[In progress] Hellraiser (1987) [Project: Celluloid]

[deleted user]

Levels in the first image are too compressed; reinstating them helps with black-ish somehow:



second image (in avisynth): 

Code:

levels(32,1,215,0,255)

(just made "on the fly", you could try to lower the gamma as well, from 1 to 0.9 or 0.8)

P.S. Hystogram is your friend!

First you complain about blown highlights, then you blow them yourself.

[spoRv]

Nope, levels are inside the limit - it seems, I guess... oh, well, read "on the fly" = it's made "by eye" - of course values should always be checked and eventually revised!

Thanks for the heart, though!

[LucasGodzilla]

To be fair, I do actually find the colors better in spoRv's fix despite it causing the actual blow-out and doesn't truly fix the pure-black color as visible in the matte bars on the top and bottom (not that it'd really matter since I'll have it cropped out by the end, let alone the fact that they're not the best guide for fixing blacks I'd imagine). I'll probably try and see if there's a Da Vinci Resolve equivalent to your Avi Synth edit since that'd probably fix the blow-out issue as well with the nodes system (either that or I have too much faith in the program).

[spoRv]

I don't use Resolve (yet), but I'm sure there will be level adjustment settings somewhere; warning, the second image levels are good, so I'd display histogram and correct levels only when they are "compressed" like in that image.

[LucasGodzilla]

So I did a bit of minor tweaking to that nun shot in specific and lowered the highlight down.



So hopefully that's better than before. If you still think the highlight is too high (somehow) or it's too little, just tell me.

Also, I was looking at some of the other controls for Da Vinci Resolve to see how to replicate the AviSynth settings and hoo-boy.



I have no idea what I'm doing, apart from the fact that these controls shown in the picture are just scratching the surface. I'm not dumb, I swear, I just never worked with the program nor color grading in general before this project...

[spoRv]

No idea of how DaVinci Resolve works, but I found that BlackMagic has published several tutorials:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/product...e/training

Take a look, maybe something would be useful.

[alexpeden2000]

Think you’re doing a great job with it so far! I’m looking to start to use Resolve with my new PC so good to see someone making real progress with it (I may be pm’ing you for a few pointers!)

[bronan]

Looks great, nice work!

[LucasGodzilla]

After a bit of experimenting, I decided to make a tweak to most of the nighttime scenes (some shots already had enough blue whilst others had minimal) and gave them an extra blue push in the gain. It may not be everyone's cup of tea (or maybe it is, idk), but from what I've seen from the trailer Turisu posted as well as personal accounts and film cells, I believe there's an added layer of blue in these scenes. My guess is that it's been artificially added in originally through photochemical color grading on the theatrical prints and not any of the home transfers. I also swapped out the LUT for the resolution scene and increased the highlights where the house burns down and the Eremite appears to give it a warmer look.

Now for the next step of trying to figure out how to fix the colored blacks issue within Da Vinci without screwing with the colors too much...

(In retrospect, I think I pushed the blues a little too much. I'll probably end up lowering it a smidge.)

[LucasGodzilla]

In the words of the late Bob Ross, I've had a "happy little accident".

The other day I finally settled on a proper method of color correcting the blacks: I ended up making a white-balance curve for each of the grades in Photoshop with the black point being on the colored black bar that I forgot to crop out last time, and then export a LUT to use specifically on the shots that used that aforementioned grade. However, it was during this that I discovered something kind of interesting...

There was one still I made a grade off of in particular. It was particularly faded looking one and in the end, I decided not to use it even after post-black correction (replaced it with a slightly less faded looking compilation Attic LUT). However, what I did end up using was the resultant correction LUT.

To put it simply: It was perfect.

It was a LUT that not only ended up fixing the faded, colored black look for the movie, but it kept in some of the colored blacks where it looked intended as well as giving a colder, bluer tint that pushed the blues in the direction I've been trying to get it to go without the need of any adjustments to the color wheel. It also helped unify the entire movie kept things looking consistent throughout. On top of that, all of the other specific LUTs I made ended up making some characters look inflicted with jaundice as well as sapping some of the wanted colors away. So with that, I ended up nixing the inferior LUTs I made and just applied it to the entire movie which, again, reinforced the blues beautifully in my opinion. It may not be perfect, and there are still hints of colored blacks, but I think it's darkened to the point of it being passable.

So with that, I present to all of you...

Project: Celluloid Regrade (V2)

Now one thing you may notice is that everything looks a fair bit darker, but I am quite happy with that change since it gives the movie a bit of a spookier mood as well as giving the blues a deeper look as mentioned prior.

I'm reconsidering my statements on DNRing the movie since it kind of came to me how this project at heart is merely a regrade, not a full-blown restoration. If someone wants to fix the grain issue then that's fine by me, but I'd rather not screw up a perfectly good regrade with sub-par DNR.

I'm thinking of leaving this project as it is right now. Unless any real glaring issues come to my attention or some more scans (or hell, a telecine even) come out that are less faded and more comprehensive than JohnCarpenterFan's, I don't see any real way of going forward with this project. So with that, I am currently working on exporting this from Da Vinci and cramming it into an MKV as soon as I can.

–––

Minor update: After talking with TomArrow, I've agreed to look into the crushed blacks issue. We've worked out a rough method where the darkest areas will be isolated and then composited over the crushed areas but I'll have to do some experimenting with the nodes system in Da Vinci later to get the desired effect.