[No Longer Available] Die Hard With A Vengeance Regrade (35 Project #2)

[Beber]

I think picture 4 has almost no advantages besides the not blown out highlights. The shadows are much nicer and punchy in version 3. Should not be hard to fix the highlights and keep the rest.

It is "punchy", that's what I like about it. Probably the contrast that makes it look like film. But it looks a bit rough for home viewing and a bit bland in saturation and lack of "yellow style". The 4th picture, when saturation is reduced, looks what a HD remaster could look like, and I also like it.

[PDB]

Sorry been busy all day and couldn't answer questions. I should of expended my thoughts in my previous post. Pic 3 is a best match to Beber's pics but as it is, it's unsuitable to watch the movie like that. That particular pic looks ok but if you watched an entire movie like that, well it would be like watching a bad cam. Pic 4 is the goal since it corrects all the faults of the one-to-one match.

Beber's pics are blown out, he said as much in a previous post. That is also normal and what I would expect for pictures taken in a dark theater against a bright, bright screen. Problem is they are clipping too such a degree that is destroys information. There would be some clipping in a 35mm print but this is too much. For example, whenever there is a scene shot outside the clipping pretty much destroys the backgrounds. Buildings, wires, etc disappear. Even inside in more balance scenes information can be lost. For example look at the details in the window in this comparison using the same LUT in post 98

BD/Beber's 35mm Pic/BD Regrade as close as possible to Beber's Pic/BD Regrade+highlights pulled down+50% luma from the BD


You can see the pattern in the glass is lost and in pic 4 it's recovered (although still some info lost). And its not a simple fix of just tweaking the highlights (I wish and tried) I need to "repair" the luma from the BD. It will flatten it out a bit but like my DH2 project it still leans heavily towards that contrasty 35mm look. You have to have a bit of comparmise there but don't worry this isn't my first rodeo, I think I can make it look good.

Incidentally, pics 3 and 4 have the exact same colors in both examples (an further ones), any differences are in the luma. The chroma is the same but different luma accentuates the colors in different ways. The extra yellow is what is already there, recovered by restoring the highlights.

I might be able to get more examples from another source but I'm not holding my breath right now. I did get a few examples, that clues me in to what the movie should look like un-clipped (or less clipped). The good thing it that although this one LUT doesn't cover the whole movie (per normal), it cover seem to cover a good 65 to 75% of the movie correctly when compared to Beber's pics. Which is nice. Here are some more random examples of this one LUT applied to the whole film (plus the requested reduction in saturation). I stress this is a rough test and shot by shot work is needed. I also need hard drive space to go further but it's off to a good start.

BD/BD Regrade/BD Regrade+highlights pulled down+50% luma from the BD

[spoRv]

Love the middle pics - so punchy! - but, if highlight would be too much blown, I'd go with something in between middle and last pics.

Agree with Beber: there is so much potential in current BDs (won't speak about UHD, as I have no HDR display, but probably will be the same); it's a pity they (people who worked in the studios) would not care (too much), and it's great we (just a bunch of fans) could make such great job... amazing, and, as someone keep saying:

I love this place

(I guess it would become a meme here! )

[CSchmidlapp]

This really is great work again PDB.
Out of interest, what do the 'troublesome' scenes from your previous grade look like?

To me the 3rd shots still look the best

[deleted user]

Why is it not possible to pull down the highlights? I've done this a few times by opening the LUT in Photoshop, applying a curve PRE-LUT, then pulling down the highlights PRE-LUT, then exporting the result as a new LUT. Works pretty well at times.

[Stamper]

4 looks great to me. That's the best you can do with the current master. Is there a way you can align and color match the missing top from the old DVD so that the framing is adjusted?

[spoRv]

4 looks great to me. That's the best you can do with the current master. Is there a way you can align and color match the missing top from the old DVD so that the framing is adjusted?

I guess it's possible using the auto-align plugin; still, I fear they won't match perfectly due to different color gradings, but I will be more than happy to be wrong about this!

[Beber]

Oh, come on, you guys! Please don't bring SD into this.

[Beber]

I know, PDB, this is a rough test, but here's my observation anyway.
I like the shift towards blue on Cobb's suit while keeping the green background. Same with the office workers watching the "show" from their window.
I'm not so sure McClane's face should be so bright on the payphone shot.
Not so sure either about the very cyan bombing aftermath shot with very cyan police cars. I wonder how the police cars would look, when regraded, on this shot below, next to the cop shirts:

[spoRv]

Oh, come on, you guys! Please don't bring SD into this.

I could live with a small "slice" of upscaled SD, it if brings back some image parts - of course, IMHO!