I recorded all the first broadcast with Shatner in SP on high quality VHS tapes. I have a lot of the Nimoy segments, but it was hard to catch them so most are copied (still in SP but 2nd gen) to the end of the Shatner broadcast version. I don’t have a working VCR, so if anyone wants the tapes…
I like to think of things in different levels. If you adhere to the original movie being it, that really doesn’t fit in with the idea of canon so here is how I look at it.
OT - Platinum Canon
OT & PT - Gold Canon
OT, PT, & ST - Silver CanonThis makes sense in theory but not as much in practice. The PT is well…the PT and the ST isn’t even close to being over. Pretty premature ranking in my opinion.
Well, it basically is a chronology of when they were released. Plus the episodes over the other movies and series (with a Clone Wars character appearing in Rogue One, that sort of places them in the same category in my mind). If the rest of the ST sucks, well, it isn’t as important as what GL did. But so fare I like it better than the old EU.
While it does look more saturated than the GOUT or 97 SE, it is comparable to Mike Verta’s sample of the Technicolor print in terms of reds.
The more I dig into the ANH blu-ray the worse it gets. I started with the highlights - scenes I have had my eye on that needed something extra. As I compare the blu-ray to the GOUT, 97 SE, SSE, and other sources, I keep finding that the scene by scene colors in those other versions remains remarkably consistent from copy to copy and the blu-ray is off. I begin to get a picture of what happened. The horribly faded master negative was scanned, ignoring all the color timing. In fact, I can’t see where they paid much attention to the color timing. I also can’t figure out how they could so screw up the colors in a scan or processing. I don’t think their scanner was properly calibrated. But I am getting closer and closer all the time to a better result. But every time I watch my test render I keep seeing more scenes that are off. The latest was the scene where C-3PO finds Princess Leia finishing her hologram recording with R2-D2. The reds in those scenes are not consistent. Some are pink and some are orange. Since I am trying to excise the overt magenta tones, I went with the more orangy-red.
The first reel is the worst. I read the they used noise reduction to clean up the images and as a result a lot of the smoke haze vanished. I don’t think that is the case. I think those scenes are over contrasted and over saturated. By revering both I brought it back to something that looks better. Some things I can’t fix. After R2-D2 and C-3PO land on Tatooine, those desert shots have been scrubbed of grain and filter effects. According to some sources, the grain was actually tiny grains of sand embedded in the negative and from the various other attempts to clean up those same scenes and the odd yellow or brown artifact they have found I tend to agree with the sand theory. I will try to at least get the colors back, but they will be clean and crisp and lacking grain.
But it just goes on from there. How many colors can Red Leader’s helmet be? The answer is almost as many clips of him as were used. Almost no two are off exactly the same.
With the 97 SE as my guide, I am not fixing every problem I find. Some were inherent to the optical restoration done to the film at the time. As this is the enhanced SE I am working with, I feel it is more appropriate to leave some of these things rather than attempt to fix them. Especially when one of the things I have concluded is that information has been permanently lost due to fading and there is no way to get it back. The only hope for recovering that information is if they were to do a proper restoration from the 3 color separation masters which essentially would create a new master as good as the original negative was in 1977 and probably better than it is today. It would also restore the original theatrical version and they could remaster the SE changes from the 1997, 2004, and 2011 sources.
The good news is that I have watched my color correction with many of the changes in place and it is the first time I have really enjoyed the movie outside of watching the GOUT in a long time. ANH has to be the worst DVD/Blu-ray transfer of a film I have ever seen. So messed up and it is taking a lot of work to fix it. It has taken me nearly a year of trial and error to get to a point where most of it looks good and I just need to tweak some scenes (a little less magenta here, a little more there, contrast down, saturation down, nudging a color here or there, etc.).
I like to think of things in different levels. If you adhere to the original movie being it, that really doesn’t fit in with the idea of canon so here is how I look at it.
OT - Platinum Canon
OT & PT - Gold Canon
OT, PT, & ST - Silver Canon
OT, PT, ST, Rogue One, Clone Wars & Rebels - Bronze Canon
Your result looks a lot like the GOUT.
You have to wonder if the IMAX scenes were cropped from 4:3 to 16:9 in height like the non-IMAX scenes were cropped down to 16:9 in width. That means some is still missing. From a completist point of view, this is fascinating, but with this being the 7th installment and all the others not being shot in this format, not to mention that the entire movie wasn’t shot in this format, it isn’t something I am going to worry about.
Here’s my attempt:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185122
JEDIT: The yellows are a bit too saturated when uploaded to the web, so just imagine a slightly less saturated image here.Although Dre’s version is the most balanced and saturated, Tatooine was intended to be a desolate wasteland.
IMO it’s a little bit too desolate. I think this is closer to the mark for me:
Perhaps you are right, and it should be more balanced.
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/185234
I’m really reticent about ‘prettying up’ the image for the final product, however, since Mike’s preliminary correction is merely to get back to the color of the negative, not to retain the intentional color shifts of the final film. Every source I’ve seen that features Tatooine has had some sort of yellow-green in the shadows, with the sky tending towards red. An unnatural cast for sure, but I can’t shake that this is what was intended, especially since it seems to be only the Tatooine scenes that are affected.Yeah, I think that looks much better. 😃
Yeah, I think that nails it pretty well.
I was afraid that taking your comments seriously was a trap, but it was worth asking anyway.
I see a bunch of answers, but none address the skin tones…
Because seriously that’s long been my main complaint about the PT.
What about the skin tones? My goal is to make all 7 movies match, so what would I need to specifically address to fix it in the PT?
Progress report:
I’ve been working on ANH. I think I may have a tweak for the GOUT. SE is not finalized at all but is good for comparing any changes between it and the blu-ray. It is impacting my corrections to the blu-ray in fun ways. Sometimes it means I don’t correct something and other times it forces me to correct something else. Fortunately I’ve done a lot of the work before on a previous draft and my efforts were not wasted. I also stumbled on an excellent way to fix the Falcon’s engine effect (which on the blu-ray is white with a deep blue halo. I found a way to enhance the glow and produce a blue halo in each of the effected shots. I only detected it in the last 4 shots, but I used the effect for all 6 times we see the engine glowing at full power (we also see it a couple times where the engine revs up and I didn’t touch those). I tackled Red Leader and Porkins. Red Leader had a color changing helmet which didn’t exist in the GOUT or SE. Porkins’ shots were all washed out compared to most of the other pilot shots. I also did a quick correct of the explosions (using my previous correction overlayed with my new color colorection using a color key to mask the explosion). It is the same technique I plan on using, but I need to finish my correction of the SE before I finalize those. I still have some pilot shots to fix (some are yellow and others are washed out). So the Death Star battle is a big more work with this color correction, but I didn’t have to touch most of the Tatooine shots like I did last time. There are some things I know I need to fix still, but the major ones have all been addressed. I might post some samples depending on how it looks when I render it and watch it. I tend to see new things every time.
Yup, I’ve been working on it. I posted some sample images. http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Yotsuyas-Saga-Color-Regrade/id/51163
You have to bring up the black level and bring down the white level to reveal the cut off colors at both ends.
I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t that make them both overblown in the process?
There are input levels and output levels. You have to use the right one. You can also reduce the contrast to get similar results.
There are two different color spaces. Most media players and media formats clip the whites and black. Some of the missing color is actually still there, just not shown. Properly rendered media takes this into account and has the darkest and brightest colors that should be viewed set within this range. To correct it, you have to change the levels. Upping the gamma will bring back the blacks, but wash out the whites. You have to bring up the black level and bring down the white level to reveal the cut off colors at both ends.
Oh, and as I said before, my goal is something closer to the DVD version because some of the visual changes they make for the 2011 DVD irk me the most. The rock in front of R2 and the door to Jabba’s palace are the big ones and I’m not sure about the ewok’s blinking. The humans on film don’t blink that much. But the sound will be fully from the BR version because it is a better mix and any visual changes that affect the length and the sync to the BR sound will have to remain. That means the BR version of the Han/Greedo scene which is the least objectionable of the 3 SE versions (I’m definitely in the “Han didn’t give Greedo that chance to shoot” camp, but the BR version is tolerable) and from a saga perspective Vader saying “No” in ROTJ isn’t that bad (the “No” fits with seeing Hayden at the end - I prefer no “no” and Sebastian at the end).
I’m particularly interested in your regrade of AOTC. Looks pretty good from the screenshots. Any idea for releasing that one?
Was there a universal setting applied for AOTC you can describe, or scene by scene?
Thanks, and good luck completing what looks to be an ambitious but very nice project!
I’m starting each one with universal settings. ANH is going to require the most work because somewhere between the recompositing for the 1997 SE and the 2003 scan, they screwed some things up royally that I intend to fix. That is why I’m trying to start with some of the public work DrDre has been doing, color correct the GOUT with that in mind, color correct the 97 SE with that in mind and then address the BR. That way I will have two versions to compare to to see what changes they made to the settings for the 2003 scan. I have been tweaking my universal settings for ANH and I think I have eliminated the need for a few of the additional corrections. But some are still needed. The early blockade runner scenes are over contrasted, there is a blotch under C-3PO’s arm when he is standing in front of the skeleton. Some of the flowers are bleached out at the Lars homestead, in the Veder/Kenobi duel the light sabers change colors, several of the X-wing and Y-wing explosions are muted, the Death Star status screen showing the approach to the rebel base is blue, the rebel base screen showing the approach of the Death Star is washed out around the border. There are a couple of things in TESB and ROTJ as well, but not nearly so many. The universal settings for the PT are a bit better, but suffer from some inconsistencies. I think I have TPM nearly done and the other two are close. I just haven’t determined if I need to make any specific scene corrections. AOTC may require some in the Sand People village as the shots aren’t a consistent color and I might tackle the blockade runner scenes in ROTS separately so they can be closer to ANH without impacting the rest of the film.
tends to match
should have
should have
I’m never quite clear what you’re discussing with your project. You’re often speaking in these absolute terms of how things should be, but you aren’t quite explaining how you might be using references in an objective way. Is it fair to say that you’re discussing the way you prefer it to look? No judgement for that, since I did a version of SW that was in no way objectively colored. Just curious, since I tend to find myself confused at your posts.
Just the results that I see. What I see over and over on this site are color corrections that all bring it closer to what we think we remember and what we think it should be, but there is a lot of guess work involved. Even DrDre’s color correction tool requires a guess as to what frames to work off of. Most of the guessing isn’t random, but no two people seem to be arriving at the same result so I don’t see there being a single correct answer, more a collective set of answers that keeps getting narrower as everyone gains experience.
In this case, looking at the raw scan, the GOUT, the SE, the BR, the Despecialized Edition, and my color corrections, I was pointing out that the Despecialized Edition of this frame is lacking some blue areas that are in the raw scan and in the GOUT, SE, and BR. To me that is a pretty clear indication that the Depecialised Edition has been over corrected to remove blue tones that should be there. 4 separate scans of the film cannot all be wrong. I posted a screen cap of my color correction of the SE, which came out with very similar colors, but with the blue areas intact.
I have been playing with the saturation on the blu-ray to make sure there aren’t any unwanted color artifacts. I haven’t finalized any of the versions, though the GOUT is probably nearly there and I’m using it as a guide for color correcting the SE and BR versions and the prequels (R2, Threepio, Tatooine, sabers, skin tones, etc).
Return of the Jedi
The Empire Strikes Back
A New Hope
The Prequel screen shots
I’m finding in my project (working with the GOUT, SE and BR) that Hoth tends be be bluer than I would guess. The bright, sunlit areas are very white, but the overcast and shadows are more blue and the inside of the base is very blue. This frame (of the gun exploding) tends to match the Despecialised more than the raw 35 mm, but with a bit more blue.
For instance, there is a triangle of blue sky visible through the smoke and the sky to the left should have some touches of blue. Also the background cloud of smoke to the far right should have a very gray, almost bluish tone. The SE (I’m working on a mix of TB and GKAR) may be crap for DNR and details, but they are a fantastic color source.
One of the interesting things about working with the GOUT, the GKAR and TB 97 SE, and the blu-ray is that I’ve noticed a lot of changes implemented in the blu-ray that may have escaped notice. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the 97 SE has the worst color of the three. Meaning it is all over the place. I can pretty well align the GOUT to the blu-rays, it doesn’t work for every scene, but in general it gets close. But for the 97 SE, in particular for A New Hope, there are fewer scenes that match up and some of the scenes are way off. So while the end result of the DVD/blu-ray transfer is something garish, at least the original scan seems to have been done with an attempt to get close to the original colors. The f*** ups seemed to happen after that point. It gives me hope that I can bring it close. Also, some of the magenta and blue issues I have with the ANH BR have the same problem in the 97 SE, so I think I am right that it is a fading issue that hasn’t been, or can’t be, properly corrected for.
Where I’m at right now is that I think I have the best correction for the GOUT versions (and it is mostly toning down the red and converting it from the VHS/LD/Broadcast Master we have on the 2006 bonus discs to a more modern digital image with darker blacks and more vibrant colors), a close pass on the blu-rays, and my first full attempt at the 97 SE.
Why the GOUT when we have the 35 mm versions? Well, the 35 mm versions have their problems (missing frames and such) and as I am going for color correction and not image quality (intending my GOUT color restoration be a bonus in a larger project) and with the nature of the release of the first movie (the whole issue with Team Negative 1), I though it best to just not use that. My main focus is the blu-rays anyway. Also, I based my correction on some of the 35 mm work. DrDre did a very nice version of the majority of reel one using his automated color correction tool and it came out very close to what I was doing with the GOUT. That, along with the age and quality of the prints both come from put the GOUT as a better choice for me to use for color correcting.
I should have some frame captures in a few days after I have Return of the Jedi SE processed. That will just leave The Phantom Menace, which I worked on before, but will need to revisit.
