Dragon Box Color?

[SSJ2Engels]

I think they cleaned the film but left the colors as-is. Fist of the North Star got a similar remaster originally, but they did some color touch-ups with the latest release of it (which is thankfully what Diskotek got when they decided to license FotNS.)

Does that release gets rid of the film grain though? Is it a *complete* remastering, that is? Is there actually any way to remove the grain without making the footage blurry (like what happened with DBKai)? It would actually be very interesting if this releases managed to archieve such type of thing.

Sorry for bringing this out-of-the-left-field, but it's a doubt I have since quite some time after kei mentioned it, so I just couldn't resist the opportunity to bring it up and ask someone.

[Kendamu]

No. Grain is part of the image. It's just how film works. Grain holds detail. Wiping grain means wiping detail. There's no way around it at this point.

[TheGreatness25]

No. Grain is part of the image. It's just how film works. Grain holds detail. Wiping grain means wiping detail. There's no way around it at this point.

That's what I thought after seeing what FUNimation did to the series in their season sets, but Kai uses the old footage and it doesn't really have grain.

It might be just me but the US Dragon Boxes don't look too pink on my TV like I thought they would (seeing images of the Japanese version). Could that be due to the difference in brightness or whatever that 30% thing was that accommodates for the different TV types or something?

[SSJ2Engels]

No. Grain is part of the image. It's just how film works. Grain holds detail. Wiping grain means wiping detail. There's no way around it at this point.

That's what I thought after seeing what FUNimation did to the series in their season sets, but Kai uses the old footage and it doesn't really have grain.

The point is not that it ''doesn't have grain'', it that the removing of grain removes image detail too. Kai doesn't have grain, but its footage is blurred and does not have a lot of details originally intended to be seen. It's still leagues better than the footage from the season sets, however.

...Was it ALWAYS like that, though? Does film always have grain, only that depending on the storage quality of the film, it can increase over time?

[Metalwario64]

Does film always have grain

Yes, the grain is the particles that make the film.

[SSJ2Engels]

Oh, thanks. I am still in the process of learning those things, you know.

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

Racist much?

Semantic fail much?


On topic: I had honestly forgotten what the Dragon Boxes look like. They are really damn pink.

[Tanooki Kuribo]

I had honestly forgotten what the Dragon Boxes look like. They are really damn pink.

It really just depends on what episode you're watching. Some episodes look better than others. But what it comes down to for me is, I rather have a box set that shows the age of the show, even if it means some episodes won't look super awesome. On top of that, I also want it to include the correct openings, recaps, title cards, closings and next episode previews. I don't wanna sound crazy or put words in anyone's mouth but I think anyone who buys the DragonBox is doing it not just for picture quality, but to preserve a certain moment in time.

You could show these Dragon Box fans charts and graphs of why you think the skin looks pink and it really wouldn't matter to them. If it looks pink, it's not because someone was messing around with the color like with the season sets. It's because you're looking at the actual deteriorating film and to some people, that's preservation and that's what they want.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I think they cleaned the film but left the colors as-is. Fist of the North Star got a similar remaster originally, but they did some color touch-ups with the latest release of it (which is thankfully what Diskotek got when they decided to license FotNS.)

While I'm not sure how relevant it is to the DBox, I looked up the Kanzentai article on Kai's remastering.

http://www.kanzentai.com/production.php?id=kai_remaster

I think the most interesting thing to note from this is that the shot Toei says is from "the original film master" looks very similar in color to the DBox shot, which supports your idea that they left the colors as-is for that release.

It seems rather bummerish that it appears a lot of the color issues could be corrected easily if there was simply time/budget for it.
It seems that most of the issues with the colors are simply Toei not really caring enough. I wonder if they'll ever do a Remastered Z with correct colors. Surely if Hokuto no Ken, a series without as much mainstream US Success, was able to...

[Stamosito]

Here I had to use Photoshop's "replace color" tool to add more of a bluish tint to the green color that the sky was. I think legitimate people who work in video editing may have tools with the same function.

Hey there! I just got my hands on the dragon box footage and I would love to color correct it. I see that you mention being able to do it in photoshop. I have no experience with photoshop so I have a couple questions about actually doing this myself.

1 Were you using adobe photoshop? If not, what program were you using?

2 Can I edit the actual video files in photoshop so that I can watch it? Or were you just editing specific screenshots?

3 You mentioned that you just removed the red cast and changed the blacks in one screenshot and also that you changed the greens to be more blue in another. Can you apply both of these filters at the same time to be able to color correct it all in one go?

4 You also mention that there are different colors of film, What did you mean by this? Are there various colors of film used throughout the series? If so, would I need to tailor each color balance to each episode depending on its film tint?

I would really appreciate your help, I'm trying to do this in the easiest way possible, but the other tutorials out there look extremely difficult to follow. Please let me know, thanks!

[Metalwario64]

Here I had to use Photoshop's "replace color" tool to add more of a bluish tint to the green color that the sky was. I think legitimate people who work in video editing may have tools with the same function.

Hey there! I just got my hands on the dragon box footage and I would love to color correct it. I see that you mention being able to do it in photoshop. I have no experience with photoshop so I have a couple questions about actually doing this myself.

1 Were you using adobe photoshop? If not, what program were you using?

2 Can I edit the actual video files in photoshop so that I can watch it? Or were you just editing specific screenshots?

3 You mentioned that you just removed the red cast and changed the blacks in one screenshot and also that you changed the greens to be more blue in another. Can you apply both of these filters at the same time to be able to color correct it all in one go?

4 You also mention that there are different colors of film, What did you mean by this? Are there various colors of film used throughout the series? If so, would I need to tailor each color balance to each episode depending on its film tint?

I would really appreciate your help, I'm trying to do this in the easiest way possible, but the other tutorials out there look extremely difficult to follow. Please let me know, thanks!

1) Back when I posted that, I was using Photoshop, but now for image editing I use GIMP, since I was using a Photoshop from the early 2000s.

2) No, you'd need proper video editing software for that, and I don't know what is recommended for it. I use Sony Vegas for general video editing, and it has color correcting features, but I think most people might use VirtualDub... maybe?

3) Typically when I make multiple adjustments just as images, I will usually work on one aspect (the sky color), and then separately afterward or beforehand do color curve adjustments to eliminate color casts and tinting from the film aging.

4) I just mean the color cast the film has (which you can tell by using a color picking tool and looking at its value), which differs depending on how the film has aged, and maybe even by film stock used. But yes, I believe you would have to do an episode by episode basis.

There's a much better thread dedicated to actually editing the video footage itself. I merely edited some screenshots as a proof-of-concept.