So much easier than eyeballing it for an individual image. Yet, there is something to be said for doing global changes by eye. I wasn't even paying attention to the scene of Vader choking the rebel. My result is somewhat green, but it is somewhat in line with the technicolor prints.
Well, I haven't rendered it this way yet, but I was close, made some tweaks, and went too far, then settled for something closer to the previous render. I'm trying to keep a balance in flesh tones. Leia tends to be pale and Uncle Owen tends to be red and dark. The key scene for me is where Ben finds Luke and R2. They need to have a touch of red in their skin without looking like lobsters. Owen and Luke at the droid auction are just red. This also makes C-3PO less orange-gold and more brass. I tweaked the saturation so that C-3PO isn't so gold on the blockade runner. This has the effect of tinting the blockade runner corridors and Death Star walls with a hint of green, but I find the flesh tones to be pleasing. And please excuse the quality. coming from an LD source more than 10 years ago means it leaves a bit to be desired, but it is the colors I am after. This was so close to what I wanted to begin with, it just needed some contrast, sharpening, and color tweaking.
I really like what I am seeing here. Some really improved colors.
Of course we all approach this differently. My approach is to ignore the Tech IB prints and focus on behind the scenes images, videos, and the other films. ANH suffers from severe color issues and it seems to no matter what source you use. I like the Tech IB images I've seen (the images from the Senator screening have issues, but are still a good reference). They show a very different approach to brightness and contrast. In that respect they may be pretty accurate, but I am not relying on any one source.
I've been having rendering issues (hopefully now fixed) and I should know by tomorrow what my color choices are closest to. I just need to apply them to the Bluray.
My primary thought is that C-3PO should look the same in all his appearances (eps 3-6). There is a lot to go by there, but there seems to be a consistent tone to his color in most studio lit scenes. Somewhat brassy and less golden. Not all the way green, but less orange. The JSC has him overly orange on the blockade runner.
Also, I'm trying to address the magenta issue. The stormtroopers burning through the blockade runner hatch is the most annoying (its supposed to be bluish-white), but the baster hits are similarly off. They are supposed to be rose/peach pink instead a a purple/magenta pink. I've found that in addressing that issue first and trying to rebalance the colors based on that, it fixes most of the issues. Most. ANH seems to be repleat with color issues and has so many changes in the color mix from shot to shot that it would take some dedicated work to fix it. My goal is to fix the overall color pallet and then live with the shot to shot changes. Overall I'm going with less pink skintones and more peach. I've also check the color balance in the blockade runner corridors and found that what looks white tends to be bluish and that when you get closer to a balanced color (where rgb levels are nearly equal) that it looks a bit green or yellow.
The biggest problem I have found is that the bluray has many washed out whites and information loss. Some other versions don't so I intend to fix the bluray with other sources where possible.
What is funny is that as I continue to work (first with the bluray and currently with an LD capture) to correct the colors, I keep coming up with a similar pallet to the Tech IB scans. Not intentionally and I'm not referencing them, but that just turns out to be what looks good for color correcting the entire film.
I really wish DrDre's process worked on 2 hour video files. That would make my work so much easier.
jedimasterobiwan said:
yotsuya said:
jedimasterobiwan said:
what i noticed in some of the color corrections vader's black suit and helmet and cape look gray taking away a lot of black color
They should be very dark, but they should be more gray than pure black because there is a lot of shading to a character dressed all in black. Unfortunately with the universal color correction that I am looking for, Vader in my color corrected version will probably not get much of that back. I want to avoid bringing the garbage mattes back and from what I've seen of the negative1 work, those black are supposed to be pretty dark. Everything was way to bright in the VHS and LD versions.
yotsuya what's your version look like can you show me?
I've been having some rendering issues, but I think I have that figured out now. Sony Vegas is a stupid beast. It automatically shows the full spectrum in the preview window and most things I work with don't use the full spectrum. So I had to figure that out. If this render works, I'll have something tonight that I can do some screen captures of. Warning, it is the TR47 LD capture. I'm starting there because I found in viewing the different versions that that one had the best color pallet to start with. The resolution sucks, but I'll put up some before and after images and some GOUT and Bluray comparisons.
One of the things I've been looking for are the key scenes that you have to get right for each range. There are lots of blacks, but only a few scenes where you have to watch out for the whites. Then there are the various scenes ranging from the bright blockade runner to the dingy cantina. The Han/Greedo scene has turned out to be one I need to look at. The final shot of Luke at the burning Lars homestead is the key one for the brights.
I did come to an interesting conclusion. The R2s they used in Tunesia is not the same color as the the R2s they used in England or the US. In all the Tunesia shots R2 is bright blue while in the other shots he is dark blue. It could be the type of finish they used, but it appears to be the same for most of the movies (except Ep 1), just darker in ANH. It could be from the very diffuse light from all the sand. Not sure of the specific reason, but he is very bright. Not, I should point out, neon blue like on the DVD and Bluray. I personally think a different finish on the blue parts is the likely cause.
Well, since others are posting here. I've found this thread and I don't have too much to offer, except when it comes to the 2006 GOUT. I believe the master tape they used for ANH did not have the original opening crawl on it. In Empire of Dreams they used a short clip of the original crawl and the stars are completely different. I think they edited the original crawl in in some way.
This thread is fascinating. Makes me want to make an edit that has those other credits and that cloud glitch. Interesting to note that the first theaters had this other type of print and stereo while the others had the familiar credits and mono.
I'm afraid I side with this memory largely being incorrect. I have a similar one about ANH with Luke missing his first throw and making it on the second try. Never filmed, never edited, never shown that way, not once, but I remember it that way. I read the novel and a great many of these things are in the novel (ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster) and the novel was out before the movie. I didn't have the comic books so the novel is the only way I could have come up with this. I have come to the conclusion that I imagined it based on other sources and likely this memory is like that too. Memory is a slippery thing and it can fool us into believing things that are pure make-believe.
jedimasterobiwan said:
what i noticed in some of the color corrections vader's black suit and helmet and cape look gray taking away a lot of black color
They should be very dark, but they should be more gray than pure black because there is a lot of shading to a character dressed all in black. Unfortunately with the universal color correction that I am looking for, Vader in my color corrected version will probably not get much of that back. I want to avoid bringing the garbage mattes back and from what I've seen of the negative1 work, those black are supposed to be pretty dark. Everything was way to bright in the VHS and LD versions.
We'll see if there is a quality improvement in the works. I just ordered the UK DVD versions. If the deleted scenes in the prequels are truly PAL and not just converted, I may even do the extended versions in 720p. I mean, I have to upscale the SE changes from the GOUT and LD versions to 720p already, so I may as well do the whole thing that way. If the pal versions are any higher quality.
Correct is a very subjective term, isn't it. Like truth. I guess to summarize what I'm aiming for in fewer words, it is to find a color correction that most closely matches the props, available photos, behind the scenes special features, etc. What I'm not after is matching any particular theatrical presentation. Though what I've done so far brings the Bluray very close to the technicolor prints.
And to aid in getting the highest quality I have finally ordered the PAL dvds. While for most shots the Bluray is unbeatable in clarity, for the shots that have changed and the special features (mainly the Eps 1-3 deleted scenes), I'm hoping the Pal version holds some additional data. An extra 96 lines of data that will make my upscale to 720p less noticable. I understand that doesn't help with the GOUT, but just in case...
Original color timing? No, not what I'm after. I'm after an acceptable overall color correction that is better than what we have had. All the pre SE sources seem to be washed out (yet they managed to preserve the highlights) and all the SE sources seem to be dark with crushed blacks. I'm after a unified color grading that will span the saga but may be match (exactly) any sources. And as far as I know, other than the Legacy project, everyone trying to restore any of these films is working with the same handicap. I think these films have been treated horribly by Lucasfilm. Not one version of these film on home video has been of desent quality. The best seems the Definitive Edition LD set (and the faces edition and GOUT taken from it) but that version his hindered by what were then invisible flaws that jump out in the higher formats we are working with today. The JSC LD set avoided those flaws, but suffers from film artifacts and has a different color grading. The Lowry scan has great image resolution, but horrible color grading. My goal is to bring consistency to a messy situation. I'm not doing a scene by scene color correction (except where they already did something and messed it up - the BR has many instances of this). I have identified 4 distinct sources (and debating whether one is actually from a 5th source) for the OT. There is the JSC, Definitive Edition/GOUT, the SE EU broadcast (film artifacts and very different color grading from the BR), and Lowry's scan (used in broadcast, DVD and BR - but I'm only referencing the BR). I'm trying to bring Lowry's scan in line with the other three sources.
I'm hoping that TESB and ROTJ are less work than ANH. I've already identified several things to fix that I had assumed were SE glitches that have turned out to be Lowry glitches (or Lucasfilm... can't tell with some who f...ed it up). Just makes me really mad that they would release such crap on BR and call it good.
I don't know what I may end up sharing when I am done, but my first task is to archive my sources in 1280x720 mp4 files. I need to crop and resize the images and do a general color correction. I'm playing with the ANH 97 SE at the moment. That version is very important because so far, it has the best sky so I can use it to fix the blown out sky shots on Tatooine. My first pass I used the GOUT and got a pretty good result, but that version is even better so I'm hoping for even better results.
Right now I'm working with the following:
JSC - two versions of ANH
TR47 - Still not positive it is that edition, but it is the Definitive Edition LD set, complete with special features with the movies processed with the reverse 3:2 pull down so they are 24fps. My initial guide to the colors I'm after.
GOUT - I have the originals as well as several cleanup attempts.
EU SE broadcast - has a + and a blue square in the upper right corner and includes Ep1. Definitely a different transfer from the DVD/BR. Lots of film artifacts. Probably the same as the SE LD and Ep 1 LD. Shares the same type of DNR smearing as the DE and GOUT. Preserved highlights and less crushed blacks than the BR, but still very dark overall.
BR - my goal is to make these look good. Highest resolution. When you ignore the color issues, they are awesome scans for home video, but they are ruined by the bad colors. Not much I can do with AOTC or ROTS, but the other all need work.
What I really want to do is to make my own edit, but to do that I need the original and BR editions to match seamlessly. Color is the biggest issue in matching up material so if I can do that, creating my own edit will be simple. There are tricks for resolution, such as reducing my edit to 1280x720, that will work once the colors match.
I hope that clears up just what I am after in this.
In checking my media, I've found that the subject is more complicated. We all know the condition of the DVD's and Blu-rays, but they are not the only sources (though they are the best sources for ATOC and ROTS). Then there is the GOUT, full of artifacts that blur the image. Then the LD sets with the definitive edition and the Japanese special collection being the best editions in separate ways. Then there is a source I was overlooking. TPM, ANH, TESB, and ROTJ all aired on HD channels in Europe before the Lowry transfers. Some copies of these broadcasts are better than others. One of them just proved to me just how unrecoverably messed up the Lowry transfers are. (note, I am not including the several film scanning projects currently underway)
This leads me to alter my goal of just a pure color correction of the Blu-ray to fixing that problems that have resulted form the scan. Among them are all the rebel ship explosions at the Death Star, the map of the approaching Death Star in the rebel briefing room, the screen on the Death Star showing the approach to Yavin, and a anything else I find. I'll also be looking at light sabers for color, but I have come to the conclusion that Luke's lightsaber was not properly colored to begin with in some shots. But my first step is going to be to color correct all these sources to match, at least in general. I really should post some screen caps of what I have done so far, but it was the first draft and I didn't correct the brightness of the image, just the colors. I have some work to do for my second draft and I'll post some images then. Right now most of what I'm doing is watching the different versions to pinpoint the differences.
I had a bit of luck this week. I found a PAL HD broadcast recording of TPM. It is the theatrical cut. That gives me 3 copies of it (2 PAL and one NTSC) so I can be sure they line up and I can cut in the missing scenes. I can also quite easily use it to not only create my edit, but also a better HD restoration of the theatrical cut. It also has better blues. I'll pay more about that later. But I should be able to get my cuts of the PT done pretty fast. Then I just need to tackle the deleted scenes.
Um.. well, that isn't quite accurate. There were many R2D2's for each movie and while many of them are virtually identical, there are differences. One reason R2 may have so many various appearances in ANH is that they may not have all be finished the same. Most appear to be blue anodized aluminum. However, for TPM, R2 is finished completely differently in the entire movie. Instead of the blue gleaming panels, they are dull and painted. Also, there is one publicity photo from Tunisia where R2's head is nearly black and his body is all white (no blue). Also, R5D4's legs are an even brighter blue than R2. Also, in all the original space shots R2 is black. Most, but not all, were fixed.
My goal is to get them as close as possible to matching overall. The blues in ANH are over blown, so are the reds. My goal is to mute all of them. Not every shot was done the same, either in the camera, post production, or restoration, so it is a challenge. I'm just after the best overall color correction for each movie. C3PO seems a bit more consistent, but sometimes seems more orange and sometimes more green. I'm erring on the more green (actually more brassy) since that is the general color in all the special features and the other 3 movies.
My starting point has been the magenta tones and I think I have found a way to correct for that that also addresses most other issues. It fixes the flesh tones, the blow out reds, and most of the other color issues. Just not sure I've landed on the right balance yet, but when I watched the first draft, it was a big improvement in just about every scene.
I have at least a single color image to use for all but two of the scenes I'm going to restore color to. And for those scenes, I have color references so I should be able to achieve accurate colors. It just remains to be seen if I can produce acceptable results with the method I have in mind.
Two of the ANH deleted scenes require effects shots. Luke and Treadwell requires a shot of a star destroyer and blockade runner in battle bracketed with the macro binoculars. The anchorhead scene requires a landspeeder racing through. They were good enough to put a filler in for the star destroyer/blockade runner so for my first draft I just added the macrobinocluar frame. For the anchorhead scene, I found a landspeeder for Google Sketchup and captured and blurred about a 1 second clip. It is passable for a draft. All the shots need to be color corrected to match the rest of the film. I also need to decide what sorts of cuts and wipes to use.
Then there is the audio track. The music is going to be fun to deal with. I just have to do better than they did when they inserted the Jabba scene.
I cannot speak of TESB or ROTJ as to Lowry's involvement, but neither movie has a decaying negative. The boxed set of James bond films I have lists Lowry for the restoration on all of them, but only a few have any signs of a bad color balance.
Essentially what happens is that color negatives use different chemicals that are sensitive to the different wavelengths of light and that produce the appropriate color on the negative. These chemicals don't age at the same rate causing one color to fade faster than the rest. As a result, ANH looked green when they used the original color timing. Provided the color in question hasn't faded too much, the negative can be scannned and the colors adjusted during or after the scanning process (from my experience, you get better result when you adjust it during the scan). If the color has faded too much, the only option is to use a color separation or a print to retrieve that color. ANH is not that faded yet. Lucasfilm sent it to Lowry for the basic restoration. They did not get the colors aligned properly. Lucasfilm then went on to color correct the film, and TESB and ROTJ, and you can see the issues that they introduced in those as well, but the specific issues ANH has stem from the faded negative and Lowry's restoration. For for ANH, Lucasfilm's color correction is half the problem and Lowry's film restoration is the other. A few tweaks can fix Lucasfilm's bad judgement, but it is harder to dig out the fix to Lawry's bad work. I think I may have it, but I have just rendered my first draft color correction and haven't had a chance to look at it yet.
pittrek said:
yotsuya said:
Lowry's choices for how they balanced the colors (and possibly even the hardware they used to scan the film) produced magenta heavy coloring.
A small correction / nitpick - AFAIK the guys from Lowry claimed the colour "correction" was done by Lucasfilm, they had nothing to do with it
And yet that same magenta coloring is present in several of the James Bond films that they restored. I tend not to believe them. I do know that Lucasfilm did color correcting, but the core issues with ANH stem from the condition of the negative and how it was scanned, not what Lucasfilm did after that.
I've also noticed that some of the highlights are blown out on the bluray. The information is not recoverable unless you can overlay one of the other versions over it. I'm less concerned about crushed blacks because I think the blacks need a bit of crushing for the final product to come out properly.
Well, I'm assuming they are all off. I'm not trying to match the original theatrical colors. I'm trying to match the other Star Wars films. ANH is really messed up. Lowry's choices for how they balanced the colors (and possibly even the hardware they used to scan the film) produced magenta heavy coloring. Yes, the original has magenta toned flashes, but they aren't pure digital magenta, they have yellow undertones. The storm troopers seen through the flash should look yellowish and instead Lowry gave us magenta stormtroopers under the magenta flashes. Also, the burn through of the blockade runner should be brilliant white, not magenta. Remember, regardless of how close or off the pre DVD home video releases are, they are all done from original prints, color timed to the release. I believe the definative edition was from an interpositive, meaning first generation off the negative and used to make the internegatives the theatrical prints were struck from. I'm weighing my color choices based on that. I also don't trust technicolor prints for color saturation.
My goal is for C-3P0 to be the same golden color in episodes III, IV, V, VI, and beyond. Right now the best example of a gold that matches episodes III, V, and VI is the TR47 capture of the definitive edition. Also for R2-D2 to be the same brilliant blue in all 6 movies. That might be hard with how wacked the colors are in Ep I, but the rest should be doable.
And it is funny you posted that pic of the rebel trooper. I was just finishing my first draft of color correcting the ANH bluray today and what I ended up with looks a lot like the tech IB image. What I found works (in Sony Vegas) is something that I was leary to use, but none of my other tests came close. Channel Blend gave me the answer to change the colors in one step. It gave me a higher contrast image, brighter colors, muted the reds and magentas, gave nice peachy skin tones, and looks like the colors from TESB. I still need to manually color correct one scene (which requires retouching the color on every from from one camera angle of C-3PO on the sand) and I will be done. For me to even attempt to watch it I will also have to remove that damned rock, but that will be my viewing copy.
I'll post pictures if these color settings pass my viewing test.
I'm going with what is on the blu-ray for the most part. I'm using the 97 SE Jabba scene and the Biggs scene. I'm debating about the additional dialogue they cut about Red Leader knowing Anakin.
In any case, I have my first draft done. It is bey no means final. I must figure out a few things, such as music editing and transitions. I have a temporary fix for the Anchorhead shot with the landspeeder and I haven't addressed the view up from the treadwell scene, other than to use the macrobinocular mask. I also haven't colored any of the B&W shots found in the rough cantina scene. I did find out that there are at least two takes of Han kissing Jenny. I pulled a couple of things from Empire of Dreams, but nothing additional. I'm rendering it right no so I can give it a proper viewing over the weekend.
I just spent my lunch hour playing with color correcting the sole image I could find of the condition of the original negative. It proved my theory. Using the tools available in video editing, I managed to come somewhat close to a decent result.
One of the biggest problems is that we are dealing with film to video conversion. We have several sources for what the image should look like thanks to the technicolor prints and the prints used for the various video transfers. We also have the 97 SE on video before Lowry got their hands on it. So we know it was possible, either to use film techniques to get to the original colors or that they used the color separations to restore things that couldn't be fixed. Either way, the colors in 97 when I saw it in the theater were not noticeably off.
Then enter Lowry and their digital color restoration. Reds, magentas, and dark greens are everywhere. Explosions that were white originally are now magenta. The pinkish hues of blaster flashes are also magenta. The grays of the death star are greenish, and most of the faces have taken on a reddish hue. These issues stem from incompetent color correction. The other issues with the digital transfers are easy to fix, it is the colors that drive me crazy. And this all stems from the rigid adherence to the original negative being the holy grail of restoration work. I've followed the subject for nearly 30 years and one of the keys to a good restoration is knowing what elements you have to work with and knowing when the negative is too far gone to use. A great many classics of the 50's and 60's that were filmed with color film (rather than technicolor) would never be restorable if you only looked at the negative. You have to look at everything you have a many restorations have taken what they could from the negative and used other sources to supplement. In many cases it is taking the cyan and magenta from the negative and the yellow from the color separation. With modern technology, these can be digitally aligned in ways that were not possible even 20 years ago. The Ten Commandments is one of the recent restorations that was done this way.
The color separations exist for Star Wars(ANH) so a proper restoration of the original version is fully possible.
But to what we have are the digital scans of the master, not the master itself, so we are left with a flawed product. The CYM/RBG balance is off. The question is, what has been lost? Is the output just misaligned or is it irrevocably lost. I'm hoping that they are misaligned, but if they are lost, hopefully it was a product of the scanning process and not the condition of he negative.
And this is not just an issue with the OT. The Phantom Menace suffers the same issue. The blues are all off. I thought it was just me, but I found some images that align with my recollection of seeing TPM in the theater. R2 and the Chancellor's guards are supposed to be blue. Brilliant blue, not muted dark to blue-green hues. And as many of you know, the initial offering home video of TPM suffered from bad colors, not to mention heavy cropping. The Blu-Ray improved things, but the colors are still off. I think TESB and ROTJ have suffered less than ANH and TPM.
There is one nice thing about ATOC and ROTS being digital, the colors are accurate. The colors of R2 and C-3PO in ROTS are dead on with their colors in the GOUT. R2's blue pannels are an intense blue and C-3PO is a pale brassy gold. Watching Empire of Dreams showed that to be accurate for the 1976 filming of ANH. So Lucas was at least consistent in making the props and costumes. So they and the flesh tones (which should be peachy, not brown or red) will be my guide.
I've been watching several different version of the GOUT. This morning I watched the recent capture of the JSC LD of ANH. Truly excellent. Except for some flaws with color that are inherant to that release, they are far superior to anything made from the Lowry version. In fact, I think this capture may be better quality than the DVD sourced GOUT. But I've come to the conclusion that every single version needs work. Ether dust and other artifacts like the JSC, DNR artifacts like the Definitive Edition LD and the 2006 DVD's, or serious color issues like all the versions sourced from the Lowry scan.
So far, the hands down winner for best overall color is the TR47 capture of the DE LD box set. It is not without its flaws and the runner up is the JSC which is a very close second with the 2006 DVD GOUT in a more distant third. The challenge is to fix what Lowry did and get those colors from the blu-ray.
(note - probably should have titled this best, not correct, but you get the idea)
I have decided that it is time to construct my own edit of the saga, but to do so for the OT, I must first have on hand copies of the original unaltered trilogy and blu-ray version with the same color palette. Since ANH is the most challenging, both in color correction and in the edits I want to make, I started working on bringing Harmy’s despecialized edition and the blu-ray together. I have found it is impossible (well, probably not completely, but it is more work than I care to put in). So I find I must gather all the source material, both video and researching the film making process, to assemble what I need.
I am going to confine this to ANH, though I intend to do much the same thing with TESB and ROTJ, though don’t think they have quite the same color issues.
Many people have looked to the Senator viewing for the correct colors. Even George himself turned to his technicolor print to retime the colors for the 97 SE. However, being a student of film history and a great appreciator of 1930-1960 Hollywood, I am acutely aware that the Senator print likely has colors that are more saturated than the standard film print would have been.
For ANH, what we are left with are the Technicolor prints, the transfers made from interpositives, and a faded negative. When printed using the original color timing, it turns out green. I think this, plus the nature of the color issues in the Lowry scan (along with the same issues I observed in one of the Bond films, also restored by Lowry) is a key to understanding how to fix the problem. The problem has been made more difficult by selective color correction of some scenes. Pretty much the same problem I have observed in me matching Harmy’s despecialized version back to the blu-ray.
My first step is to take the versions of ANH I have and assemble a master. I am going back to some older versions I have, before the GOUT on DVD. I have the GOUT (a phrase which makes me smile for what it would mean in other context), the Japanese Special Collection LD capture (24 fps, but cropped differently and with C-3PO coming out almost copper), the TR47 capture of the Definitive Edition LD (at least I think that is the version, it is 24 fps done by pulling the correct half frames out of the 60 fps LD and compiling them back to the original, which yields some odd artifacts), and Harmy’s despecialized edition. As all the audio tracks I have are timed perfectly to that version and it has a higher image quality, It may be one of the layers I use, but the color is going to come from the TR47 and the GOUT with the JSC fixing the DNR issues both of those have.
I have done this many times with photos and it usually comes out great. Trying it with video is going to be interesting, but hopefully it will yield the same quality of results.
That still leaves me with matching the blu-ray to what I come up with. While any additional color correcting they may have done may result in some scenes that I will have to address seperately, my initial focus is on the blown out reds, blues, the magenta explosions, the reddened skin tones, and the dark green walls. I think all of these stem from the same issue that results from how Lowry corrected for the faded negative. I will be experimenting on how best to fix that, but I suspect that the Red, Green, and Blue channels are not aligned correctly and that once I isolate what the issue is, it will be straight forward to fix. I’ve read of some other attempts, but we don’t all agree on what the correct colors should be.
One of the sources I will draw on is Gone With the Wind. The blu-ray of that film is taken from a technicolor print. I have a DVD that is from the previous, non-technicolor print and the older LD from the 50th anniversary restoration. I’m going to compare the saturation levels and the color correct the snapshots of the Senator viewing to arrive at what the standard film print colors should have been.
I’m also of the opinion that those garbage matts we all were so familiar with on home video are a product of incorrectly adjusting the interpositive image. I will be setting the blacks so the garbage matts are hard if not impossible to see. The images from the Senator viewing seem to bear this out.
In the end, I hope to have a nifty file to burn to disc that will have both opening crawls and 6 audio tracks. TESB and ROTJ should be much simpler and then it will be a matter of just editing the two cuts of the film together to arrive at my edits, but until then, I have some restoration work to do, but to the GOUT an to the blu-ray.
I've also been taking inventory of just what some of these things I want to do will entail. The deleted scene version is pretty straight forward. DVD quality, stereo sound, minor edits. The cleanup will be challenging and time consuming. But my edit will be harder. 720p, 5.1 surround, color correcting the different versions to match, matching grain or lack thereof, fixing some of the sources that come from PAL back to 24fps. That is going to be quite a task for ANH. TESB shouldn't be too bad, but ROTJ has a lot of issues to solve.
For instance, I want all 6 films to have the exact same opening. The starfield should be unique to each film, but the Star Wars fade out should be identical. I'm pretty sure the PT match, but ANH doesn't and I don't think TESB or ROTJ do either. So what I think I'm going to do to practice and to work on the color corrections is to recreate the 2004 DVD and the 97 SE versions using the BluRay and Harmy's despecialized. In the process of watching the different versions I have come to the conclusion that the rock in front of R2 in ANH Bluray is the single worst thing George did. It is the poster child for needless tinkering and it makes no sense. So my first task is to work on creating the 5.1 audio for the Bluray versions and edit out that damned rock. 7.1 is great unless you have older equipment so to start with I want a version that has 5.1 audio that I can enjoy listening to, even as I cringe at certain SE scenes.
The biggest challenges for this are first, color correcting the bluray version (it needs to be de-Lowryed) and second, matching the rock scenes with Harmy's to replace that.
I know that most people refer to the holy grail technicolor prints for color correcting ANH, but I have a different plan. I have 6 movies that share some characters. R2 is in all 6. C3PO, in his golden covering, is in 4, Yoda is in 5. The PT share a similar cast and the OT share a similar cast so skin tones should carry across where the same actors appear. Light sabers also appear, with Kenobi and Skywalker's sabers crossing from one trilogy to the next (and now Skywalker's in the ST). The cores should look like a light source, not like a white rod. I want to watch all six and not constantly be thinking that C-3PO looks orange or Solo looks sunburnt in ANH and that the light sabers look washed out. I also don't want to see those garbage matts again, so that means a unique color correction philosophy. I'm mostly doing this for myself.
The version with deleted scenes will have fx, sound, music, etc. The video quality may be limited by the source material, but that is no reason not to finish them. It will be challenging for me to work ANH. For that I will use the 97 Jabba, not the original actor in the furry suit. But the Tatooine deleted scenes need a lot of clean up. The few cantina deleted bits I want to include need to be colorized. Fortunately I have most of the original color elements from the finished movie or from stills. That won't be perfect, but it will be better than B&W. Plus I have the script to go by. The blu-ray has some very unfinished scenes that have placeholder animation. I won't be including those unless I think I can do something with them. So it all depends on the deleted scenes themselves, plus how they fit with the film. If they don't edit well, I won't be including them, but as far as I know, all the major deleted scenes from the OT will be included. There are a few that are more extended or alternate that I probably won't include, like the extended dialog between Han and Leia in the corridor on Hoth.
I finished the initial edit of Episode I. It worked well except that there are some frames missing from the HD source. I'll have to decide how to handle that. If those are slightly lower quality I don't think it will be noticed, but I'll have to see.
The audio will be English only. It is going to be a task to edit the English track (and if possible keep them at 5.1 surround). I may be able to include other subtitles. It doesn't help that I am as fond of dubs as some are of JarJar.