DrDre

You’re a genius! 😃

Look at it this way. A large number of bootleg sales is a good indicator for the powers that be, that there’s a market for an OOT release.

Williarob said:

KDJ said:

dahmage said:

NeverarGreat said:

So is there a way to fix the links?

patience?

I would not hold your breath. That site has seemingly never been updated, goes offline randomly, and almost always has extremely slow load times. All of these issues have been present for years. There is simply no better alternative available to take its place. (yet)

I saw this post and I decided on the spot “I should build an alternative”. So I bought a domain name on Tuesday morning and built a quick screenshot comparison site:

http://www.framecompare.com

Here is an example showing how it works with multiple aligned images:

http://www.framecompare.com/screenshotcomparison/WNNN8T8X

I literally just put it up 5 minutes ago, so there are bound to be some bugs that need working out, but it does seem to work. I made several “enhancements” I felt were missing from the old site:

• You can compare up to six images with each other all at once
• er. Ok, I guess it’s just that one enhancement then.

Try it out and let me know what you think.

Amazing Williarob!!!

lansing said:

Williarob said:

alexp120 said:

alexp120 said:
If you look at williarob’s “Restoring Color to Red Faded Film” video

http://thestarwarstrilogy.com/starwars/post/2016/09/12/Restoring-Color-to-a-Faded-Eastman-Print-of-Star-Wars

…beginning at the 15:47 mark, he explains how you can build a model containing a wide variety of colors. You are grabbing sample frames of the shot that you are working on from both the reference video and the test video, and creating LUT’s of all the colors in that shot.

I noticed that the number of sample frames of the shot from both the reference video and the test video is 16. Why 16?

I think it had to do with how big the montage image was going to be. I didn’t want any blank areas, so it had to be 4x4 or 3x3 or 5x5, but if I recall correctly, any bigger than 4x4 at that resolution (each frame about 848x360? - something like that) would just leave the color match tool hanging indefinitely on my system. Your system may be more or less powerful than mine, so your mileage may vary.

If you were using the tool to grade a film like Raiders or Star Wars then I would recommend you take 8 to 16 frames from every scene (rather than shot) and turn them into montages, one of the source (or test) frames and one of the target (reference) frames and create a LUT for each scene.

In my testing, I did try grabbing up to 64 small frames (smaller than SD) from an entire reel of Star Wars and generating montages and a single LUT for an entire reel, but found it was much less accurate than doing it on a scene by scene basis. However, this was probably because the reel did not have consistent colors (parts of the reel were scanned with different color settings) so 1 LUT to rule them all was not possible until all the shots had been color balanced first.

However you may be able to create a single montage for an entire episode of what you are working on, especially if the color changes are consistent.

This is a very late follow up because I was slacking off. I created a montage reference image and it sure is more accurate. My question now is is 4x4 montage the overall best size as a reference for a scene? Or is it better to build the montage with 1 frame from each second in the scene?

My second question is what is the minimum resolution we can use to create the montage without affecting quality when building the color matching model in the program? It sounds too crazy to build the montage with the full size 1920x1080 frames.

Montages will work, but the more frames the more difficult it is to match the frames, with a higher probability of artifacts. For the fast mode the frame size is significantly reduced.

NeverarGreat said:

There you have it. A great starting point, and many shots look good to go as they are.

Thanks! Happy to hear that from an expert! 😃

Here’s a set of regrades by the DrDreBot v1.0:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Thanks! 😃

I’m planning to release a color grading tool based on this methodology. The development will take a little time, as I’m preoccupied with a number of other projects, but I will keep you posted…

I’m back at it. We had to cut our vacation short, due to a family emergency, which has luckily been resolved. We’ve postponed our vacation to a later date.

I’m currently sorting through the roughly 600 shots I have, putting those shots that belong in the same scenes together.

The bluray regrades/color references I presented certainly have the correct feel. I think they’re about 80% there. My current plan is to tweak each of them to match their respective frames after I’ve finished sorting through them.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Gary Kurtz owns one of the surviving technicolor prints of Star Wars, and that’s what’s been shown…

Here are the latest updates of the regraded shots:

If you boost the saturation of those last images, the colors are pretty close to the earlier images, although the green is somewhat less intense:

So, I believe it’s a matter of intensity and contrast. The colors are more intense when the projector is pointed directly at the camera, than when you capture the light projected on a screen, for which you only capture a fraction of the light emitted by the projector.

Here’s the Leia corridor shot as it appears on 1997 SE prints, which leaves no doubt the corridor originally was green for technicolor prints:

I will prepare a video sample for this sequence.

… and here’s a set of regrades of the Death Star conference room sequence, created by matching a print scan to my earlier regrades, and then applying those colors to the bluray. I’ve left the color imbalances in the print as they are:

From an exotic location on a rainy day, here’s a slight update of the Obi-Wan shot:

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/216292

This thread started with the discussion about the green corridors of Tantive IV. Having now seen some scans of a 1997 SE print, I can confirm that the corridors were not just green on technicolor prints, but on the 1997 SE prints as well. Here’s how it appears on the scans.

Bluray:

Bluray matched to scan:

You’re welcome! 😃

Tomorrow I will leave on vacation, so this will really be the last update for the next two weeks.

Here’s the set of regrades thusfar:

…and another shot from the Luke meets Obi-Wan sequence:

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s another shot in Obi-Wan’s cabin.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded:

Here’s another comparison, where I’ve roughly matched the brightness and saturation (hues are unaltered):

I’m seriously considering finishing this regrade, once project-X is done. Would there be an interest in yet another regrade?

On another note, the various technicolor print scans, and the frames themselves show slight, but consistent color imbalances between shots. Should these be kept for a regrade? What are your opinions on the subject?

I love how the last regrade closely matches this production photo in terms of skin tones:

Here’s another shot from the Death Star conference room sequence, while being on holiday. I couldn’t help myself 😉.

Bluray:

Bluray regraded: