Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[vanner64]

Oh boy, where to start with this one?

I don't think age can change the color of a cel, it is literally paint, and if it does, surely it does in a totally different way compared to a film/photography.

Trachta, take a look at this cel. Anyone reading should also take a look. Notice anything?


Maybe not? I'll zoom it in a bit.


Look at the outline around the beard and his ear in this cel. Looks a tad brown right? If I were the kind of person who wanted to color correct Dragon Ball to look like exactly the cels, and I used this cel to reference this scene, there is really only one of two possible conclusions I can draw from this:

1. The colors of the cels have aged a bit, especially the black outline in the area I mentioned. I would then realize the cels are not 100% accurate 100% of the time. There may be "good cels" and "bad cels" but it might be harder to tell, and perhaps most importantly; no one has access to cels for every scene of Dragon Ball, let alone "perfect" cels for every scene. Therefore, some reasoning must be made beyond scans of cels.
2. As you said, age did not change the color of the cel. This means the animators decided for one scene to make part of what is normally a black outline, a brown outline instead. Therefore, if I want the scene to look like the cel, I should change the color of the outline in this one part.

If someone can't figure out which conclusion is correct, I don't know what to tell you.

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

I implore you or anyone else to actually compare Kai to original cels. I actually don't hate the colors of Kai, but they are lighter and more pastel compared to Dragon Ball Z cels. Here's an example I found from the first episode:


Let me get ahead of some potential comments:
1. Yes I know it's not the exact same frame. I saw that cel and recognized it was from the first episode, but the specific scene was cut in Kai. Clearly it is the same characters with a similar background. If Kai matched the cels, we would expect these colors to match. Don't get me wrong, it's close, but Kai is lighter overall. Certainly not the "true colors".
2. "Didn't you just say you can't trust the cels 100%???" Sure. But the specific claim is the Kai reflects the "true colors" of the show. Either the cel is off, Kai is off, or both.
3. Please do not post that nonsense picture claiming DB Kai has different colors in the USBD, JPBD, and DVD and that I compared "The wrong one." I, and other people, have compared the raw BD/DVD images and found that comparison image to be totally inaccurate. It was likely a result of a poor encode. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're fine.

That idea, of the cels being made in such way to account for changes when converting to film It's something I've never heard before. And is probably not true

Please don't ever say things or think like this. Not as a fan of some show, but as a person. If you think "I haven't personally heard of something like this happening in a industry I don't work in, so it's probably not true." is a terrible way to learn and grow as a person.

Here's a website in English that talks about the classic animation process https://japanesegallery.com/anime_and_m ... els-cel-ga
I'll take out some important quotes for anyone who doesn't feel like reading the entire page:

"The paints used in cel production are manufactured in slight variations of the desired colour in order to compensate for the extra layer of transparent cel added between the image and the camera; for example a slightly brighter colour would be used for a bottom layer cel to offset the dulling effect of the cels on top."

And later...

"...sometimes promotional cels that are produced by the relevant production studios (such as Naruto’s Studio Pierrot and Studio Ghibli) as one-off collectibles, but the key difference is these will not have been used in the production of show, and often the backgrounds will have been printed out as opposed to painted."

I'll leave it at that.

[RustyCreed]

The other issue is that the promotional images being posted are not cels. Those promo images were instead made by printing cels onto a piece of high quality film. So at the end of the day, those images are from film. Don't believe me? Find a high resolution one from Toei's twitter, zoom in, and you'll see the film grain. And as we know, film degrades over time in various ways. Just look at the Dragon Boxes, sourced from film of the negatives, or the Level Sets, sourced from later generation film. So you can't point to a promotional image and say it's 100% the intended colors because it was also subject to some sort of film degradation over time.

About these: https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragonz/episode/
These are the same promotional images, but somebody has color graded them to have a certain look. If you compare actual well-preserved cels or Kai to these particular images, you'll find that these images have clear differences. Just look at how the sky in these is way bluer than Kai or cels. That's not to say they look bad, it's just that it's not correct to say they're completely accurate.

[Trachta10]

Oh boy, where to start with this one?

I don't think age can change the color of a cel, it is literally paint, and if it does, surely it does in a totally different way compared to a film/photography.

Trachta, take a look at this cel. Anyone reading should also take a look. Notice anything?


Maybe not? I'll zoom it in a bit.


Look at the outline around the beard and his ear in this cel. Looks a tad brown right? If I were the kind of person who wanted to color correct Dragon Ball to look like exactly the cels, and I used this cel to reference this scene, there is really only one of two possible conclusions I can draw from this:

1. The colors of the cels have aged a bit, especially the black outline in the area I mentioned. I would then realize the cels are not 100% accurate 100% of the time. There may be "good cels" and "bad cels" but it might be harder to tell, and perhaps most importantly; no one has access to cels for every scene of Dragon Ball, let alone "perfect" cels for every scene. Therefore, some reasoning must be made beyond scans of cels.
2. As you said, age did not change the color of the cel. This means the animators decided for one scene to make part of what is normally a black outline, a brown outline instead. Therefore, if I want the scene to look like the cel, I should change the color of the outline in this one part.

If someone can't figure out which conclusion is correct, I don't know what to tell you.

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

I implore you or anyone else to actually compare Kai to original cels. I actually don't hate the colors of Kai, but they are lighter and more pastel compared to Dragon Ball Z cels. Here's an example I found from the first episode:


Let me get ahead of some potential comments:
1. Yes I know it's not the exact same frame. I saw that cel and recognized it was from the first episode, but the specific scene was cut in Kai. Clearly it is the same characters with a similar background. If Kai matched the cels, we would expect these colors to match. Don't get me wrong, it's close, but Kai is lighter overall. Certainly not the "true colors".
2. "Didn't you just say you can't trust the cels 100%???" Sure. But the specific claim is the Kai reflects the "true colors" of the show. Either the cel is off, Kai is off, or both.
3. Please do not post that nonsense picture claiming DB Kai has different colors in the USBD, JPBD, and DVD and that I compared "The wrong one." I, and other people, have compared the raw BD/DVD images and found that comparison image to be totally inaccurate. It was likely a result of a poor encode. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're fine.

That idea, of the cels being made in such way to account for changes when converting to film It's something I've never heard before. And is probably not true

Please don't ever say things or think like this. Not as a fan of some show, but as a person. If you think "I haven't personally heard of something like this happening in a industry I don't work in, so it's probably not true." is a terrible way to learn and grow as a person.

Here's a website in English that talks about the classic animation process https://japanesegallery.com/anime_and_m ... els-cel-ga
I'll take out some important quotes for anyone who doesn't feel like reading the entire page:

"The paints used in cel production are manufactured in slight variations of the desired colour in order to compensate for the extra layer of transparent cel added between the image and the camera; for example a slightly brighter colour would be used for a bottom layer cel to offset the dulling effect of the cels on top."

And later...

"...sometimes promotional cels that are produced by the relevant production studios (such as Naruto’s Studio Pierrot and Studio Ghibli) as one-off collectibles, but the key difference is these will not have been used in the production of show, and often the backgrounds will have been printed out as opposed to painted."

I'll leave it at that.

It deteriorates over time (practically nothing), but the colors still look so much better than any raw film scan of the show you've ever seen.

I know is difficult to find cels that look identical to each other, because they were scanned in different ways, that is why I told you that the best source I've seen is this, because they look pretty homogeneous
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragon/episode/
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragonz/episode/

If your point is that we shouldn't use cels as reference because there is not a perfect source, this problem has already been solved
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
Is not even needed to look up for cels

With this one you are completely wrong, because the image on the left is one of those promotional HD scans that Toei usually share, this is an old analog scan which colors have been deteriorated over time and was recently digitally re-scanned. What you are seeing here is the deterioration of the colors of a film. (also I'm pretty sure they added some weird filter on it to try to make it look better)


Also, Kai of course don't look 100% identical to a cel, but that is not the point, the point is that they tried to make the colors to look the close as possible to the cels, even if they didn't make it perfectly, his goal was that. And they got a great result.


About the last point, they are clearly saying that they used "slight variations of the desired colour in order to compensate for the extra layer of transparent cel added" nothing more, that is completely different from somehow design the colors of the cel in such way to account for changes in color when converting to film.

[jjgp1112]

Kai has certain colors that are definitely different from the OG - namely Piccoloss skin still being a bright emerald green as opposed to a dark, pale green on the yellowed side, and the Turtle gi is Hella bright. While it's a good ballpark reference point and certainly comes closer than the DBox and Funi releases, it's hardly that accurate to the best Cel sources. It IS pretty much 1:1 with Toeis late 2000s pre-BOG DBZ color palette, but that's as far as it goes.

Now the remastered movies that weren't victims of the green tint bombs? Now THOSE are pretty closer to the look we're seeking.

[Trachta10]

You need to understand that there isn't such thing as a "final product", there isn't such thing as a post production where the producers applied increible filters, and color effects and things like that to make the image look better.

Ahem...

Here is a comparison between a sonic anime animation cel vs the footage.



I don't think Dragon Ball used analog effects, but even then, a lot of film to tape edited media will have lighting conditions shift per scene due to time crunch and/or different studios working on an episode. That's WITHOUT analog effects.

A certain someone explained it in his reply

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

If you actually somehow think kai is the "best Dragon ball Z has ever looked" then you are out of your mind.

If you guys think a bad scan looks better than a good scan with accurate colors, then I don't know what to say sincerely. Lets go for that "film look", sure is easier to get.

Also, 16mm scans don't look more stretched than cels, they have the same proportion.

16mm scans will have inaccurate colors no matter whether it's a "bad scan" or a "good scan". I mean if you caught up with Femboyfilms' og DB remaster you would know that. It's scanned using goddamn filmstock, not normal image scanning.

As for the stretching part, you're right, but it was still overscanned in the edges due to the intention of a 4:3 frame. The dragon box DVDs squashed it, due to the resolution that they put the video on.

I mean, of course in that kind of situations when they used light effects there's no point in trying to change that, but in 99.99% of the frames, there is no light effect at all.

My point is that what you think is a "intended" look, is not such thing, is just the result of a cel being scanned in the best way they could at that time.

And of course Kai is the best DBZ has ever looked, which release is better? Level sets with the crushed blacks and yellow eyes? Dragon Box with the radioactive sky? or the 30th anniversary with his oil painting effect and magenta tint?

[jjgp1112]

You need to understand that there isn't such thing as a "final product", there isn't such thing as a post production where the producers applied increible filters, and color effects and things like that to make the image look better.

Ahem...

Here is a comparison between a sonic anime animation cel vs the footage.



I don't think Dragon Ball used analog effects, but even then, a lot of film to tape edited media will have lighting conditions shift per scene due to time crunch and/or different studios working on an episode. That's WITHOUT analog effects.

A certain someone explained it in his reply

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

If you actually somehow think kai is the "best Dragon ball Z has ever looked" then you are out of your mind.

If you guys think a bad scan looks better than a good scan with accurate colors, then I don't know what to say sincerely. Lets go for that "film look", sure is easier to get.

Also, 16mm scans don't look more stretched than cels, they have the same proportion.

16mm scans will have inaccurate colors no matter whether it's a "bad scan" or a "good scan". I mean if you caught up with Femboyfilms' og DB remaster you would know that. It's scanned using goddamn filmstock, not normal image scanning.

As for the stretching part, you're right, but it was still overscanned in the edges due to the intention of a 4:3 frame. The dragon box DVDs squashed it, due to the resolution that they put the video on.

I mean, of course in that kind of situations when they used light effects there's no point in trying to change that, but in 99.99% of the frames, there is no light effect at all.

My point is that what you think is a "intended" look, is not such thing, is just the result of a cel being scanned in the best way they could at that time.

And of course Kai is the best DBZ has ever looked, which release is better? Level sets with the crushed blacks and yellow eyes? Dragon Box with the radioactive sky? or the 30th anniversary with his oil painting effect and magenta tint?

But the point we're making is that the cels were likely painted the way they were so they could come out how they were intended to look when scanned. Even today, people select colors by how they'll come out when printed (RGB --> CMYK)

[ikaos]

I know is difficult to find cels that look identical to each other, because they were scanned in different ways, that is why I told you that the best source I've seen is this, because they look pretty homogeneous
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragon/episode/
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragonz/episode/

These images are all directly from that site, you can't seriously call these shots "homogenous". Some of them are just color-adjusted Dragon Box shots, complete with artifacts:

[lansing]

Point is original broadcast video is the final product, not cels. If you want to color-correct and/or remaster the dragon box to make it look like the real full intention, use the original fuji tv broadcast as reference. NOT cels.

16mm scans can look more stretched than cels, it's only natural. Especially if it was drawn and scanned with the intention of such action.

This is so wrong. Television broadcast is just a distribution medium, it's the same as to VHS, DVD, VCD or blu-ray. Unlike modern format, SDTV cannot be use as color reference because of its technological limitation of the time. For example, SDTV was not capable of properly displaying lighter color, that's why all the skin color in dragon ball were either too yellow or blown out white.

[lansing]

Ahem...

Here is a comparison between a sonic anime animation cel vs the footage.



I don't think Dragon Ball used analog effects, but even then, a lot of film to tape edited media will have lighting conditions shift per scene due to time crunch and/or different studios working on an episode. That's WITHOUT analog effects.

A certain someone explained it in his reply




If you actually somehow think kai is the "best Dragon ball Z has ever looked" then you are out of your mind.




16mm scans will have inaccurate colors no matter whether it's a "bad scan" or a "good scan". I mean if you caught up with Femboyfilms' og DB remaster you would know that. It's scanned using goddamn filmstock, not normal image scanning.

As for the stretching part, you're right, but it was still overscanned in the edges due to the intention of a 4:3 frame. The dragon box DVDs squashed it, due to the resolution that they put the video on.

I mean, of course in that kind of situations when they used light effects there's no point in trying to change that, but in 99.99% of the frames, there is no light effect at all.

My point is that what you think is a "intended" look, is not such thing, is just the result of a cel being scanned in the best way they could at that time.

And of course Kai is the best DBZ has ever looked, which release is better? Level sets with the crushed blacks and yellow eyes? Dragon Box with the radioactive sky? or the 30th anniversary with his oil painting effect and magenta tint?

But the point we're making is that the cels were likely painted the way they were so they could come out how they were intended to look when scanned. Even today, people select colors by how they'll come out when printed (RGB --> CMYK)

Film stock doesn't store color as is. Observe any film scan and you'll notice the low contrast, overall dark images from the film, that's how it can store a wider gamut of color. The color were then recovered/corrected later in the post using a color chart. They are going to be dark when you first scanned, so your point is invalid.

[Hugo2003DBZ]

All movies/TV shows were made taking into account the format that was going to be used and knowing its limitations. Of course, the grain is part of that limitation. We can't claim that the cel colors are 100% correct, because the creators had the 16mm format in mind. The correct colors are those that had the 16mm masters in good condition. Obviously no source of those colors exists, but Original Broadcast is probably a pretty close source.
I've always though that the objetive of restoring the colors is to return the film to its original state, take the years off it, and I think SoM has done an impressive job.

Mazinger Z was remastered by Toei with similar colors to original cels and the result is very good, but the video source is a new native HD rescan of the 35mm masters. From Dragon Ball, we have an SD DVD master from 20 years ago. I don't think you can replicate the cel colors and get a 100% good result.

Spoiler:

The color palette of Mazinger Z is just "similar" to cel colors

[jaisonas]

With this one you are completely wrong, because the image on the left is one of those promotional HD scans that Toei usually share, this is an old analog scan which colors have been deteriorated over time and was recently digitally re-scanned. What you are seeing here is the deterioration of the colors of a film. (also I'm pretty sure they added some weird filter on it to try to make it look better)


Also, Kai of course don't look 100% identical to a cel, but that is not the point, the point is that they tried to make the colors to look the close as possible to the cels, even if they didn't make it perfectly, his goal was that. And they got a great result.


About the last point, they are clearly saying that they used "slight variations of the desired colour in order to compensate for the extra layer of transparent cel added" nothing more, that is completely different from somehow design the colors of the cel in such way to account for changes in color when converting to film.

I'm struggling to understand why you find it so hard to realize that what you call a cel scan, is basically a 35mm shot of the cel, so basically identical to the way the show was shot albeit in 35mm instead of 16mm.
What you yourself consider accurate colours based on promotional materials, has been screwd up colour wise at least 3 ways (promotional film condition, scanner options, any post processing).
Also small correction, the promotional material scans are definitely older than the kai scan, not that it matters, just getting it out.

[DonCanjas]

Hey all, I have some great news regarding the white balance / color correction of Dragon Ball. Over the past 6 months, I've been with a crew that has now white balanced all of Dragon Ball, DBZ, and DBGT. This white balancing is done shot by shot. We've been able to use these white balanced images and began general color correction (often called "hue shifting"). Instead of trying to color correct one image at a time, we were able to apply this data episode by episode. We now have a rough draft of the entirety of classic Dragon Ball. Not some scenes, not just some episodes, the entire 153 episode series (plus the two safety specials!). Here are some examples from across the series:







If anyone would like, I can search for other examples if you give me the episode and/or scene. I won't be able to respond instantly but have over 17GBs of corrected PNGs from the series.

We just need to do a little bit more quality control and curve correction for some episodes, but expect to see the finished series this summer on your typical website.

Crongatulations to you and your team, vanner. This is the best Dragon Ball Color Correction I've seen.
You're all based and redpilled.

[ikaos]

Point is original broadcast video is the final product, not cels. If you want to color-correct and/or remaster the dragon box to make it look like the real full intention, use the original fuji tv broadcast as reference. NOT cels.

16mm scans can look more stretched than cels, it's only natural. Especially if it was drawn and scanned with the intention of such action.

This is so wrong. Television broadcast is just a distribution medium, it's the same as to VHS, DVD, VCD or blu-ray. Unlike modern format, SDTV cannot be use as color reference because of its technological limitation of the time. For example, SDTV was not capable of properly displaying lighter color, that's why all the skin color in dragon ball were either too yellow or blown out white.

From our perspective, both the broadcast colors and the cels were used as reference, because as you've both figured out, neither are fully accurate on their own. The point isn't to be fighting about which source is better but to realize that through using a variety of sources for reference, an acceptable result can be achieved.

[RustyCreed]

It's possible to get dbox pretty close to Kai or those promotional Toei images. For example...

Kai:

Spoiler:

dbox cc to look like Kai:

Spoiler:

Promotional image:

Spoiler:

dbox cc to look like promotional image:

Spoiler:

There are a couple reasons why the CC by vanner's group is more of a filmic style. One is that the above styles would be way more work for hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Two is that the dbox is a standard definition DVD source; sometimes brightening dark areas reveals soft or blurry/compressed details, and sometimes the lines get chroma bleed from their surroundings and unintentionally get brighter when you try to brighten other colors. For those reasons, the CC will be more of a filmic style that resembles how the show might have looked when it first aired on TV. But because the Dbox is sourced from film that is generationally closer to the cels than the original broadcast, some colors might be closer to cels than we see on the original broadcast, though it will still overall have a filmic look rather than a cel-style look.

[Scsigs]

You need to understand that there isn't such thing as a "final product", there isn't such thing as a post production where the producers applied incredible filters, and color effects and things like that to make the image look better.

It was just a poorly scanned cel transferred to film.

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

If you guys think a bad scan looks better than a good scan with accurate colors, then I don't know what to say sincerely. Let's go for that "film look", sure is easier to get.

Also, 16mm scans don't look more stretched than cels, they have the same proportion.

That first sentence just shows an incredible lack of knowledge of filmmaking. A cel is just like when you shoot a piece of media on film in live action. If it requires it, post production is then used to apply filters, add visual effects, color correct, & other things to the image to make it what is intended for the audience to see in the final product done by the editors at the instructions of the directors. Animation is a process where frames are drawn, colored, & have stuff applied to them to do those things. The cel is just 1 step in that process. I don't claim to know everything about filmmaking when it comes to animation, but I'm not about to claim what you are. It's a very involved process, just like other filmmaking processes.

Kai is really not the best Z's probably ever looked. The original broadcast is probably that & if it were possible to restore that into HD, we'd be better off because then FUNi wouldn't have needed to do those shitty remasters. And, Kai has colors more similar to the original manga from what I know, with some color corrections to stuff like Piccolo's blood, Super Buu's eye colors, some coloring errors like Vegeta's initial color palette when we first see him, etc. It's also a bit too fuzzy & the redrawn frames look really odd at times due to them tracing them & not bothering to correct the off model nature of the drawings. It's overall still good, but not the "best." The Buu Saga's edit is also not great due to the bad light green filter & forced cropping.

What a load of shit, man.

[Trachta10]

I know is difficult to find cels that look identical to each other, because they were scanned in different ways, that is why I told you that the best source I've seen is this, because they look pretty homogeneous
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragon/episode/
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragonz/episode/

These images are all directly from that site, you can't seriously call these shots "homogenous". Some of them are just color-adjusted Dragon Box shots, complete with artifacts:

Actually not all of them are cels, those you are showing there are clearly dragon box screenshots, I was referring that the cels looks fairly homogeneous in that site

[jjgp1112]

I know is difficult to find cels that look identical to each other, because they were scanned in different ways, that is why I told you that the best source I've seen is this, because they look pretty homogeneous
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragon/episode/
https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/tv/dragonz/episode/

These images are all directly from that site, you can't seriously call these shots "homogenous". Some of them are just color-adjusted Dragon Box shots, complete with artifacts:

Actually not all of them are cels, those you are showing there are clearly dragon box screenshots, I was referring that the cels looks fairly homogeneous in that site

...thats exactly what he said

[Trachta10]

You need to understand that there isn't such thing as a "final product", there isn't such thing as a post production where the producers applied incredible filters, and color effects and things like that to make the image look better.

It was just a poorly scanned cel transferred to film.

Why do you think when they made Kai, that is the best Dragon Ball Z ever looked, they tried to make the colors as similar as possible to the cels? because they knew that this is how the show should look, the true colors.

If you guys think a bad scan looks better than a good scan with accurate colors, then I don't know what to say sincerely. Let's go for that "film look", sure is easier to get.

Also, 16mm scans don't look more stretched than cels, they have the same proportion.

That first sentence just shows an incredible lack of knowledge of filmmaking. A cel is just like when you shoot a piece of media on film in live action. If it requires it, post production is then used to apply filters, add visual effects, color correct, & other things to the image to make it what is intended for the audience to see in the final product done by the editors at the instructions of the directors. Animation is a process where frames are drawn, colored, & have stuff applied to them to do those things. The cel is just 1 step in that process. I don't claim to know everything about filmmaking when it comes to animation, but I'm not about to claim what you are. It's a very involved process, just like other filmmaking processes.

Kai is really not the best Z's probably ever looked. The original broadcast is probably that & if it were possible to restore that into HD, we'd be better off because then FUNi wouldn't have needed to do those shitty remasters. And, Kai has colors more similar to the original manga from what I know, with some color corrections to stuff like Piccolo's blood, Super Buu's eye colors, some coloring errors like Vegeta's initial color palette when we first see him, etc. It's also a bit too fuzzy & the redrawn frames look really odd at times due to them tracing them & not bothering to correct the off model nature of the drawings. It's overall still good, but not the "best." The Buu Saga's edit is also not great due to the bad light green filter & forced cropping.

What a load of shit, man.

Filters, visual effects and color correction in Dragon Ball?? What show did you watch?

In the few situations, some light effects were used, those were analog effects, and were previously added to the scanning of the cels.

[Trachta10]

These images are all directly from that site, you can't seriously call these shots "homogenous". Some of them are just color-adjusted Dragon Box shots, complete with artifacts:

Actually not all of them are cels, those you are showing there are clearly dragon box screenshots, I was referring that the cels looks fairly homogeneous in that site

...thats exactly what he said

No, he refers that the shots in the site are not homogeneous because some of them are Dbox screenshots, and of course I was only referring to the cels that can be found there. Idk that is the best source I found, even so, it doesn't even matter because the original color of the cels are already know https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[lansing]

Point is original broadcast video is the final product, not cels. If you want to color-correct and/or remaster the dragon box to make it look like the real full intention, use the original fuji tv broadcast as reference. NOT cels.

16mm scans can look more stretched than cels, it's only natural. Especially if it was drawn and scanned with the intention of such action.

This is so wrong. Television broadcast is just a distribution medium, it's the same as to VHS, DVD, VCD or blu-ray. Unlike modern format, SDTV cannot be use as color reference because of its technological limitation of the time. For example, SDTV was not capable of properly displaying lighter color, that's why all the skin color in dragon ball were either too yellow or blown out white.

From our perspective, both the broadcast colors and the cels were used as reference, because as you've both figured out, neither are fully accurate on their own. The point isn't to be fighting about which source is better but to realize that through using a variety of sources for reference, an acceptable result can be achieved.

The original cel color are not fully accurate? What?

I think you really missed the current development of this thread because we do have the exact value of the cel color now. So this whole idea of "we don't have a good reference source so let's just stick to the closest we can get by combining various sources" can be retired. As the idea didn't make much sense anyway.

With known cel color, we can build the character model from the ground up using the color design sheet without actually having the cel, something like this: