- Post
- #916816
- Topic
- Harmy's Despecialized Star Wars 1977 - Color Adjustment Project for v2.7 (released)
- Link
- https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/916816/action/topic#916816
- Time
Here’s the Mike Verta image in question:

Here’s the Mike Verta image in question:

I didn’t take the letter forms from Puggo Grande at all - I based it on an IB frame posted by Mike Verta and IIRC they were very accurate to that.
And you misunderstand about the Jabba subs - they were taken directly from the 35mm print and it was the source print I color corrected before extracting them, not the final Despecialized video - they were composited without color change onto the already color-corrected BD.
Well, I just corrected the print’s color to what looked right to me and then kept the subs the way they looked after that.
What program are you gonna use to add the subs? Grain can be done in Premeire but the weave would be much easier in AE.
Or the whole image has been manipulated and that’s why the color of the soundtrack is not what one would expect.
Yeah, I think I’m on the record that the colors in v2.5 are far from ideal and I even said in my post above that we did go a bit crazy hunting for that technicolor look for a while, but we need to find some sort of mid-way, not just take one reference that in someone’s subjective opinion looks good and run with it - that’s just repeating the same mistakes, except at the time, we only had that one reference and there was no evidence that it may not be 100% accurate, whereas now, we have much more than that, so the mistake would be even bigger.
I don’t have a file of the color corrected Greedo scene without subs but considering how much the color timing of that scene is changed in Towne’s version, he’d be better off color-correcting the BD anyway, if he wanted to implement the new subs.
I’m simply saying, that just because this source fits what looks correct to you, doesn’t make it correct and that all other prints we’ve seen had the walls blue/green, so I don’t see what makes this one right, when it is the one that stands out among all the others.
And the JSC is definitelly red-shifted, as is the '93 THX master.
I disagree about these scans being a good reference - we don’t know how they were scanned or how the pics may have been manipulated, but mainly, we’ve seen quite a few prints by now and this is the only one that stands out as this radically different - I think it’s just a print that’s beginning to fade and thus has a red bias.
Even the GOUT and other old home video releases clearly show the walls as green/blue when saturation is boosted - remember the time when we took the GOUT as the best reference and everyone was correcting the Death Star walls to be grey and then we saw those Senator screening photos and someone tried boosting the GOUT saturation and those same kind of colors started coming out - it was a revelation. And sure, we may have gone a bit crazy in the hunt for the Technicolor look for a while, but that was because that’s how much of a revelation that was, and now we know better than to trust one reference beyond all others and we know to use moderation and our best judgement when doing the color grading but I’d hate to see us go back too far.
You can call it v2.65 or v2.7, I don’t really mind either way. You’re right that v2.65 is probably more accurate to what kind of update it is.
I’m uploading the lossless master for v2.5 now.
He still has those ugly magenta and green blotches in his face, which are especially obvious in that screenshot comparison.
I’m sorry, but to me that Tarkin shot looks bad. It’s too dark, over-saturated and his face is splotchy.
I took the BD screenshot and this is what I came up with after a quick Photoshop adjustment:

For comparison, here are the images posted by Dre:


Literaly - in comparison, the BD looks like day-for-night.
We’ll see. I will probably still do a lot of roto work, which is actually harder with 35mm footage, because of stabilization issue.
Hopefully the new scan - I don’t have it yet but I hope to get it soon.
Despecialized v3.0 will he much better, in that it will be much more like ROTJ v2.5.
I’d be happy to uload the lossless files for you but I won’t be home before Monday.
I’m glad to see thos sort of pay it forward attitude working here - I sent the BDs with the lossless files to Laserschwert for his German version, he sent them to Marvins for the French version and now the chain continues - but for sending files overseas, it’s almost always faster to send them online.
Also, to avoid confusion, it may be best to simply call the next version v2.7.
No. I’m keeping the current setup for now. I’ve had some unexpected car expenses.
Sorry for the final release not being final.
Yeah, that happens 😄
Wait, what? Tell me you didn’t use v2.0 for that shot! Otherwise I can’t imagine why tat R2 unit isn’t blurry, when that was a side-effect of the effects used in the shot, so he’s blurry very much intentionally from v2.1 onward.
Plus, of course, v2.0 uses the GOUT, whereas v2.1 (and 2.5) use 35mm scan.
OK, good to know 😃
You said repeat, so I did.
Awesome! Will probably test it later tonight! Thanks!
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):

So, I’ve had that problem where I stopped getting email updates on this thread, so I just discovered that there have been new posts in this thread I have not seen for about a week. Man am I glad that happened.
I love those covers! And congrats on the release! You’ve done a phenomenal job as usual re-creating the German parts and I was happy to help put it together!