Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[HakkaiBills93]

Dude, we are 63 pages into this topic and you're still talking about color correcting it by removing color cast? It had been blown out of the water by color matching like 2 years ago.

And I thought this debate was on selective color and color matching tool, why are you comparing it to an inferior method?

Even xerox code don't solve the issue as it will require to change brightness and luminosity for all color to match your source but all source aren't the same meaning that if you use it on one part, it won't work the same on another, if you match an overbright references you'll get overbright result that will be destructive for sure and that you'll never be able to reverse , like when you was trying to match season sets which have crushed black and overbrightness and loose some lines.

at least you have more control with after effect with lumetri colors, levels , selective colors and probably other plugins (and if you are unable to match a source using after effect it doesn't mean that it's impossible or inferior) than with a .lut files that can't work for every single episodes and all parts but will require as much lut than part to correct unlike after effect preset that you can create that will only need white balance adjustment and all others colors will be okay with the remaining settings

i am curious to see one full episode done with a single lut to laugh about all white balance issue you'll have in the result

What are you even talking about?? The use the color matching is going to be apply in a scene by scene basis, as I had posted about it in this very thread a year ago. What are you smoking?

yes the color match tools require to have two sources that have the same level as contrast and luminosity to work perfectly and good luck if you are thinking that it can be reach with references available.

Dude, I'm going for the highest quality color correction, not some amateur cc people have been doing that ended up going nowhere. When you have seen the best, there is no point to even go for the inferior methods. And in my latest finding here I had explained why collecting references is actually doable now.

i never said that removing the color cast is the only thing to do in color correction, selective color don't remove any color cast at all, and i know agument with you is useless as you can't accept being wrong.

Well, then there you go with that limitation on selective color when compares to color matching programs. The latter one doesn't care about color cast.

Spoiler:

people are talking about enigmo, but you are FARRRRRRR MORE ARROGANT than him
even with a frame by frame analysis, by using things where the white will be white, it will affect bright scenes as white is supposed to be a shade of grey on a film, you'll maybe get your nice colors but you'll make an overbright cc, i remember when you were loudly claiming that season sets was the more accurate source

but couldn't even noticed that overbrightness is the only thing that make the season sets white colors white as it have a color cast too ,

color matching will make the white look white cause your matching source is white BUT destination is film anime not digital anime with painted colors, it will crushed white
but anyway it's useless to talk with someone who think that he have the universal knowledge and is the best (but at this time we didn't even see one video clip showing worthy result) your sailor moon screenshot isn't something impressive at all, lot of people can do that

if you think your way is totally superior then please do it, show the final result and impress everyone with that, but at least stop talking about other software as bullshit just because you are unable to used them or don't know how to use them, it's also very arrogant, there is several way to do cc, but at least i'll stop there, i have already my rate of stupid arrogant people that think they have the truth and all others are wrong, do your things before bullshitting others work, then you'll have all the rights to talk and criticized what you didn't do

[crabshank1]

people are talking about enigmo, but you are FARRRRRRR MORE ARROGANT than him

100%
In fact, more.

[HakkaiBills93]

anyone can do something like that (even if it need some work again)

[lansing]

even with a frame by frame analysis, by using things where the white will be white, it will affect bright scenes as white is supposed to be a shade of grey on a film, you'll maybe get your nice colors but you'll make an overbright cc, i remember when you were loudly claiming that season sets was the more accurate source

but couldn't even noticed that overbrightness is the only thing that make the season sets white colors white as it have a color cast too ,

Yes it is because its color match the color on the dragon ball power level cards that were printed at that time.

color matching will make the white look white cause your matching source is white BUT destination is film anime not digital anime with painted colors, it will crushed white

I have no idea what are you saying.

your sailor moon screenshot isn't something impressive at all, lot of people can do that

Just try it without using your white balance method and see how far can you get

if you think your way is totally superior then please do it, show the final result and impress everyone with that, but at least stop talking about other software as bullshit just because you are unable to used them or don't know how to use them, it's also very arrogant, there is several way to do cc, but at least i'll stop there, i have already my rate of stupid arrogant people that think they have the truth and all others are wrong, do your things before bullshitting others work, then you'll have all the rights to talk and criticized what you didn't do

What? You are the one that jumps on me defending selective color when I was actually complementing it. Yes the selective color method has been superseded by color matching program but it was in no mean that it sucks. You are the one that was pushing to draw the comparison between them.

[HakkaiBills93]

Yes it is because its color match the color on the dragon ball power level cards that were printed at that time.

think what you want about season sets (like people said "believe in your dream") i'll not waste my time on that

color matching will make the white look white cause your matching source is white BUT destination is film anime not digital anime with painted colors, it will crushed white

I have no idea what are you saying.

if you don't know that simple fact that on film anime white are supposed to be shade of grey, it's understandable why you can't see why color match tools isn't perfect either , matching colors is making one colour look like the color you take as references, BUT as you want to make grey white, it's the same as raising contrast and luminosity, try with lot of episode then maybe you'll understand

here is the dbox that preserve all details

here your so called accurate source


an accurate source should have the right amount of luminosity for each colors, so crushed black or white make light blue look dark blue etc so not good colors, the crushed white hide slight color cast

if you match season sets colors where funi make the black black and the white white by using excessive contrast and luminosity you 'll also have the same issue on the destination , that's what i mean, when i show you first time thoses screenshot, you told me that:

"This is one of the special effect, such as spirit balls, lightnings, flashes and explosions, they are supposed to look blown out. Having a little more to it is not that big of a deal. And for this particular scene, you can use the one from the level set that have not been overbrighten."

what i point is that you need a reliable source with the right contrast as references, production cels are naturally more detailed, brightest etc without crushing anything but when you'll applied that on dbox it will blown it ,

Just try it without using your white balance method and see how far can you get

try to color match without using a lut ...your comment is stupid, your way is to color correct all colors at the same time using a lut that will alter all color channel to fit your refrences, it does everything at the same time , it don't make it better than doing a white balance and then correct others colors /hue alterations, it's a differrent way that's all. calling your way "superior" without really knowing or having tried everything is arrogant

if your lut make your footage overbright then it will be impossible to recover what the lut destroy unlike in my way where you can allways adjust it as all settings can be adjusted easilly

What? You are the one that jumps on me defending selective color when I was actually complementing it. Yes the selective color method has been superseded by color matching program but it was in no mean that it sucks.

color matching and selective color aren't the same things at all

[lansing]

Yes it is because its color match the color on the dragon ball power level cards that were printed at that time.

think what you want about season sets (like people said "believe in your dream") i'll not waste my time on that

Lol iirc I even showed you the youtube video (with exact time) that has the card that look like the season set color, you're just being ignorant now.

I have no idea what are you saying.

if you don't know that simple fact that on film anime white are supposed to be shade of grey, it's understandable why you can't see why color match tools isn't perfect either , matching colors is making one colour look like the color you take as references, BUT as you want to make grey white, it's the same as raising contrast and luminosity, try with lot of episode then maybe you'll understand

This is hilarious, you couldn't even use the color matching program correctly but yet you're telling me that it has some kind of invisible problem.

an accurate source should have the right amount of luminosity for each colors, so crushed black or white make light blue look dark blue etc so not good colors, the crushed white hide slight color cast

...

what i point is that you need a reliable source with the right contrast as references, production cels are naturally more detailed, brightest etc without crushing anything but when you'll applied that on dbox it will blown it ,

That makes absolutely no sense.

Just try it without using your white balance method and see how far can you get

try to color match without using a lut ...your comment is stupid, your way is to color correct all colors at the same time using a lut that will alter all color channel to fit your refrences, it does everything at the same time , it don't make it better than doing a white balance and then correct others colors /hue alterations, it's a differrent way that's all. calling your way "superior" without really knowing or having tried everything is arrogant

How about try whatever you can and see how far can you get

[crabshank1]

Second attempt at Dragon Ball E109.

https://youtu.be/rvQVTZXR6pM

I further refined my audio technique, so this one sounds awesome.









No crushing and no adjustments to the saturation or value channels in this one.

[jaisonas]

I cant really say i like your method. First of all the biggest issue is those artifacts produced that make it look like a super low quality GIF.
Second, you say there's no crushing but you're loosing quite some color information with that correction.

To begin with the episode has a Maxed out green channel


In order to say correct it ""correctly"" you must subtract that channel a bit and bring out the blue thats missing.

Obviously the picture is quite darker now, but you're not missing any color information.

However if you want to bring the brightness levels to a higher level with the color corrections, you will undoubtedly eat quite a bit from the top of that blue channel. The pic below is still not at the same brightness as yours to save some of the blues.


I understand that its not the best looking episode in the world but this is why the proper way to do it is scene by scene with proper software and not with an automated script.

[crabshank1]

I cant really say i like your method. First of all the biggest issue is those artifacts produced that make it look like a super low quality GIF.
Second, you say there's no crushing but you're loosing quite some color information with that correction.

To begin with the episode has a Maxed out green channel


In order to say correct it ""correctly"" you must subtract that channel a bit and bring out the blue thats missing.

Obviously the picture is quite darker now, but you're not missing any color information.

However if you want to bring the brightness levels to a higher level with the color corrections, you will undoubtedly eat quite a bit from the top of that blue channel. The pic below is still not at the same brightness as yours to save some of the blues.


I understand that its not the best looking episode in the world but this is why the proper way to do it is scene by scene with proper software and not with an automated script.

The "artifacts" aren't that at all, but grey dithering to destroy the macroblocks.

When I say 'crushing' I refer to my shader De-saturate dither.hlsl, which remaps the RGB range to a smaller one and then remaps it back to the full range. This deliberately loses colour information through floating point rounding errors. It has a similar effect to averaging the pixels.

Anyway, The only other adjustments I did were hue remappings and a white balance (matching green and blue to the red channel this time). I wasn't trying to get a bright picture.

[jaisonas]

The issue is that the dragonboxes dont really suffer from macro blocking, they are infact really well encoded. So at this point the only thing you're doing is adding an unwanted grain effect, which in lots of cases destroys detail (see clouds for example)

That method would be helpfull if the dvds looked as bad as this

[crabshank1]

The issue is that the dragonboxes dont really suffer from macro blocking, they are infact really well encoded. So at this point the only thing you're doing is adding an unwanted grain effect, which in lots of cases destroys detail (see clouds for example)

That method would be helpfull if the dvds looked as bad as this

When I zoom into that shot I see similiar levels of blocking to the dbox, granted it looks to be a slightly different type/shape. Also, the more you upscale before dithering the less the effect on detail.

[HakkaiBills93]

i don't care about "carddass" you are correcting a "film" when cels are shot on films, colors already degrade, you have to bear with the film source that is not as details, as well contrasted etc, if you take overbright stuffs, you'll overbright the film, it's not the original production cel that you have to correct, kei17 (which is far more experimented than any of us with the countless original sources and knowledge he have said himself that season sets aren't accurate) trust it or not i totally don't care, season sets have nice colors but it's not totally accurate and i won't argument anymore on that thing, season sets use multigen film print so already degrade as "copy of copy" you don't have color pixels in the white on the cels, the footage on cels are regular... you tried to match a source that couldn't be exactly the same on film.

here is your sailor moon cc using "superior" color correction


here is what have been done by Enigmo that use an "inferior" tool like me but explain it better than i can so i'll quote him (but he is not a sailor moon fan and me either so don't mind hue it's a thing that anyway is really easy to correct) he send me this and even if people hate him, i wait for anyone to show where your tool is superior than any others as it's not even able to get a proper white color in this shot



the white balance in your "superior" way suck
the white is still so very orange tinted
on the colour picker, the goal is for the saturation S level to be close to zero
on enigmo one it's 1
on yours its 12 lol meaning it has a tint
and with a tinted result, you can't even say "it's color corrected"

that' mean that even if you reach a better result with color matching tools....it's far than perfect or superior

oh and even my "inferior" way give a better result than your "superior" way

[lansing]

i don't care about "carddass" you are correcting a "film" when cels are shot on films, colors already degrade, you have to bear with the film source that is not as details, as well contrasted etc, if you take overbright stuffs, you'll overbright the film, it's not the original production cel that you have to correct, kei17 (which is far more experimented than any of us with the countless original sources and knowledge he have said himself that season sets aren't accurate) trust it or not i totally don't care, season sets have nice colors but it's not totally accurate and i won't argument anymore on that thing, you don't have color pixels in the white on the cels, the footage on cels are regular... you tried to match a source that couldn't be exactly the same on film.

Once again I have no idea what you saying. I don't even see a valid point.

here is your sailor moon cc using "superior" color correction

Spoiler:

here is what have been done by Enigmo that use an "inferior" tool like me but explain it better than i can so i'll quote him (but he is not a sailor moon fan and me either so don't mind hue it's a thing that anyway is really easy to correct) he send me this and even if people hate him, i wait for anyone to show where your tool is superior than any others as it's not even able to get a proper white color in this shot

Spoiler:

the white balance in your "superior" way suck
the white is still so very orange tinted
on the colour picker, the goal is for the saturation S level to be close to zero
on enigmo one it's 1
on yours its 12 lol meaning it has a tint
and with a tinted result, you can't even say "it's color corrected"

Lol the goal was never on achieving white balance, getting white balance does not gives you the correct color you wanted. Have we not seen enough from all the previous attempts in this thread?

And I thought your attempt was to match the original to mine to show that it was easy? You do know that it was way off right now right?

that' mean that even if you reach a better result with color matching tools....it's far than perfect or superior

That is the whole point of using color matching tool, it produces better result than any other method which failed to achieve the desired color, which is the definition of superior.

[HakkaiBills93]

Once again I have no idea what you saying. I don't even see a valid point.

like i said i don't care about what you said, more with "carddass" as only argument it's not like if it was never said that 35mm promotions cels that are used for all cardass or thumbnails etc was the final result in the show but as i said, explain it to you is useless you are the kind of guys that allways knows the true about evrything so just "stay in your world" and in 100 years maybe you'll show a valuable things about what you are doing for years^^
season sets HAVE COLOR CAST that you can see by lowering contrast and luminosity, so it can't be accurate no matter which stupid things you can say

and anyway EVEN if it was really accurate , matching the brightness, contrast etc will blow out details , you'll also need accurate references shot for each part you trimmed (automaticaly or not)
color match tools is perfect when you have one source 100% reliable as a references like a movie but anyway it never meant that no software can reach the same result, it's not like you can say that you master perfectly all software and plugins in the world to compare the result with the tools and say "it's the best one", it is maybe the best for YOU only cause you don't know other way to reach it

Lol the goal was never on achieving white balance, getting white balance does not gives you the correct color you wanted. Have we not seen enough from all the previous attempts in this thread?

In the thread you see attempt, like i said it's not because someone show something bad from a software that a good things can't be done with it, it's not like if all people where posting their work there and neither you or me are professionnal, remember that here people think and said loudly that the crushed black and overbrightness are only caused of funimation taste but it's totally wrong, kei17 on twitter recently lend what to transfer his dragon ball filmprints that are multigen too (copy of copy etc) and it have the same issue. (but i think that funimation also add more brightness , saturations etc)
Back in time if you were making VHS copy, how was the result? allways from copy to copy with higher contrast etc like you can see on all fansub files that are on the web, it's dark in the dark and overbright. it's not because people settled them like that, it's only cause it's multigen VHS copy
.....the hard part is that there is no reliable source, you have close colors that's all and matching promotion cels is a stupid idea, altering hue and colors is pretty easy , until you know how should look the result (that's the hardest part to figure)

you are stupid and you show it, a tinted result CAN'T BE CALLED COLOR CORRECTION, you match colors and? you have copy the tint, wooooooooohh really impressive, you alter one source that need corrections to match another one "less degraded" that also need to be corrected.... you want a medal? it's a superior work? XD

i never try to match colors you show about sailor moon as:
- i can't rely on someone talking accurate colors but show a supposed color correction with a color cast in the result
- i don't fucking care about this anime that i think is stupid and for girls (my opinion of course, i respect if others like it but it's what i think myself) i used my dragon ball preset only to show that white balance is FARRRRR BETTER THAN YOUR COLOR MATCHING SHIT , after the white balance i only need to alter colors to fit the rights one that is pretty easy, unlike in your way where you have to white balance after and maybe correct the issue done by the white balancing, it means more things to do and more probability that you'll crushed something else by additionnal things.
i also said that i didn't checked accuracy and that hue or colors are easy to alter to match the right ones, in no way i said my accuracy was better than yours , just the white balance and you can't deny, i show it to you and i am not the only one

what i said:
that' mean that even if you reach a better result with color matching tools....it's far than perfect or superior

what you answered
That is the whole point of using color matching tool, it produces better result than any other method which failed to achieve the desired color, which is the definition of superior.

i never said that the better result was against all other kind of color correction , it's a better result than the source, but at least a color correction with issue like white balance or overbrightness etc can't be really called color correction

[crabshank1]

Hey lansing! Prove your methods are superior by matching these! Should be easy, the palette (the LUT) is in her hand :

From Wikipedia:

Original:

[HakkaiBills93]

Hey lansing! Prove your methods are superior by matching these! Should be easy, the palette (the LUT) is in her hand :

From Wikipedia:

Original:

it's not how he need to be tested as dr dre tools can do that kind of things easilly , it's not the thing i am saying about this tools or way

- doing a scene by scene color correction is a good idea
- using dr dre tools for each part it's what i point cause it will match a source with a references BUT will also match all references issues to the source, you need a nice graded release to match it and season sets can't be this source as it have a color cast, overbrightness etc, as white is supposed to be shade of bright grey, if you match it with bright white references, then you'll crushed brightness like the same things is valid in the black colors, it can be perfectly done for some part, but YOU SIMPLY can't proove that you can create something that will automatically settle the right things in the white area and black area without crushing thoses area

it's like auto color after effect plugins that don't work for all frames cause when it's black or really bright it give a serious issues and sometimes it also don't do the right things, automated stuffs can't beat manual adjustment for that kind of things


dr dre tools is powerfull but it's another story in motion and rely on what references you are using, dbox is totally irregular and cels aren't reliable for a matching references as the tool won't check what is bright or dark in the source and in the references and adjusting taking it in consideration.
it will only color match the reference to the destination, it will be the same way as you can adjust yourself manually from others way, and for a supposed "superior" way, you should know that any professional will tell you about color correction that after you white balance, you color grade and doing it with your eyes will take this brightness in consideration unlike by automated lut that will just match no matter what and you'll never be able to recover anything after.

anyway you want a nice test?

try to match this one from z first nep that have color error


it only show that dr dre tools did automatically what you did usually manually (it can't create colors from nothing) , it will adjust all color channel, hue, brightness etc to fit the reference the same way you can do with several others software
the biggest issue in that thing is that the lut will use references brightness etc unlike the source brightness to retain all details, meaning that it will crushed details in the white or black if they are really high contrast.

like everyone should know taking episode 109 of db as references, once it is scan overbright, it's too late, there is loss
if it was scanned with the right contrast and settle manualy , you could have adjusted it to preserve any details loss

all this fucking things remind me what a french collector was saying to me, allways pretending that my cc was shit but except one greenish to the hell screenshot i never see any valuable and consistant amount of evidence in what he is better.

why didn't we see any great video clip with bright and dark scenes yet to see with this tools why i am wrong if i am wrong?
my cc is not perfect but in no case i'll say that what i can do, others can't do better or that my way is "superior" it's only arrogant , stop making useless speculations, show us your "superior" color correction in action, show evidence or shut your mouth

[crabshank1]

but YOU SIMPLY can't proove that you can create something that will automatically settle the right things in the white area and black area without crushing thoses area

I think my method is as close as one can get (my webpage + remapping shader).

[HakkaiBills93]

but YOU SIMPLY can't proove that you can create something that will automatically settle the right things in the white area and black area without crushing thoses area

I think my method is as close as one can get (my webpage + remapping shader).

i don't understand how it work, didn't test it myself so can't say anything else than i feel strange in your latest 109 video with what is visible in the clouds and that things in the cloud look unnatural for me (i have nothing to say about accuracy colors as there is no solid evidence on how should look the colors for this part )

[crabshank1]

but YOU SIMPLY can't proove that you can create something that will automatically settle the right things in the white area and black area without crushing thoses area

I think my method is as close as one can get (my webpage + remapping shader).

i don't understand how it work, didn't test it myself so can't say anything else than i feel strange in your latest 109 video with what is visible in the clouds and that things in the cloud look unnatural for me (i have nothing to say about accuracy colors as there is no solid evidence on how should look the colors for this part )

Basically for all greyscale parts of the video R=G=B, I make an image of areas that are supposed to be grey and my page lets you match all the channels to one channel, so that R=G=B. Then I put the points it gives me into my shader and it white balances.

[HakkaiBills93]

I think my method is as close as one can get (my webpage + remapping shader).

i don't understand how it work, didn't test it myself so can't say anything else than i feel strange in your latest 109 video with what is visible in the clouds and that things in the cloud look unnatural for me (i have nothing to say about accuracy colors as there is no solid evidence on how should look the colors for this part )

Basically for all greyscale parts of the video R=G=B, I make an image of areas that are supposed to be grey and my page lets you match all the channels to one channel, so that R=G=B. Then I put the points it gives me into my shader and it white balances.

the main trouble is that all frames are basically differrent so in a same part, you'll have to get a kind of middle value, if you did it automatically it can lead to things that the plugins or function can't understand, for example i tried with few jackie chan movies where night scenes have been calibrate to strong blue tint unlike original release where things where far brighter and clearer, some frames remain untouch with blue tint while others were properly white balanced, black frame was brighten with colors artifact etc bright was having coloured artifact , only cause it's automated and can't adapt to some kind of frames

for me a proper calibration need to
- white balance by only altering colors channels for that (not raising contrast to have a white really white (it's a kind of stupid cheat)
- alter hue or colors to correct remaining alterations
- adjust contrast, levels or brightness to reveal details when it's too dark or adjust when it's too bright


if some kind of proper color correction could be done automatically perfectly without any manual things, i think there will already have a software or a plugin in that purpose