Good choice in the grain-thing, to make two versions for people to choose. Myself I wouldn't like the grain being there unless I knew it was in the source.
Thundercracker said:
You_Too, I think those newest shots look fantastic! Like others said they may be pushing the boundaries of the white levels a bit but that doesn't really bother me, they still look very nice.
Yeah the whites were pushed together in the bright parts, but I really think that's how it's supposed to be, and the slight clipping that occurs is not really visible anyway. And btw, in GOUT they pushed the whites even higher, and raised the overall gamma. I can't raise the gamma more since that clearly shows the missing crushed blacks.
Thundercracker said:
Could these settings be used on the dvd's or HD broadcasts with similar effect or would they require their own tweaking? I'd really like to test these out on the BD's but I don't have BD drive on my PC.
Well, considering those are compressed a lot compared to the blu-rays, it wouldn't look as good. I tried my curve on the HDTV version of SW and what happened was it clearly revealed compression artefacts in the dark parts of the picture. Feel free to try though! I'm gonna update my settings today.
EDIT: I tried my settings on some DVD captures from the screenshot thread. Looks quite good I think.
And according to photoshop, this is all that got clipped in the whites in that Tantive scene:
Puggo - Jar Jar's Yoda said:
Looks like some crushed whites in the new ones. Hmm, maybe the term is more properly "slightly blown".
I have tried to carefully push whites as high as possible without clipping, and I had to sacrifice just a very very little. I think it was worth it considering it looks like the bright parts are more "even" now.
Here's what photoshop reports as clipped. (Not the exact same frame but the same scene.)
I think me pushing the whites so close together creates an "illusion" of them being crushed more than they actually are.
TServo2049 said:
I was looking at that newest Tantive test. It looks better than the original timing, but the problem with a lot of the pink/orange flashes and stuff like that is that it looks like they actually dialed down the highlights (and pumped up the saturation?) on those specific parts of the frame. Whereas the GOUT has clipped whites, a lot of the flash frames and explosions in the '04/'11, have almost *no* whites. Areas of the blaster-impact explosions that were highlights in the older transfers look almost indistinguishable from midtones in the newer ones, and look almost too colorful in relation to the rest of the image.
Unfortunately, that's something that an overall setting for the whole movie can't fix, it seems. So I guess it's up to whoever is making a preservation to edit the explosions frame by frame.
Ok, after a lot of analyzing and trying different settings for selective color and curves, I'm starting to agree with some of you guys that it looked just slightly too yellow overall. Even if that looks good, it's not correct so I thought I'd give it a more advanced approach.
I took lots of raw screenshots from the blu-ray and put them all beside each other in one big lossless image. After that I applied selective color with some small new tweaks, and then I went to curves and let photoshop automatically find the "perfect" RGB values to correct the curves, and I then modified them using my overall gamma adjustment curve. I also made it slightly brighter without clipping any significant detail.
I'll show you the new version here, in a comparison to the old. (Old on top)
I think the difference shows the most in shot 4.
Harmy said:
I finally managed to get the BD footage to work (had to remux it to mp4,) so a new subtitles video with a few little tweak and using the BD footage is coming soon :-)
Good news! I'll try remuxing mine to mp4 too, maybe that would work better with after effects. Even though I got the raw footage to work, I can't browse it any way I want in the software, or it crashes.
Anyway, have you checked my thread about the fix for magenta in the movie? Even if you don't use any of my color settings other than that, it sure is worth it to use selective color and set magentas to cyan -25%, magenta -75%, black +100%. It removes all those pink shadows and pink flashes. I'm still testing these settings though, and maybe I will update them again.
Either way, v2.0 looks VERY promising so far. Good job!
To respond on what Atlantis said, I think it's possible to render such subs as sup-files to be able to choose to have them there or not when watching. Not sure though since I've never done it myself.
Harmy said:
I'm still having some trouble getting my computer to use the BD footage properly though, so it would be quite nice to get the scene already brightened and corrected in high bitrate 720p AVC.
Have you tried demuxing the video track from the blu-ray m2ts file? It worked for me in after effects after demuxing it to ".h264" and changing that extension to just ".264".
Anyway, I'll try and make a render someday soon. The original in 1080p is 36,8 mbps, so what would be the best bitrate to use for 720p?
msycamore said:
Ser mycket lovande ut, You_Too. ;)
Tackar!
msycamore said:
The greens in Negative1's scans is definitely due to fading.
Maybe, but somehow I feel like the greens should be somewhere between that and GOUT. No way to know 100% sure, but I'm happy with my green setting as it is now.
Now here's a little surprise, I rendered a little clip in full HD of the Tantive corridor fight using my newest settings, which I've updated in post 3.
Here you go: http://www.multiupload.com/ONSHCE0WNE
The clip is compressed to ~24mbps (originally 36,8mbps) just to make the size a bit smaller, but I don't think it removed much detail.
Jaitea, brightness = black level. No offense, but what you've done by raising brightness is that you've raised the black level and turned black into grey. A better way to dig up the shadow detail is to use curves, and just make minor changes to the bottom and top of the curve if necessary. That keeps blacks black but can get detail out of it still. Check out my thread because that's what I've done!
g-force said:
better, but still not as good as the Technidisc transfer by mysycamore:
Oh, I thought with "too neon" that you meant the greens were glowing too much. You mean they're supposed to be tinted more towards yellow? That technidisc version is oversaturated too.
The greens in SW seems to have a different look in different versions. On jedi1.com, negative1 posted some comparisons that had been posted here in the past. Since they've been on here, I guess it's ok to re-post a couple just for reference?
Anyway, notice how the greens are tinted more towards blue in the film print. I don't know much about film tech, so maybe it's because of fading over the years? Or did the greens look like that?
TServo2049 said:
Should the same color curve can be applied to all the films? I know that the Hoth scenes in ESB had a blue cast even in the original version, but it was subtle, not overpowering like the '04.
From zombie's article on the GOUT color from his website, here's the first image from the GOUT with his custom color settings:
I don't know if the same curve should be applied to all films, but I thought it was interesting to try! Haven't tried ROTJ yet though.
In that first pic of yours, look at the color of the ground at the bottom left. It looks kinda neutral compared to the blu-ray and my render. So maybe there should be different curves for each movie.
g-force said:
I know you mentioned that you changed some greens and blues, so this may be resolved already, but the light green leaves in the back during the awards ceremony look too neon in your posted pics. I'd be curious to see what it looks like again with your new settings.
I saw that too, so that's one reason why I changed the settings. Comparison, old on top:
none said:
If you are taking requests, here's one of those flash explosion shots which got cooked pretty good in 2004. Might help figure out how far this orange and pink highlight shift goes.
Here's that shot and a couple more, blu-ray compared to my fixed version:
LexX said:
You could use a little brighter image, colors are looking pretty good but otherwise the 2004 versions are too dark so they could use some changes in other settings too. Have you tried with the sequels yet?
I've tried making the curve even brighter but in some scenes it ends up too bright, and will clip the whites. So to preserve as much detail as possible, I won't go any brighter than I already have.
I did try today with some shots from ESB, though I used the same settings as for SW just to check how it looked. (Since yesterday, I've changed the selective color settings for green and blue slightly. I'll update that on the first page when I'm sure it looks better this way.)
Darth Editous said:
The worst thing is that there is no selective color plugin for Avisynth, at least that I could find with a lot of googling.
*ahem* ;)
A selective colour filter for Avisynth
Any questions will have to be directed to the author, but by a strange coincidence he and I have never been seen in the same room at the same time...
(it doesn't do "Black", but I - I mean he - might get around to that sometime)
DE
That's great! I can't understand why I could never find that plugin though. Anyway, I won't experiment with it yet, but maybe if "black" gets added sometime.
Here's a comparison of the current settings against Mike Verta's version, mine on top. (Hope I don't get banned for using this. I just had to show everyone)
That print has a very high contrast, and if I would push mine as high, some scenes would have clipped whites and an overall extremely bright picture. Just for fun though, I pushed up the white level of this shot in photoshop so you could compare it even better:
Since you're posting all those videos about 1.2 changes, are you still going to release it before starting on 2.0? Nice job on all those scenes btw.
Before you start with 2.0, no offense, visit my thread and you might find the settings there useful as a base to start with.
hairy_hen said:
These images look quite good so far. It seems like you've really locked in on exactly what sort of manipulation was done to the colours and contrast, and undone it as precisely as could be hoped for with general settings.
That's what I'm trying to do, at least to undo the worst changes.
hairy_hen said:
Is there a way to replicate these settings with AviSynth? I'd be very interested in that.
Unfortunately, you can only use curves in Avisynth, and it's a bit more complicated since it requires a plugin called gicocu, and then you have to input the curves into another program called GIMP and save them from there, for gicocu to be able to use them. On top of that, GIMP doesn't bend the curves like photoshop, so you'd need to add more anchor points in the curve for it to end up the same.
The worst thing is that there is no selective color plugin for Avisynth, at least that I could find with a lot of googling. There is a plugin called Tweak, but you can only change hues of colors in that one, and the result doesn't come anywhere close to selective color.
So the only solution so far is to use Adobe after effects for rendering this using my settings.
Asaki said:
You_Too said:
If going by how the GOUT looks...
Sounds like a bad idea =|
I said that because GOUT has a bit more "natural-looking" colors, and some more shadow detail. It's undersaturated though so of course I can't use it as pure reference.
Anyway, here's another comparison of the color errors the magenta setting fixed. (Old on top)
Right now I'm working on eventually changing the setting for cyan, because for example it seems it can fix Leia's hologram. I would like to request something to use as a reference, like 35mm scans or something.
Those subs simply can't look better.
Allright! I tried a new setting for magenta in selective color (cyan -25%, magenta -75%, black +100%) and here's the result:
Here's a comparison of Luke's hair to my old settings. (New on right)
The new settings of course affected other scenes as well. Here's something very visible it did to the pink flashes here and there. New settings on top, old on bottom.
It also made the skin tones of the "lobster-man" look better. (New on right)
Please tell me what you think!
Oh, I gotta check how that scene looks with my settings someday soon.
Anyway, it sure looks weird.
Yeah, but a lot of that would require shot-by-shot correction. I'm trying to create the "best" overall settings to improve the picture as much as possible without a shot-by-shot correction.
By the way, right now I'm trying some new settings for magenta in selective color. Take a look at the screenshot of Luke looking at Beru, and look closely on the dark parts of Luke's hair. Of course that should be brown and not have a tint of magenta/purple. If going by how the GOUT looks, it should also be slightly brighter. I think it's possible to correct that, and if I succeed I will post new screenshots and settings.
Personally, it doesn't bother me either. On my 40" TV I wouldn't even notice it. I just agreed with the others that it IS there.
Yeah maybe. Though there are some shadow detail that was pushed down too much on the Blu-rays that I managed to bring back up a bit using my curve setting, there's still some missing detail which can't be recovered like you say.
That said, is there any way to rename the thread? :)
TServo2049 said:
Not as bad as the BDs of Star Trek III-VI or the latest Predator release - I'm actually more surprised at how *few* of the shots you posted have these kind of egregious degraining artifacts.
Compared to Predator ultimate hunter edition, the DVNR in SW is almost unnoticeable. That movie looked like everything was made out of wax!
Thanks for all nice comments on the colors. About them being "warm", I also think it suits the movie well, and some scenes still look "cool". Compare the two shots of Leia in front of the stormtroopers. In the close-up one, the whites look slightly more blue.
Atlantis said:
I'm ok with using the Bluray as a source and starting with a new version. I would even suggest you output a 1080p output. It would be easy in premiere. You just replace your video with the 1080p source for the final render.
I think Harmy chose 720p because it blends better with stuff taken from GOUT and other sources that are not 1080p. Also, it helps to reduce whatever oversharpening and DVNR which seems to be present on the Blu-ray.
About the "watercolor-effect" thing at Vader's entrance, here's a comparison. (Harmy's on top, mine on bottom, downscaled to 720p)
And a closeup comparison which I've brightened a bit for it to match. Harmy's on left and mine on right.
Harmy's version is slightly blurrier, but I'd say the watercolor-effect is there on the HDTV version too.
Added some more shots from the beginning of the movie. For some reason this part was separated from the rest on the Blu-ray, I guess it's because some countries translated the crawl and had a custom one made which was put there.