish-blue environment, he could look a little cyan.
I’ll post some shots from the SE prints in the SE thread for comparison, but here is one from the SE print.

For my theatrical regrade of the bluray (which uses NeverarGreat’s as the source) I’ve kept the green corridor for the Leia/R2-D2 sequence. Here’s how it looks in the second pass version:

KillThad said:

So was this ever released? Just curious.

No, but I will try to work on it a bit overthe next few days.

Collipso said:

i don’t know. i guess some of the stuff most of you find weird don’t bother me at all - like the cgi - which makes me not dislike them, and be open to like them.

anyway, i don’t really get a star warsy feeling from tpm. i do get it from aotc though: because of how slow it is, it makes me comfortable. it’s a good feeling. i feel at home. i enjoy geonosis and the “something’s about to happen” feel. and i watched aotc a heck of a lot of times, so i associated this feeling with star wars. it’s the same feel esb gives me, but esb does everything 1000x better therefore i get an even better experience out of that one.

rots just feels like THE star wars to me. like, the open war scenes excite me. i don’t mind the cgi, so that’s fine. i enjoy palpatine taking over. it excites me. not sure how else to describe it - it just resonates well with me.

because i’m at it, i’ll go on for the rest.

rogue one gave me the same exciting feel, while adding something new to the mix. it was great, i loved the movie.

star wars gives me the best feeling overall. i feel excited and happy, i get nervous and anxious, i live all of luke’s emotions with him every single time. and the sense of mystery and discovery before we meet him - always great. never gets old.

rotj gives me the same feeling as star wars, but i don’t enjoy it as much - simple as that.

tfa feels like a very weird version of star wars. it’s still there but it’s weird.

unfortunately, tlj doesn’t feel like star wars at all. i will be getting the blu ray and rewatching it this week, and then we’ll see.

I think one of the things that make the PT feel like Star Wars is that all of Lucas’ entries are quirky. The PT suffers from terrible execution in many aspects, but TPM feels like ANH to me, but with less interesting characters and much lower stakes. The ST is overall much better executed, but it does all feel very derivative, and superficial, and lacks Lucas’ imagination, IMO.

Here’s another shot of the Death Star conference room sequence: