DrDre

Deloreanhunter12 said:

It does look pretty amazing Dre. Sorry that the discussion on kk650 board didn’t go so well. If I have one comment, the shot of Indy running away from the Hovitos and the pan american plane shot, the sky (mostly the clouds) looks a tad bit bright for my eyes, it could be my monitor, but to me they look bright. Everything else looks fantastic with just the right level of yellow that I can appreciate over both the bluray and the 35mm print!

It’s oke, kk650 is passionate about his work, and so am I, so it got a little heated. Maybe I was a little harsh, then again I did feel the issues I addressed were somewhat more serious than just a matter of taste. Anyway, we both said our piece, and that’s that.

I reduced the brightness somewhat in the brightest areas, and added a bit more yellow to the city walls in the Cairo sequence:

Thanks everybody for your comments! 😃

Here’s a second set of five frames.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Following some heated discussions I decided to create a thread on the balancing of the colors of the Raiders of the Lost Ark bluray, which borders on an orange and teal color grading. While a shot by shot correction will naturally give you the most freedom to manipulate the colors, it’s still interesting as a test case to explore how the colors of the official release might be improved single correction of the entire film.

This will be an interactive thread, meaning that the color grading will evolve depending on your comments and suggestions. I will be sharing LUTs of each of these iterations, such that you can create the version of the movie you like best. At some point I might render (or some other volunteer) a final release version, but this is first and foremost a thread to experiment, explore, discuss and learn from each other.

I’ve created a first version to start the discussion. Here are the first five screenshots (more will follow):

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s the first LUT:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajVnc0Sk53RzZmNDQ/view?usp=sharing

imperialscum said:

ROTJ had some of the best character development in OT. While Han’s character development in ESB was great, I think Luke’s and Vader’s character developments in ROTJ were even a level above that.

I disagree. The Luke/Vader arc was great, but it was the only significant arc in the film. The other characters were just going through the motions, shells of their former selfs. TESB had great arcs for all the main characters. Every character was in a very different place personally at the end of the second installment from where they started off. This puts TESB miles ahead of ROTJ in the character development department.

Amazing work NeverarGreat! It looks breath taking! Can’t wait to watch it again. 😃

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

That is definately better than the previous colour matching attempt but it is not indistuinguishable in terms of colour/image dynamics, the picture on the left looks fine but the picture on the right looks unnatural in terms of fleshtones, Indiana’s eyes in particular look very bad on the right and not at all like the picture on the left. The only thing worse than getting the fleshtones looking unnatural is having the eyes looking unnatural.

This is just nonsense. The RGB values for the flesh tones are identical, as such the flesh tones are identical. The only difference between the two images is the DNR applied to the bluray, which obviously has some effect on some of the image dynamics, which simply cannot be recovered by any methodology, least of all curves adjustment.

There’s no need to call my opinion nonsense DrDre. My eyes see what they see, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. I’ve been respectful to you and i’d appreciate the same courtesy.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not interested in discussing this with you any further until you create a release of Raiders of the Lost Ark using your own methodology. Then we can talk more, but not before.

I do have to admit, it seems a bit strange to me to not want to discuss your work with anyone until they’ve done their own regrade, or at least anyone who’s critical. Why put it on a discussion board in the first place?

I think I’ve done enough in the field of color grading, color matching, and for this community in general to be a party to a discussion on this topic, even if you don’t like what I have to say. In any case, it’s not appreciated, and so I will refrain from making anymore comments on your releases.

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

That is definately better than the previous colour matching attempt but it is not indistuinguishable in terms of colour/image dynamics, the picture on the left looks fine but the picture on the right looks unnatural in terms of fleshtones, Indiana’s eyes in particular look very bad on the right and not at all like the picture on the left. The only thing worse than getting the fleshtones looking unnatural is having the eyes looking unnatural.

This is just nonsense. The RGB values for the flesh tones are identical, as such the flesh tones are identical. The only difference between the two images is the DNR applied to the bluray, which obviously has some effect on some of the image dynamics, which simply cannot be recovered by any methodology, least of all curves adjustment.

There’s no need to call my opinion nonsense DrDre. My eyes see what they see, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. I’ve been respectful to you and i’d appreciate the same courtesy.

We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not interested in discussing this with you any further until you create a release of Raiders of the Lost Ark using your own methodology. Then we can talk more, but not before.

Yeah, sorry I was a bit rude, but it seemed like a rather petty way to deflect reasonable criticism on one particular regrade of yours by shifting the focus of the discussion to quantifiably negligible differences between the 35mm colors and the second color match I presented. That pissed me off a little. Anyway, I should not have said it was nonsense, so I apologize.

kk650 said:
I’ve always found what your colour matching tool can do vey impressive but unless it can match the colours and image dynamics 100%, there is a margin of error of the algorithm making up colours/changing image dynamics that I personally would not be able to tolerate. If I were to create a release using that tool, I would never release it unless it was 100% accurate or the difference was so negligable that I could not tell the difference looking with my own eyes on my 30 inch monitor.

This really makes no sense to me. The changes to the image dynamics by just applying a curves adjustment are orders of magnitude larger than the margin of error of an algorithm. The color grading of an official release is not done with curves adjustment, as such the underlying colors cannot be retrieved by curves adjustment. Applying simple curves adjustment will result in small margins of errors in some areas of the frame, but very large errors in other parts of the frame (like for example good looking skin tones with undesired color casts in the background). The entire basis for using an algorithm is to solve the limitations of curves adjustment, which is essentially curves adjustment in dozens to hundreds of color spaces.

To clarify, the simplest case of the algorithm in just one color space (the RGB color space) is just simple curves adjustment as you applied it to the bluray, and thus has the largest margin of error. The more color spaces you use, the smaller the margin of error.

A direct consequence is, that the algorithm can match your regrade with essentially zero margins of error.

kk650:

Bluray matched to kk650:

A non-zero margin of error in a color matching with this methodology result implies, it cannot be matched exactly with any method that uses color distribution functions (which includes curves adjustment, since it’s just the simplest subcase), but can only be approximated. The more color spaces that are used, the better the approximation.

kk650 said:

That is definately better than the previous colour matching attempt but it is not indistuinguishable in terms of colour/image dynamics, the picture on the left looks fine but the picture on the right looks unnatural in terms of fleshtones, Indiana’s eyes in particular look very bad on the right and not at all like the picture on the left. The only thing worse than getting the fleshtones looking unnatural is having the eyes looking unnatural.

This is just nonsense. The RGB values for the flesh tones are identical, as such the flesh tones are identical. It’s a mathematical certainty, and I mean this literally. The only difference between the two images is the DNR applied to the bluray, which obviously has some effect on some of the image dynamics. This information simply cannot be recovered by any methodology, least of all curves adjustment.

kk650 said:

I believe that the blu-ray was color graded on a shot by shot basis and then a blanket yellow tint was added. I have just removed the blanket yellow tint and left the shot by shot colour grading underneath intact. You may think that methodology is flawed but to my eyes that is not the case and I see a lot of flaws in your own methodology which I’ve pointed out earlier, the unnatural looking fleshtones in particular which is a very big problem, the biggest a release can have as far as i’m concerned.

I very much doubt your first statement is true, because the magenta cast makes this highly unlikely. Finding the proper skin tones has proven to be highly subjective, in part because skin tones tend to vary substantially in reality from yellow to orange, to pink, to red even for caucasian skin types. Your preferences in terms of skin tones are well documented, and have been subject to many debates. A magenta cast is just what it is, and unlike skin tones it can be quantified. As such it’s presence should be classified as an artifact, unless it’s delibirate, in which case it’s an unusual choice.

Colour matches would perhaps only be worthwhile in my opinion if you had a 35mm frame of every single shot in the film to match to, and even then, trying to force the colours of the blu-ray to match the very different colours of the 35mm LPP gives very questionable results to my eyes, for it to work the colours and image dynamics have to be 100% identical. This shot below for example of the Bluray matched to the 35mm LPP, the fleshtones just look wrong to me, they don’t look right relative to the lighting of the scene and the overall colours. The 35mm LPP frame looks fine, but the Bluray matched to 35mm LPP does not IHMO, like you’re trying to force two completely different colour schemes and image dynamics together and ended up with a bit of a mishmash where the colours don’t interact correctly.

This seems rather odd to me, since the algorithm matches hue, contrast, and saturation. Differences can occur due to missing color gradients, making it such that one source is easier to match than another, but it’s certainly not related to the overall colour schemes and image dynamics. The color match was done very quickly, but done more accurrately (more color spaces, less smoothing), the colors become almost indistuinguishable, aside from the obvious heavily applied DNR to the bluray:

kk650 said:

DrDre said:

kk650 said:

I removed all the blanket yellow tint and was left with the colours that you see in my regrade. I appreciate that you think I have removed too much yellow but I can very clearly see that that is not the case, I can see that with pretty much 100% certainty.

Well, in that case you shouldn’t trust your eyes, but the numbers. As the RGB values don’t lie. There’s an overabundance of magenta all over the frames you posted in places where it definitely shouldn’t be (as the above complation makes clear visually). This is a mathematical certainty.

This feels to me like a case of you shooting the messenger, blaming me for how the blu-ray transfer looks under the blanket yellow tint, which is completely out of my control. The Titanic looks much more conventional colourwise under the blanket yellow tint but I did exactly the same as I did here, just remove all of the blanket yellow tint.

And your Titanic looks great, no doubts there. However, if you simply look at the compilation I posted above, there’s no doubt your Raiders regrade is magenta shifted in the brighter areas. This has nothing to do with the bluray colors.

I don’t think there’s much point going round in circles here DrDre. You were working on your own version of Raiders of the Lost Ark right? That’ll be your opportunity to regrade the film to your preferences with a more yellow colour scheme and then everybody will be able to choose between both our releases. I’ve moved onto other projects now.

There’s no circles, it’s magenta. If that’s your purpose, more power to you. While I too have a tendency to respond with irritation in the face of criticism (initially, these things tend to bug me, such that I usually fix the problem eventually), I’ve also found these discussions generally lead to a better result, as sometimes others notice things, you may have missed. You’re free to ignore me of course. That’s fine by me, but left as is, this regrade is not up to your usual standards (IMO of course).

I am glad that you like the Titanic release but the fact that you like the look of that release and not this one is completely making my point about shooting the messenger.

You think there is too much blue and magenta after removing all the blanket yellow tint, fair enough. That does not change the fact that it is there after removing all the blanket yellow tint.

I disagree. You are taking yourself and the methods used out of the equation. For sure, a method, in this case curves adjustment, which produces good results on one source, does not have to work work equally well on another. However, there are other methods that can be used. Curves adjustment can only get you so far (simple example: you cannot independently adjust hue and saturation with curves adjustment). In this case you wanted certain skin tones, but in order to achieve this, you had to compromise (too much I think) in other areas. What I’m saying is, that you can get the skin tones you are after, while avoiding color casts in other parts of the frame. This is what I’ve done with my regrades, even though you might prefer a different color palette. In my case I often first match the bluray to a reference source I like, and start manually adjusting the colors from there (For example in this case I first matched the bluray to a specific shot of the WOWOW broadcast, and then optimized the color balance for all the other shots). This way you can obtain colors that are impossible to obtain with curves adjustment.

Maybe the print or digital negative they used to colour correct the blu-ray shot by shot had a little bit of red-fade (like all the 35mm print frames of Raiders of the Lost Ark i’ve seen out there) and that made them feel the need to add all the yellow to try to counterbalance that and give the film a more conventional orangey look? I don’t know but the purpose of this release in particular was to remove all the blanket yellow tint, not compromise like I have in previous releases and only remove it in part.

Like I stated earlier, you don’t need to compromise if you change your methods (when necessary).

The moral of the Kino story is that its impossible to make everybody happy, so the most important thing is to make sure you as the releaser are happy. That said, its important to always listen to feedback, just as it is important to understand that its not always necessary or even advisable to act on said feedback. In the case of this Raiders of the Lost Ark release, I am very happy with how it turned out, but i’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect resistance after seeing what the film looked like with all the blanket tint removed.

Yes, but this almost certainly isn’t what the negative looked like, and it is thus not THE look of the film without the blanket tint, it is a version. It is a consequence of applying a single curves adjustment to an entire film that was color graded on a shot by shot basis. Both the bluray and the WOWOW broadcast are based on the same scan of the negative, but they both have a completely different color palette, which are different from the 1981 theatrical prints:

Bluray:

WOWOW:

35mm LPP:

The colors of these releases cannot simply be transfered to the other with a single curves adjustent, or any other single color adjustment for that matter (although more advanced techniques will produce better results). Yet, the bluray can be almost perfectly color matched to the other two sources (not with curves adjustment mind you).

Bluray matched to WOWOW:

Bluray matched to 35mm LPP:

Either of these color matches could be the starting point of a regrade to remove the bluray’s blanket yellow tint, without having to do a shot by shot correction (since neither of the other releases has a blanket yellow tint, although this shot is probably not the best starting point), and the end result would be totally different from using the unadjusted bluray as your starting point. So, to me the argument in regards to your regrade, that this is what the bluray looks like without the blanket yellow tint is flawed, because it only represents one of many results produced with what is probably not the best methodology.

Either way, I’ve said my piece. It’s your work, so the most important thing is, that you’re happy with it. 😉

kk650 said:

I removed all the blanket yellow tint and was left with the colours that you see in my regrade. I appreciate that you think I have removed too much yellow but I can very clearly see that that is not the case, I can see that with pretty much 100% certainty.

Well, in that case you shouldn’t trust your eyes, but the numbers. As the RGB values don’t lie. There’s an overabundance of magenta all over the frames you posted in places where it definitely shouldn’t be (as the above complation makes clear visually). This is a mathematical certainty.

This feels to me like a case of you shooting the messenger, blaming me for how the blu-ray transfer looks under the blanket yellow tint, which is completely out of my control. The Titanic looks much more conventional colourwise under the blanket yellow tint but I did exactly the same as I did here, just remove all of the blanket yellow tint.

And your Titanic looks great, no doubts there. However, if you simply look at the compilation I posted above, there’s no doubt your Raiders regrade is magenta shifted in the brighter areas. This has nothing to do with the bluray colors.

I don’t think there’s much point going round in circles here DrDre. You were working on your own version of Raiders of the Lost Ark right? That’ll be your opportunity to regrade the film to your preferences with a more yellow colour scheme and then everybody will be able to choose between both our releases. I’ve moved onto other projects now.

There’s no circles, it’s magenta. If that’s your purpose, more power to you. While I too have a tendency to respond with irritation in the face of criticism (initially, these things tend to bug me, such that I usually fix the problem eventually), I’ve also found these discussions generally lead to a better result, as sometimes others notice things, you may have missed. You’re free to ignore me of course. That’s fine by me, but left as is, this regrade is not up to your usual standards (IMO of course).

kk650 said:

I appreciate the feedback guys but I much prefer the colour and image dynamic of my own release compared to DrDre’s regraded screencaps here, the difference is night and day to me.

The biggest issue I have is that the fleshtone colours look very unnatural to me in all of DrDre’s screenshots, especially the screenshots where Indiana’s about to grab the idol and when he shoots the guy with the sword. Fleshtones are the most important thing in a regrade IMHO, those have to look right or you´ll end up taking people out of the film, because viewers spend most of the time watching the faces of the characters. Image dynamics are also an issue, they feel underexposed and there is still a blanket yellow tint that hasn’t been removed, making the sky look greenish blue. My release removes all the blanket yellow tint, bringing all the blues back into the colour palette of the film.

My previous releases were more conservative and I didn’t commit fully to removing the blanket yellow tint in its entirety, leaving some of the yellow blanket tint like DrDre did in his screencaps, but now I am able to be a lot more precise when it comes to removing all the blanket tint.

The problem is that you remove one blanket tint, only to introduce another. In this image I darkened all the areas in your regrade with blue or magenta in it:

I can understand that you have certain preferences for the skin tones (although in the Marcos Brody shot they do appear very bluish in your regrade), however I wouldn’t think at the expense of everything else getting unnatural color tones. Cooler tones are obviously fine, but is Indy’s bag of sand supposed to be magenta? Are Indy’s and Marcus’ shirts supposed to be magenta? Do the people of Cairo prefer their walls to be magenta? Do Arabic people wear magenta colored scarfs? I would expect both the walls in Cairo and the scarfs to be an (off-)white.

Perhaps my regrade is too warm for some of you, not dynamic enough, or you want to adjust the skin tones (the skin tones in the idol shot are not supposed to be natural by the way, as Indy’s face has been lit with a colored light). No problem, because it can be made cooler to bring out the blues, and the skin tones can be adjusted independently:

Marcus Brody’s jacket now has a nice deep blue color, the sky is a natural blue, the clouds are white, the colors are more dynamic, the walls and scarfs are an off-white, and there are no blanket-tints, yellow, magenta, or otherwise.

A direct comparison clearly shows how skewed the colors in your regrade are towards blue/magenta.

bluray vs DrDre v2:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/115578

kk650 vs DrDre v2:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/115579

DrDre v1 vs DrDre v2:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/115582

LUT for DrDre v2:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajVnc0Sk53RzZmNDQ/view?usp=sharing

While I really like most of your work, particulary your last Star Wars iterations, I think this regrade has some serious issues. To illustrate the point I’ve done a quick balancing of the Raiders bluray myself.

Bluray:

kk650:

DrDre:

Comparing these three I think it’s pretty obvious, there is a pretty strong magenta cast in your regrade. Most problematic IMO are the first and third shot.

Here’s the LUT for my quick correction:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_LYKyZDiajOFpnem4zOUdJc28/view?usp=sharing

I always assumed Yoda would be much closer to nature, than the politicized way he was represented in the PT. I also always found it inconceivable that Palpatine could be this powerful Force user, but somehow the Jedi who could sense each other from the other side of the galaxy in the OT, suddenly were blind to the Sith operating under their very noses. To me the only option that made sense, was for Palpatine to have been a Jedi, perhaps even their leader (a parallel to Saruman in LOTR), secretly exploring the dark side of the Force, while slowly maneuvering the Jedi and more importantly himself to the center of power. Yoda would then be the oldest and wisest of the Jedi, who would obviously oppose such a move, causing a rift in the Jedi order with Palpatine and Yoda being leaders of opposite sides. This would also explain why Anakin would allign himself with Palpatine, who in this scenario is actually seemingly one of the good guys, rather than the devil incarnate. It also makes the idea, that the Jedi who oppose Palpatine can be painted as traitors and terrorists more believable. I also always believed Anakin was rejected by Yoda, because of his fiery temper, such that Obi-Wan felt compelled to train him in secret. Anakin would eventually become a hero in the clone wars, which in the above scenario would lead to Palpatine going over Yoda’s head, by formally inducting him in the order of Jedi Knights as a reward for his service, making Anakin his deputy. Then when the main body of Jedi led by Yoda finally rise up against Palpatine, who’s side is Anakin going to be on?

nickyd47 said:

DrDre said:

Fang Zei said:

So does anyone honestly still think that when the time eventually comes to release the OT on 4k* that Disney won’t include a restored OOT?

I mean, to the layman, do the 2011 blu-rays look that terrible when upscaled on a properly setup and calibrated 4k display? People are going to need a reason to buy these movies yet again other than higher (but not necessarily perceptible) resolution and hdr.

Maybe I’m way underestimating the demand for a 4k hdr SE, but I feel like a lot of fans are worn out from all these changes and would prefer to simply watch these films as they were.

*probably no sooner than 2020 so that Disney can keep the profits from Empire and Jedi all to themselves.

The general population doesn’t care about the changes. A great number of them have never seen anything but the SE. They don’t even know what they’re missing, and their numbers are growing every day.

All Disney would have to do is market the theatrical cuts as all new never before released cuts and those people will have their minds blown

I’m sure many would, but the problem is that releasing the OOT would have to be a labour of love, like Mike Verta has done. Someone within the Lucasfilm/Disney conglomerate with influence needs to champion these classic films, otherwise I don’t see it happening. There’s really not much of a financial incentive to do it. I’m sure a 4K release including the OOT would do somewhat better than one without it, but how much better are we talking about, 10%? That’s nothing compared to the amount of money to be made with the release of the new films each year.

NeverarGreat said:

kk650 said:

Congrats on finally finishing this NeverarGreat! Very interested in seeing what colour choices you’ve made in certain scenes.

Do you have any plans to work on The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi?

Looking at the whole thing put together after years of working on it piecemeal, I see nothing but problems and ‘almost there’ shots. I finally start to see what the film should look like, which makes any shot that doesn’t quite make it look terribly unfortunate in comparison. But the time comes when you have to abandon the work and release it.

After this is released, I’m planning on taking a long break from color correction. Hopefully there will be a good official release of the trilogy in the meantime (or another great fan project), but if that doesn’t happen then who knows, I may be back at it someday. 😉

I suppose that’s how Lucas felt when he looked at the OOT, particulary Star Wars: you see nothing but problems and ‘almost there’ shots. It’s kind of ironic, you start a project to essentially make the film more enjoyable to watch for yourself, and by the time you finish everyone enjoys it, except you.

Fang Zei said:

So does anyone honestly still think that when the time eventually comes to release the OT on 4k* that Disney won’t include a restored OOT?

I mean, to the layman, do the 2011 blu-rays look that terrible when upscaled on a properly setup and calibrated 4k display? People are going to need a reason to buy these movies yet again other than higher (but not necessarily perceptible) resolution and hdr.

Maybe I’m way underestimating the demand for a 4k hdr SE, but I feel like a lot of fans are worn out from all these changes and would prefer to simply watch these films as they were.

*probably no sooner than 2020 so that Disney can keep the profits from Empire and Jedi all to themselves.

The general population doesn’t care about the changes. A great number of them have never seen anything but the SE. They don’t even know what they’re missing, and their numbers are growing every day. They’ll buy a new release like they’ve done ever since the first VHS tape appeared in stores. You get a new 4K release along with a 4K mastered bluray, you add a few new extras, you market the **** out of it, and voila you sell a couple of million of them around christmas time. It’s that simple. Heck, even the PT is having it’s renaissance these days. Almost 50% of people have grown up with them and the SE. We’re on the endangered species list.

^…^ said:

Dre, don’t want to say that DVD menu colors are right (are they?) or better than to other grading, but in the remote chance you would do a MENU-BOT, here you are a comparison (left GOUT, right DVD menu):

Don’t know if your software would be confused by the fact the frames have not the same aspect ratio (some are closer when cropped, though) and have different elements.

I will have a look what I can come up with. The DVD menu does look more balanced.

SilverWook said:

JohnStewart said:

You people crack me up. You F* around with copyrighted material then you cry when you see people selling the s*! Just stop, ok you make yourselves look stupid. Maybe if you made the “free” versions easier to get the masses out there would not resort to paying for them. Not to mention it might not be wise to keep brining undo attention to this site as well. I had no problem getting these but to your average non computer person its a pretty difficult task.

“You people”? That’s odd coming from someone who’s been on the site for several years and was recently praising Harmy.

I wouldn’t mind if someone was only charging for the material costs of making a copy. MST3K fans have done this for years with the unreleased episodes. And tape traders since before the internets only asked you send them a blank tape or something they were looking for in return. But that guy on Ebay cleared around 4k in a month doing this. Not cool.

I haven’t downloaded that much in the way of projects, since the people I’ve partnered with are good about mailing me a copy, but it’s a lot easier now than 16 years ago when I was trying to download a movie off of usenet. Finding that one missing file that didn’t propagate to the newsserver you were on was sheer joy.

If you have suggestions as to how to make projects easier for the computer novices out there to find, by all means fire away. But a friendlier attitude might be nice too.

Here’s another shot, that shows the massive differences between the bluray and the 4k77 technicolor grading.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

…and here’s a shot from the Tatooine sequence.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Here are two shots, one of R2-D2, and another of C-3PO with the finalized technicolor color grading of reel 1 for the 4k77 project.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Congrats NeverarGreat! Can’t wait to see your masterpiece!