Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[Jinzoningen MULE]

...the Buu saga on the Dragon Box is quite fugly, to the point where I'd say the season set looks better, cropping aside (the DVD season set, i dunno how the Blu-Ray looks)

The Blu-rays of the Boo Arc are slightly better.

[ect5150]

...the Buu saga on the Dragon Box is quite fugly, to the point where I'd say the season set looks better, cropping aside (the DVD season set, i dunno how the Blu-Ray looks)

The Blu-rays of the Boo Arc are slightly better.

The Blu Ray discs largest problem is grain removal. Where FUNI's copy has lots of it, the episode quality seems to suffer... othertimes the quality is fine. The Buu saga seems to be on the better side of the series in this regard. You still have the letterboxing, no original title cards and few other small issues though.

Sorry, the pic isn't full resolution, but it is from the Blu Rays.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

The Blu Ray discs largest problem is grain removal. Where FUNI's copy has lots of it, the episode quality seems to suffer... othertimes the quality is fine. The Buu saga seems to be on the better side of the series in this regard. You still have the letterboxing, no original title cards and few other small issues though.

Sorry, the pic isn't full resolution, but it is from the Blu Rays.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Agreed. Here's the Dragon Box screenshot, for reference:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[HakkaiBills93]

I would like try some of this out but at best I can only remove color cast

Honestly, I've always thought that's the only thing the DBox footage has ever needed.

Granted, some of it needs some adjustments to fix crushed blacks or whites, but in general, the relative colours and overall look is just fine, with the only problem being the colour cast.

Having said that, I do enjoy these CC'd screenshots people post, and IMO an ideal situation would be to have Kai-esque colours, although that's very hard to do.

Each colors need to bé correct its not only color cast if you remove color cast gi aren t orange sky colors and others are allways wrong....kai colors are thé right ones from what i know but it s impossible to use those light colors on dbox footage without artifact ...dbox color correction isn t only color change to recover original ones but also correcting brightness luminosity contrast ...that s why with thé lack of original broadcast screenshot for the whole series it s really hellish to do as you can only use knowledge or other références as source

[HakkaiBills93]

And added to différent master generation that have différent colors and each country footage that dégradé differrently (for exemple french Old footage have some épisodes in good coondition but others are just atrocious looking like db ep 1) it s difficultés to get thé exact amount of each colors i think we can just get closed of them

[Bruma rabu]

Honestly, I've always thought that's the only thing the DBox footage has ever needed.

Granted, some of it needs some adjustments to fix crushed blacks or whites, but in general, the relative colours and overall look is just fine, with the only problem being the colour cast.

Having said that, I do enjoy these CC'd screenshots people post, and IMO an ideal situation would be to have Kai-esque colours, although that's very hard to do.

Thats what I aim for kai colors but man it's tough.

[Bruma rabu]

And added to différent master generation that have différent colors and each country footage that dégradé differrently (for exemple french Old footage have some épisodes in good coondition but others are just atrocious looking like db ep 1) it s difficultés to get thé exact amount of each colors i think we can just get closed of them

When you cc do you just do one shot or the whole episode?

[HakkaiBills93]

And added to différent master generation that have différent colors and each country footage that dégradé differrently (for exemple french Old footage have some épisodes in good coondition but others are just atrocious looking like db ep 1) it s difficultés to get thé exact amount of each colors i think we can just get closed of them

When you cc do you just do one shot or the whole episode?

i did episodes but cc settings are differrent on each part of the episodes (and sometimes it's even differrent on the same part) opening , part a, part b, next episode preview, ending for one episodes...
it's not perfect but it is fine for me

[ect5150]

opening , part a, part b, next episode preview, ending for one episodes...

Generally speaking, this approach works best (best here meaning best results without doing frame by frame). There are exceptions where you need to edit one odd scene, but I find it best to think of each part of the episode as if it were on a film reel. The real life factors that cause the color to fade/change are going to affect the film reel as a whole... so the color corrections for "part a" tend to work well through the entire part of that episode.

I also tend to prefer the Funi Blu Ray colors to the DBox as well (just the hues... they certainly "crushed the blacks" to make things pop... but the shades of colors look nice. I think that's a result of the Franko transfer though and we see it in the Level Set releases (I still cry that we don't have the full series like that). Funi basically took that release, "popped" the colors a decent bit... applied "smoothing" of sorts to help with grain and cropped it to help with some of the film damage that is on their version. I also believe the greater DB community at large prefers the cropping since it "fills my widescreen TV." So, they killed 2 birds with 1 stone there. The cropping on the Blu Rays is better than the previous stuff (since it's targeted a bit to the relevant part of the scene).

Again, Buu saga looks fine on the Blu Rays... the Cell Games have way too much DNR on them to the point where the lines are blurred and it basically changed the colors of the character lines (not like the screenshot I posted earlier).

Can't help but wonder if Funi had access to the actual negatives, if we would get a 4:3 release with proper color correction. The negatives more than likely have less damage and less grain than Funi's copy... so the costs wouldn't be as high to generate such a release.

Done ranting a bit---

[Robo4900]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

I don't see how you guys can say the BD footage even comes close to the DBox footage with a comparison like this. The DBoxes don't look great, sure, but the BD looks like a 5-minute MS Paint job.

The colours were probably good at one point, but Funi's oversaturation and other filters basically ruined it. It's like if someone scanned the Mona Lisa digitally, did a really nice restoration of it, then saved it as a JPEG at minimum quality.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

The colours were probably good at one point, but Funi's oversaturation and other filters basically ruined it. It's like if someone scanned the Mona Lisa digitally, did a really nice restoration of it, then saved it as a JPEG at minimum quality.

Even so, you can see what the palette ideally should've been, and work from there. I don't think anyone'll argue that the Seasons are preferable in their own right, but they are based on the same cc as the Levels, which many people, including myself, were a huge fan of. Much better than the Dragon Boxes, which especially nowadays, is a pretty ugly release.

I'd actually love to try replicating the Levels cc using the Dragon Boxes as a base, but that would be a tremendous pain in the ass, especially so for someone who's functionally illiterate in the area.

[HakkaiBills93]

you can replicate colors from the levels by using the color match tools that some star wars fan created , it can copy color from one image to another and you can export a .lut for after effect for example
the things is that you'll copy the crushed black and all tint from the footage
are the people really sure that the seasons sets have true colors? (except crushed black etc) cause i have seen that on some saiyan episodes sky might be a little green (even on toei cels and kai there is green) but on the seasons sets it's blue like on animax episodes (or old footage stuff)

[MrWalnut4]

Are the people really sure that the seasons sets have true colors? (except crushed black etc) cause i have seen that on some saiyan episodes sky might be a little green (even on toei cels and kai there is green) but on the seasons sets it's blue like on animax episodes (or old footage stuff)

Kai is the closest in terms of color accuracy but there are still cases where it's a bit off. The sky color in the Goku vs Vegeta fight being too green is a good example. The quality and consistency of Kai's color correction also varies between the Saiyan, Freeza, and Cell arcs.

[HakkaiBills93]

Are the people really sure that the seasons sets have true colors? (except crushed black etc) cause i have seen that on some saiyan episodes sky might be a little green (even on toei cels and kai there is green) but on the seasons sets it's blue like on animax episodes (or old footage stuff)

Kai is the closest in terms of color accuracy but there are still cases where it's a bit off. The sky color in the Goku vs Vegeta fight being too green is a good example. The quality and consistency of Kai's color correction also varies between the Saiyan, Freeza, and Cell arcs.

No thé green sky in the battle between Goku and végéta is also on toei vod cels which have right colors

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Kai is the closest in terms of color accuracy but there are still cases where it's a bit off. The sky color in the Goku vs Vegeta fight being too green is a good example. The quality and consistency of Kai's color correction also varies between the Saiyan, Freeza, and Cell arcs.

Pretty common misconception. The sky is actually supposed to be green in that fight.

[Bruma rabu]

i did episodes but cc settings are differrent on each part of the episodes (and sometimes it's even differrent on the same part) opening , part a, part b, next episode preview, ending for one episodes...
it's not perfect but it is fine for me

Yeah, while i was trying to cc i would notice one part would look good while another would look off. Man cant imagine doing the entire series

[HakkaiBills93]

it's not an easy task effectively, and more than that you have to be perfectly sure about your cc cause else you start over.
The main problem is to have the best possible references considering that old footage degrade differrently than the dbox, that some countries have colors close to the original ones but not perfect either.
Even kei broadcast tapes don't allways have the right colors
so you have to question yourself about
"what is the true colors for each things ?" then apply it part by part to each single episodes
that's why i think most of people already gave up doing it

[ect5150]

Kai is the closest in terms of color accuracy but there are still cases where it's a bit off. The sky color in the Goku vs Vegeta fight being too green is a good example. The quality and consistency of Kai's color correction also varies between the Saiyan, Freeza, and Cell arcs.

Pretty common misconception. The sky is actually supposed to be green in that fight.

Not according to kei17. Can't remember where or when, but I think he's presented the best evidence for the blue sky (as seen in the Level Sets). To be fair, those sets do have a hint of green... but no where near the DBox or Kai set levels.

[lansing]

The sky on earth was always blue, as shown on all Dragon Ball power level cards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p-a-4oAnsw
at 1:03

[HakkaiBills93]

Kai is the closest in terms of color accuracy but there are still cases where it's a bit off. The sky color in the Goku vs Vegeta fight being too green is a good example. The quality and consistency of Kai's color correction also varies between the Saiyan, Freeza, and Cell arcs.

Pretty common misconception. The sky is actually supposed to be green in that fight.

Not according to kei17. Can't remember where or when, but I think he's presented the best evidence for the blue sky (as seen in the Level Sets). To be fair, those sets do have a hint of green... but no where near the DBox or Kai set levels.

I remember kei said it was supposed to be slightly green but not as much as dbox

exactly he said this in this topic there:
[spoiler]

a better idea, have someone buy the whole package and screen capture all the episodes...well that'll take a long time. The price is higher than the old anime in bandai channel, but it's still reasonable.
Now we have to first make sure that the color in the show are indeed what they looks like in the thumbnails.

It's the Dragon Box footage. They used these cel scans just for thumbnails.

So, we actually have a better reference to target those episodes? Green sky? Blue sky? Teal sky is it now? The clouds actually have some green in them, which surprises me.

The sky is originally a little greenish on episode 30 to 35, but not as much as that on the DBox. That's the intended color.

[/spoiler]

For the level sets i don't know as goku's gi give me almost the same feeling as when i see animax episodes color.
Also take in consideration that it has crushed black making all colors darker than what they was supposed to be (people allways talking about colors but never seems to think that if you have dark footage, you'll have dark colors, it's the same for brighter footage

The sky on earth was always blue, as shown on all Dragon Ball power level cards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p-a-4oAnsw
at 1:03

some cards use cels but they are not an accurate source as some have totally wrong colors (was done before the anime) example:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler] those colors are wrong
but you can more use those cels given by toei on their vod website (beware some are dbox screenshot)






The sky is allways blue but have some kind of variations