poita

yotsuya said:

Funny, when you look at the three corrected photos, the lower one looks better and it didn’t have the right color balance to begin with. I can’t wait for your tool to be finished. I have a ton of photos that need this kind of help.

Well, the third shot did have the right colour, if for example it was shot at sunset.

With a setting sun, the girl and scene would have been bathed in golden light. The correction tool in this case is correcting back to how that scene would have looked if lit with a 5455 Kelvin light source, if I understand correctly (I’m a bit dehydrated and delirious, so could be wrong).
(I know they were all shot at the same time of day, I’m thinking hypotheticals here, if you actually took those shots morning, noon and at sunset)

I think the reason it looks the best corrected back is just because that white balance setting on the camera happened to expose a little better, maintaining the highlights.

Okay, knowing that you are using illuminant E as your benchmark light-source makes it a lot easier to correct the results of your routine to the way it would look on film.

I have the characteristics of most common film stocks as well as most studio light sources, so can adjust more readily from the results of your algorithm.

So if I understand correctly, you look for as neutral a scene as possible, and then your algorithm analyses and adjusts the colours in those neutral shots as if they were shot under a theoretical illuminant E light source, and captured onto film that did not add its own colour characteristics.

Then use the offsets calculated on those scenes to calculate the offsets for the rest of the reel?

Yes it does, which is part of the reason I chose that shot, it illustrates my process, and is a tricky scene for automation.

I use the same process we used at work, basically develop a set of automated routines that work well with different types of shots, like fast action, pans, zooms, close-ups, static shots, high and low contrast etc.
Then break the movie into ‘scenes’ and apply the appropriate routines.
The I use a ‘diff’ algorithm to spit out a movie of just the pixels that were changed by the routines (it is acutally more compelx than that, but that is the gist) and watch that to look for scenes that need re-doing.
Then adjust the algos to be less aggressive on those scenes, and then repeat the process then go in by hand and do any restoring of original data that had issues with the automation.
Then go through the movie and adjust everything manually that requires it.

We have found this faster and less destructive than doin only a manual pass, or doing manual passes first. The main issue is ensuring that you have picked up all the errors that need undoing, but that is where extra eyes come in handy.

This is a bit different to other approaches, but it is the fastest workflow for me, and again, for me personally, results in the best work that I am capable of.

Empire is a different print that I purchased last year.

Yeah, I don’t want a fight with NASA ;P http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/molyneux-forced-to-rename-curiosity-game-delayed-to-september/0101722

No, just the standard colour correction tools, offset,LGG and curves in Nucoda, and only a quick botch job at that.

“THX ‘prespecialized’ -> THX -> OT ‘prespecialized’ -> OT?”
I’m on a promise.

Even with the automation, processing time is around 70 hours per reel, and has to be adjusted depending on content etc. So probably not, it will have to wait until I get enough paying work most likely.

The damn virus is the reason for the flurry of updates… can’t sleep!

Look on the red tinted first half, if they come and go there, then it isn’t the routine, but keep in mind, anything red will be way, way brighter than it should be in the faded footage, and some of te red and shadows were crushed in the very quick colour adjustment.

The deflicker can get false positives, this really is a rough pass (I spent about 30 minutes on it just now to make a sample) so it is quite probable that there are some processing artefacts.

Part of my process once I get going on these will be to post WIP scenes and have all of the eagle eyes on OT help find anything I miss, but these samples I barely looked at, they are just tests.

BTW, the file has been graded to match the colour on the print, it looks as close to how that particular print is as you are likely to get.
The file is in the BT.709 colour space and is designed to be watched on a calibrated television, not a computer screen, so keep that in mind.

The colour may not be to everyone’s taste, but that is how it is on this particular print.

By true colours, do you mean the colour representation under a particular temperature of white light?

Here is a sample from Empire, raw scan, then a pass with just a quick colour balance done in Nucoda to see if the print is worth using, then a dustbust and ny deflicker/denoise routine as a test.
Obviously he colour still needs a ton of work, I am mainly just checking that the print was worth pursuing. Also no damage repair, hair removal, emulsion scratch removal etc. has been done, this is just a rough pass, so keep that in mind.

https://we.tl/YT0v4T72gc

There are some problems here that I need to work on with the deflicker routine, but the print and scan look viable.

(Oh, and the suggestion was in fact Star Wars: For the Last F***ing Time)

Yes, I am on a time limitation with my software licenses, and I can’t currently afford to renew them as I am in a, well, let’s call it a work slump.
When they expire I can no longer do much restoration work, so I need to prioritise in case things take longer than planned. That means I will be working on altered scenes first and then the rest of the film, and then if I still have time, back onto the OT.

So yes, if anyone could give me a timecode list from the render so I can start collating a scene priority list, that would be great.

No, not a wetgate transfer, and this scene was in good shape, most of the rest of it is not unfortunately. The deflicker does do a lot of work, but it won’t help with emulsion lines and various forms of damage. It also does a level of stabilisation and removes some dirt and flecks as a welcome side effect.

No time scale, my personal life is kind of in tatters at the moment, and I lost an awful lot of gear, and my income, so progress will be slow. I will post as I get things done, so any posts to the effect of “is anything happening” will probably go unanswered. If it gets abandoned for any reason, I will also post that here.

I am not ‘delivering’ it as such in any format, the restoration will be done at 4K Academy resolution for archival purposes, it will probably clock in at around 16TB or so in size for the final work, per movie. From that any other format could be derived I guess.

Star Wars: FTLFT was suggested. I’ll leave the acronym to your collective imaginations.

Well, may as well post the Empire readalong as well…
Mac: https://we.tl/7Duz5Vqxox
Windows: https://we.tl/PhIHP0iU27

If only the films were so quick to do.

Upload is done, everyone that has helped out should be receiving a message soon 😃

theMaestro said:

Wow this looks excellent. And this Spanish LPP…I’ve heard that term before. Is that what Mike Verta also happens to be using (along with a bunch of other prints)?

Also, is it just Star Wars that looks this good, or do your prints for TESB and ROTJ also look amazing?

The Spanish LPP is the same print used for The Silver Screen Edition, the owner of the print was nice enough to also loan it to me to scan.

All the ESB prints are faded, but I should be able to recover enough colour for it to look good, and the Jedi prints are the worst actually, as they are horrendously dark and need a ton of work.
I’ll have a few samples up soon, I am still rebuilding my workstation and finishing off THX is my first priority, so things will be quiet for a while, but I thought I may as well start a thread to get the information all in one place.

Doesn’t need my name in it, just something so that people know which they are talking about in a shorthand kind of way.
I don’t want a title like “Hollywoo Stars and Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out!”

The deflicker does remove some noise as a side effect, but no, I didn’t do anything other than a levels adjustment and the deflicker algorithm I am working on.

Here is a test of the deflicker script I have been working on, no other repair done to the scan, other than deflicker filtering.
The source is the Spanish LPP of Star Wars

https://we.tl/VEyCxemjLh

I completely understand Adywan, and feel free to bounce me an email anytime if I can help with anything of any nature.

Wazzles said:

JokerRulez said:

Mike states many times in the Vimeo videos the final coloring, etc won’t be complete until the entire restoration is complete. We haven’t seen the finished product yet.

However, he also makes it clear no one has seen this quality a version outside of the folks who made the movie. The final version likely will look a bit “new” to all of us.

His son has seen the finished product. He’s probably the only kid his age in the world to have seen the original version of Star Wars in a theater.

Nah, all my kids have seen Star Wars from prints in the cinema a few times, and most of their friends came with them.

Mac version.
http://tinyurl.com/mythe4thmac

My internet is horribly slow, but a heavily compressed (about 1GB) version of the raw scan is uploading now, I wanted to have something up for May the 4th 😃

Whatever the infection is, it is brutal, I am finally coming out the other side, but now our poor Japanese exchange student staying with us has just come down with it 😦

Happy Star Wars day!

I figured I should start a thread for my 35mm restorations, as the others are all over the place and have gotten too rambly to follow.

This thread will contain all the info and feedback for the restorations of:
Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi from 35mm prints.

Star Wars Sample: https://we.tl/VEyCxemjLh

Empire Sample: https://we.tl/verwNofxYa

Jedi Sample: https://we.tl/YjCgGTEZUG

A big thanks to everyone that has helped with these so far, and if anyone wants to suggest a name for the projects, please do so!

To kick things off, here is a little nostalgic gift for May the fourth:
http://tinyurl.com/maythe4thpoita

It only for Windows, I’ll have a Mac version up in an hour or so.