Harmy

Harmy said:

I HATE COLOR CORRECTION! Seriously - if I ever do a v3.0, I'm outsourcing the color correction to someone else.

 So, do you remember this post of mine from yesterday? Well, I was a bit frustrated at the time, because I decided to give the colors of the whole Luke's escape from the Wampa and subsequent rescue scene an overhaul based largely on the 97SE and at that point I had already been working on it for some five or six hours, wasn't even half-way through it and it'd given me a massive headache. I returned to it today with fresh perspective and here's the result:

http://uloz.to/x5aNBhqP/new-hoth-mkv

@chyron: Well, while this problem isn't completely gone, I would say it is definitelly diminished in the new version - here are the v1.0 shots you posted and the same shots as they appear in the workprint:

@doubleKO: The saturation issues have already been tackled (although in case of the unzoomed shots there may still be an occasional discrepancy here and there but it should definitely be lessened) and the Lando announcement shot is taken from a faded 35mm print, so it was pretty hard to get the colors looking even this good.

@bouvines:

The logo is the same one as in SW v2.5 and it's sourced from the BD of Alien.

As to why I decided to re-create the subs from scratch - well this is currently the best source available to me - and I mean literally that specific Daily Motion video.

Yes, it has been discussed before - here's my answer from the previous discussion and it still seems to me like the most likely explanation: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Star-Wars-Colortiming-Cinematography-was-What-changes-was-done-to-STAR-WARS-in-93/post/584266/#TopicPost584266

I HATE COLOR CORRECTION! Seriously - if I ever do a v3.0, I'm outsourcing the color correction to someone else.

Well, I'm pretty sure N1's cropping in that clip isn't final but also, the thing is, there isn't such a thing as the one good cropping - it would always differ from cinema to cinema and home version to home version - the only thing that is for sure is that it is never right to show the whole frame all the way to the edge. That said, on the BD it is barely visible, so I shifted those shots down a little to show the top edge of the window - I included that shot in the credits sample to show this.

Well, regardless, it's hopefully all solved now :-)

I will wait before I render again though, in case more problems are discovered, because with all the effects applied, it takes over an hour to render the credits and I've already rendered them at least three times so far.

You probably have - the problem is, that I don't have the font, so Photoshop and After Effects solve this by rasterizing the layers.

Well, I only had to rasterize the layers at the moment I needed to make changes to the PSDs, so if all is fixed in them, I can use them directly as well.

Actually, judging from the skintones, the red-shift in the GOUT is pretty consistent throughout the film and I don't believe it to be the result of the prints fading but rather of a miscalibration of the machine on which they were telecined, because from my experience, this is not what red-fading looks like and also, the red-levels are not only consistent throughout the film but throughout the entire trilogy, including ROTJ, which was already printed on low fade stock. And since this method of increasing the saturation of all but the reds seems to give great results in other scenes, I'd say it is a pretty good reference here too.

Another problem is, that once you start pulling reds down and blues up in the DeEd, the whole image starts looking monochromatic.

I'm using Firefox and have absolutely no trouble with it.

No problem :-) Sometimes, I get lazy and that's where I need you guys in my corner :-)

OK, so here are some images:

Credits:

And a picture with the GOUT reference in the corner (the GOUT reference has increased saturation but I pulled red saturation down by the same amount I increased the master saturation, so red saturation remains the same as in raw GOUT but all other colors are increased):

As you can see, I was still pretty careful with the reds here.

I thought there'd be like a hundred of them - five I can do :-)

Well, looking at the credits, there may not be that many apostrophes - so far, I only found two, so if someone finds all of them, I'd consider re-doing them.

I have no idea how that works. Plus I don't even have the font, I'm working with rasterized text.

stretch009 said:

doubleKO said:

About half way through checking the WP - here are the things I've noticed so far. Apologies if they have already been addressed or if they are correct the way they are.

Someone mentioned Hoth looking a bit purple and I agree, although it seems to be purple sky more than purple snow:

5780
12943
13646
14217
14547
14649
18427
38329

45761 to 46122 - Magenta flashes similar to ones fixed in Star Wars?

Falcon interior from 52992 - Everything seems way more saturated in closer shots, especially the lights and Han's lip.

 Did you see this post, Harmy?  Could it possibly be a Purple Hoth? (okay a little hyperbole there)  At least three people think so.

 Well, I'm not saying that some shots aren't slightly reddish but I timed them that way based on the GOUT - it's not an error - it is so on purpose.

CatBus said:

Harmy said:

Here are the new and hopefully final credits:

http://uloz.to/xkG3V6u2/credits-new-mp4

Did you check the apostrophes against the 35mm scan?  Were they clear enough to make any verdict about slantiness/curliness/chunkiness?  They still look a bit anachronistic in their current state.

 Yep, they're definitely wrong - they seem to be shaped like upside-down drops in the 35mm. Is it horrible that I don't really care? Or at least not enough to actually go through the whole thing and replace every apostrophe by hand, which I think is pretty much the only solution.

Here are the new and hopefully final credits:

http://uloz.to/xkG3V6u2/credits-new-mp4

Actually, I pretty much have that problem solved - I found someone with access to some pro software, who can put this together for me - it's just that preparing all the assets isn't easy and will take some time.

OK, will do :-)

No, actually, like I said, it's work in progress, so I didn't resize the credits yet - they'll be the same size as the old ones when finished - to determine the proper size and placement, I resized the GOUT to match the starfield and then resized the credits accordingly.

Here's a work in progress sample of the new approach:

http://uloz.to/xQwvZkAi/creadits-mp4

I'm using the right comp - only I had previously applied the Simple Choker effect for fattening the letters in that comp and it wreaked havoc on the colors when your fading was applied in the previous comp- this time, I applied the effect in the CreditsText comp and that solved that problem.

Also, before, I turned off the Roughen Edges effect, because it was making the letters even thinner and I applied Gaussian Blur effect instead - this time I'm trying with the roughen edges on as the only blurring effect.

I figured out a way to keep Laserschwert's fades. I will also make them a bit less blurry. As to the gate weave, I didn't notice before, that Laserschwert already added some and I added more on top of it, so I will make another version and post it probably tomorrow.

Well, judging from the 35mm scan, they are still not fat enough and I don't think that this has much to do with it being a print - making them a bit less blurry may be a good idea though - it's just that when they are too sharp, they start looking digital, so I'm convinced, that some amount of blurring is necessary.

But yeah, that fading effect got all screwed up by the matte choker effect, so I had to let it go - I might still try a different approach.

@bouvines: I'm sorry, I thought you meant in the Despecialized credits - you're right, the characters should be a bit fatter, which would also diminish the gaps between them.

And that is the main difference between Laserschwert's original files and my adjustments - Laserschwert's letters were very thin and sharp - much thinner and sharper than in that 35mm scan, so I used a matte choker effect to make them fatter and blurred them out a little bit - this is unfortunately what also caused the fuzziness in some of the logos but over-all, I think it brought the credits much closer to the way they look in the 35mm scan. The amount of the glow is also is also inspired by the 35mm.

I guess the gate-weave may be a bit too much, I'll have to look into that.

@michaeldc: I got a bit sidetracked with the BD release - I'm now thinking about waiting until all three v2.5s are done and then do the whole trilogy and make the intended bonus disc for the whole trilogy as well and release the whole thing as one awesome trilogy package.