Oh wow, look at what Mike seems to have access to.
http://www.starwarslegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33
What wonders of restoration could be done if the tech guys here had access to a source like that... :)
Wow, I'm always struck by how gorgeous Star Wars really looks when seeing those pictures from real film sources. There is a very natural quality to them, and so bright, vibrant, colorful and alive! :)
If we could even get close to those colors, while keeping the flesh tones from becoming too red, that would be a major improvement. I really like some of the color correction samples recently posted here, those are getting much closer than it was to the proper colors. If an overall ideal set of general corrections can be arrived at for each film, and then be adjusted on a shot-by-shot basis as needed, the end result would be closer to the correct theatrical appearance than has ever been seen before on home video.
Ok, thanks for the clarification. :)
Well, I do tend to be a purist when it comes to the theatrical presentation of the Star Wars trilogy, so the purist 5.1 soundtrack would be my preferred 5.1 soundtrack option. But I do agree that at least in the scene with Obi-Wan it would have made sense to have the original theatrical soundtrack include that special magical force music when Obi-Wan appears to speak with Luke. It fits so perfectly, I'm surprised that they never used it in any theatrical presentation.
hairy_hen: Thanks for the details on the soundtracks. :) I have a question. On the previous page you said:
"Not everyone wants to hear the movies with all of these changes, since some of them are in fan-edit territory, so by popular request the 'version 3' mixes were made, and will be used by d_j along with the SW 70mm on the upcoming dvd's. ***For the most part they are exactly the same, except the music edits for Fett and Obi-wan were removed and reverted to their 1993 forms.*** The 35mm inserts for the snowspeeder and for Vader's defeat are still present, as are the glitch repairs."
Why would those two things in the highlighted sentence above be considered "fan edits"? Isn't restoring the music in those two places (Boba Fett leaving Cloud City, and Obi-Wan on Dagobah) simply putting the music back the way it was in theaters before the 1997 SE? In which case it's not a fan edit, but rather a restoration of the unaltered theatrical version of the soundtrack.
Are the "version 2" 5.1 soundtracks identical to the "purist" versions of your 5.1 soundtracks in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, except for those two specific changes (theatrical restorations) not being included in the "purist" 5.1 soundtracks? All other edits, fixes, surround sound bass, LFE bass and blending of the 5.1 channels is the same?
That's fine, The Empire Strikes Back is looking great! :) So, you just left it alone as in the untouched V3 screen shots?
You know, that's a good point, on a television it will already look brighter, so it may be best to just leave it alone.
And as for the colors, they seem quite strong already in the unchanged V3, and now that I look more closely, Luke's face does seem a bit yellowish in the tweaked screen shot, so leaving the color saturation as is might be good, too.
Taking this into consideration, I'd say leave the V3 as is, no brightness or color changes.
Can we get a comparison shot using these same settings showing Han and Leia close up talking on the Millennium Falcon? Would be good to see the flesh tones in a naturally brighter scene to make things clearer.
Those rich deep black levels and strong colors look great, excellent video. :) But it does seem a bit dark overall in some of those pictures, so as long as it doesn't have any negative affect on the space scenes, then I'm fine with the subtle adjustment shown.
I don't see any problems with the lightsabers.
dark_jedi: Is the tweak shown only to increase the brightness a bit, did you leave out the increase in saturation you tested earlier when preparing these pictures?
Hmm, or maybe it needs more boost to get the colors noticeably closer to the theatrical appearance? Not sure. Maybe the colors aren't as far off in The Empire Strikes Back, not as under saturated as in the GOUT Star Wars DVD? I guess we'd need to see some comparison shots to the reference sources available to get an idea.
Some good ones to check would be a close-up of Han in the Echo Base hangar bay on Hoth. And another of the AT-AT's advancing on the base. Luke recovering in the base hospital after being in the bacta tank. A close-up of Han and Leia onboard the Millennium Falcon when they are talking. Darth Vader and Boba Fett standing near the carbon freezing chamber. Vader and Luke dueling where there is a nice clear frame and they and their lightsabers aren't in motion. Vader on the Cloud City walkway as he is talking with Luke.
These will give us a good idea of what the flesh tones as well as overall colors are looking like using the lastest color correction settings. :)
I agree, I think the new subtitles look really good, very natural, like they are part of the film, which is the way they should look, of course. Nice job! :)
dark_jedi: The video is looking great. :) Are you making this an anamorphic video, so it will fill the edges of widescreen tv's? I don't recall seeing that mentioned for sure.
hairy_hen: How are things going with the soundtracks, are they all done yet? Also, can you give us a list of what soundtracks of yours have been made available for the V3 set and what sources you used and what changes you made to each soundtrack? I mean sort of a concise list that explains the differences between each soundtrack option for each movie, it seems like there are so many different ones that it gets confusing. :) Thanks.
I agree, the "accepted tweaks" video based on the 1159 screen shot color adjustment version looks better. Luke's flight suit might not be quite as orange as it should be, but the flesh tones look better, less red. And that's more important. And also let's keep in mind the warning posted earlier that most tv's (unless they have been pro calibrated, of course) will push the reds a bit anyhow, so better to be conservative with red flesh tone problem.
g-force: Thanks for letting us know that. Obviously you put a lot of work into it, and I'm sure you came up with the settings that gave the best overall appearance to solve that problem.
If changing the brightness/contrast/gamma will mess up the superior visual quality you were able to achieve with the Star Wars GOUT DVD video, then I agree it's best to leave those settings alone and just make color adjustments for the improved color accuracy to the theatrical appearance.
dark_jedi. The 1159 screen shot color adjustments and the "accepted tweaks" video which comes from that, that tweak doesn't affect the brightness/contrast/gamma settings g-force uses in his script, right?
If you did change the contrast in that 1159 shot and in the "accepted tweaks" video and all it did was crush the blacks a little, does that cause any harm to what g-force was referring to in his post? Crushing the blacks a little might actually make space scenes look better, deeper blacks in space and so on. But I'm not sure how that would affect what g-force was concerned about.
I think those new screen shots look great. :) And I hope they are included in the V3 DVD set.
Compared to the technicolor shots we've seen, the whole GOUT looks rather dark, and in some scenes like the cantina (which is naturally darker to begin with) it's more noticeable. But since no scene-by-scene adjustments are being made, don't worry about it. Just include the latest color correction settings so we are at least closer to the vibrant colors of the theatrical appearance, while minimizing any redness to the flesh tones. :)
LeeThorogood: Thanks for posting those. Wow, the Technicolor print looks so bright, vivid and lush by comparison! :)
dark_jedi: The latest version of your color correction is looking good, maybe a tad red on the flesh tones, but not too much. And it brings the other colors closer
Can you post screen shots comparing that with shots from your master .avi file from the GOUT? Shots with Luke, Han, Leia, C-3P0 and R2-D2 in the corridor of the ship, uncle Owen, aunt Beru and maybe some shots of the rebels and Imperial officers onboard the rebel blockade runner ship would be helpful to see. So we have a direct comparison to the current untouched master .avi and what it would look like with the latest color correction method. Thanks. :)
I agree, I think dark_jedi's latest color adjustment to the V3 GOUT video looks better, more natural. It also restores the overall colors closer to what they should be, since it's obvious more saturation is needed to get the GOUT DVD set closer to the theatrical appearance.
I think some mentioned contrast may also be part of the problem with the colors in the GOUT DVD set. dark_jedi, has that also been adjusted in your latest screen shots?
Too bad we can't correct the flesh tones separately from the colors in the rest of the scenes, that would solve a lot of problems. You could get the flesh tones right, and have free reign to get the colors in the rest of the image adjusted correctly without interfering with the flesh tones. :)
Doctor M: It's not that they are too pale, it's that the faces take on an odd coloration with those adjustments. I think Harmy described it well, it's like they look sick or something, at least in certain scenes.
I'm not saying the degree of red in the faces in the other screen shots is exactly right. But if the choice is between the faces being a *little* too red, or looking sickly, I'd say lean towards a little red. Since that's a natural coloration in caucasians if the blood is near the surface (when blushing, for example) or they've been in the sun a bit too much. It looks more natural and should also be closer to the colors as they appeared in theaters, I would think.
Ideally, they would be light (fair), with maybe just a very slight touch of redness due to the sun exposure, but also not greenish or with odd darkish tinges to the skin. But it may be hard to get that just right with the GOUT DVD set as the source. Hopefully we can get it close.
Maybe somewhere in between dark_jedi's latest settings and yours?
And some scenes which maybe should be more blue may also need the blue boosted separately to get the correct appearance. This way other colors aren't overemphasized by a general boost in saturation to try to get the blues up where they should be.
dark_jedi: I really like those corrections, I'm sure there's room for fine tuning, and certain scenes may need custom correction on a per-scene basis, but those are looking good. :) Nice flesh tones, good solid colors, etc.
Can you please post comparisons using those values for uncle Owen, aunt Beru and Luke sitting at the table?
Well, that's part of the process, trying the various adjustments and seeing what looks the closest to the theatrical appearance based on the best comparative sources we have available.
If we can get the flesh tones right, avoid too much of a greenish cast (if it wasn't present in theaters), and yet have good strong colors and contrast, it should end up pretty close to correct, given the source we have to work with.
Doctor M: Thanks for all your time and effort on the great analysis of the screen shots! :) It's very helpful to understand what the problem is with the colors, so then an optimum correction can be applied to make it look as close to the real theatrical presentation as possible.
Those corrections you made look a lot better, the flesh tones are more natural and the whole image looks for life-like, more the way it should.
Wow, those shots from the Technicolor print look awesome, don't they? :) Thank God we have those a reference.
CrumbY: I also like what you did there, looks good. Hopefully all the experts here can carefully compare the various color correction ideas from the various screen shots (hue, saturation, black levels, contrast, etc.) and come up with a set of corrections that will get the picture as close as possible to the proper theatrical appearance, while still maintaining good flesh tones, avoiding bleeding and noise, etc.
Once a really great set of correction values has been arrived at, then those working on restoration projects, like dark_jedi and his V3 DVD set, can use those values to give their restorations the best most accurate colors possible.
Does there seem to be some agreement that while the blue levels are overdone in at least certain scenes in the 2004 SE DVD set, that there needs to be some boost to the blue levels in some scenes in the GOUT DVD set to get closer to the correct theatrical colors? Or would increasing the overall saturation level alone in the GOUT provide the correct blue levels in all scenes?
g-force: Hmm, but I thought that the samples that dark_jedi had posted from his master .avi file (which are looking great overall, btw! :) ) already had your script run on them? And yet the colors seemed to appear under saturated when compared to the other clip of the same scene that had the saturation levels elevated.
What do you think of the video and screen shot comparisons with varying saturation levels posted on pages 2 and 3 of this thread (link below)?
http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/GOUT-Automated-Theatrical-Colouring-and-a-Reference-Guide/topic/12289/page/2/
Maybe it's only in some scenes in each movie that some extra saturation is called for to get closer to the theatrical appearance, with the rest being ok at the 8% boost from the current script?
But I agree that we definitely want to avoid reddish skin, it's most important to keep the flesh tones as accurate as possible. If that means a certain degree of under saturation for the rest of the image, then so be it.
dark_jedi: Thanks for posting the comparison video. :) I think this comparison really shows how the correct Star Wars film colors are more or less there in the GOUT, they just need to be brought out. But as has been pointed out, the key is to do it while avoiding bleeding, etc.
I'm not sure what the most theatrically-correct settings are (which you rightly pointed out is the goal), it probably will need to be adjusted in some cases on a scene-by-scene basis to avoid too much red in the skin tones in certain scenes and so on. But it's clear from this comparison video, and judging based on the other sources available for comparison, that the GOUT DVD set colors are under saturated. I think the key is to be cautious, keep a close eye out for problems and not overdue the saturation. And if a good set of general correction values can be arrived at for each movie, plus special adjustment values for certain scenes when needed, then this would really improve the color accuracy of the new V3 unaltered Star Wars trilogy DVD set. :)
Hopefully the film/tech/video/restoration experts on the forum can put their heads together, after studying the images and video, and come up with the most ideal set of color correction values to restore the theatrical colors as closely as possible, without causing other problems in the video, given the sources available to us at the moment.
msycamore: I like that adjustment you made in the comparison, the skin tones are more accurate. :)
zombie: Thanks very much for posting all those screen shots; wow, what a difference it makes, it's like the theatrical colors are back like they should be (other than the skin being too red). :) Sure, it's not perfect, but it's so much closer than it was before any correction. :) Great work on finding this out. Maybe just ease up on the saturation a bit, and correct the skin tones as best as possible.
hairy_hen's idea sounds really good. Carefully manipulate the color saturation, hue, sharpness and so on in the GOUT DVD set, on a scene by scene basis when needed, using all available sources for comparison (the 1997 SE, photos, etc.), until the most ideal theatrically-accurate combination of color saturation, image detail and skin tone can be achieved. This will give very accurate image colors in the GOUT to work with when doing a restoration of the unaltered trilogy. :) If we can just get the skin tones more accurate, less red, while maintaining as much of the proper color saturation as possible, and while minimizing noise, it appears to already be closer to correct than we might have guessed could have been uncovered so quickly. :)
One can then also take those saturation and other values and apply them to the 2004 DVD set to get most accurate picture color possible in that set, if one wanted to use the 2004 DVD set as a source for scenes that do not have SE changes in them.
dark_jedi: Those screen shots look really nice. :) I can just imagine how great an unaltered Star Wars trilogy DVD set with your overall picture quality and with these color corrections from this thread (but more refined, perfected, better skin tones and so on) applied to the video will look. :)
I want to say thanks to everyone for making these Star Wars film/video recordings available. :)
Not only is it really cool to have these, but I hope it will help all the preservation/restoration experts here on the forum to more perfectly color correct and adjust the white balance in their preservation projects to match the original unaltered appearance of the Star Wars trilogy in theaters. :)
It might also help with restoring the starfields, by seeing how many stars there really are and where they are located in the events taking place in space.