Color Correcting the Dragon Box - 3 Part Spectacular

[vanner64]

Hey, would it be okay if I posted my own colored version of this cel?

You don't need to ask permission, but I think it's cool when people want to share what they have, and I'm sure other people would like to see.

[jjgp1112]

There is definitely something off in your process. Look at the color of Goku's gi, especially how it blends with the shadows.

[DonCanjas]

There is definitely something off in your process. Look at the color of Goku's gi, especially how it blends with the shadows.

I think the sky and rocks are the weirdest looking. I'm pretty sure the green tint on the sky is intentional

[jaisonas]

Using resolve. The tool Vanner suggested for the white balance is pretty useful and i have used it in the past.

[Lorium_O]

For this one, I let my software get rid of the tint for me, then I manually fixed the rest.

[jjgp1112]

There is definitely something off in your process. Look at the color of Goku's gi, especially how it blends with the shadows.

I think the sky and rocks are the weirdest looking. I'm pretty sure the green tint on the sky is intentional

Yeah the sky is definitely supposed to be on the teal side, just not as insanely green as the DBox.

[jjgp1112]

The old laser disc sets, while probably a little off themselves, are probably the bets peek we have at what the original colors were:



Though again, we'll find ourselves back at the issue of working with 480p footage vs. film masters. Getting Goku's clothes to that level of brightness and hues will probably fuck everything else up.

I might have to walk back what I said about Kai's colors because...sheesh! They might be the closest actually. Vegeta even has red hair!

[Trachta10]

The old laser disc sets, while probably a little off themselves, are probably the bets peek we have at what the original colors were:



Though again, we'll find ourselves back at the issue of working with 480p footage vs. film masters. Getting Goku's clothes to that level of brightness and hues will probably fuck everything else up.

I might have to walk back what I said about Kai's colors because...sheesh! They might be the closest actually. Vegeta even has red hair!

my attempt with those colors

[supersaiyamangod]

The old laser disc sets, while probably a little off themselves, are probably the bets peek we have at what the original colors were:



Though again, we'll find ourselves back at the issue of working with 480p footage vs. film masters. Getting Goku's clothes to that level of brightness and hues will probably fuck everything else up.

I might have to walk back what I said about Kai's colors because...sheesh! They might be the closest actually. Vegeta even has red hair!

my attempt with those colors

Am I wrong or is this the best I’ve ever seen dragon ball z look it looks newer than it’s age it looks so great. do you have a video preview of this color correction?

[Metalwario64]

The old laser disc sets, while probably a little off themselves, are probably the bets peek we have at what the original colors were:



Though again, we'll find ourselves back at the issue of working with 480p footage vs. film masters. Getting Goku's clothes to that level of brightness and hues will probably fuck everything else up.

I might have to walk back what I said about Kai's colors because...sheesh! They might be the closest actually. Vegeta even has red hair!

Yeah, those Laserdiscs look great color-wise, and I always was a fan of Kai's pre-TFC color palette, minus the lighter greens (though, I still at least appreciate TFC's better dark details, making Vegetto's brown hair more obvious than in the Dragon Boxes, but the overall footage has too many problems for me to call it a "good" remaster even if I can look past them when I watch it).

It just baffles me though why they never corrected the sky color in Goku's fight with Vegeta. With that, those episodes look about spot on to me:


(just a quick edit in GIMP, so there's some artifacting but whatevs)

[Trachta10]

The last movie also have colors really close to the color chart.

another proof that the cels colors are the intended look?

[Hugo2003DBZ]

If you don't like SoM CC, just modify it. SoM did the hardest part, the white balance shot by shot. Do you want to modify the hue? Do it, and, of course, share the result, it will be interesting, but SoM decided to do it with the color palette they thought fit, and there is no reason to convince anyone of anything.

[ikaos]

The last movie also have colors really close to the color chart.

another proof that the cels colors are the intended look?

Spoiler:

You can't use modern digital colors as a basis for what something made 30 years ago should look like.

Even if you could, the white eyes presented here are actually white, just like how we corrected it.

[Lorium_O]

The last movie also have colors really close to the color chart.

another proof that the cels colors are the intended look?

?????


Super is not Z NOR the og show. It's a modern show with modern colors.

Understand that you shouldn't come up with excuses to say that cels are the intended look.

Even if they are, you still have to try to not make artifacts, so it's terrible either way.



If you try to make it look like the cels, whites will be crushed and colors will be way too saturated and overexposed.

Something like this shows how a color correction usually should look like:

Spoiler:

R2J


CC:

The dark areas are slightly darker, but it works well enough not to deliberately destroy the image. Unlike color correcting it to look like the cels.

I don't really have a reference for Piccolo's tongue either so yeah.

Edit: I tried fixing the dark area issue:

[Venny]

Imagine using literal color charts to correct a shitty DVD telecine made in the late 90s lol. The best colors you will ever be able to get out of those DVDs would be following broadcast colors or foreign home releases which use color timed prints. Trying to use color charts for color correcting DVD let alone 16mm masters is idiotic. Not to mention color charts aren't even the exact colors on the fucking cels? I'm all of color correcting animation to look like the cels, but using literal flat color charts to correct something makes no sense! Intended or not when cels are put onto lower quality film stock like what a lot of Toei anime used in the 80s-90s the color becomes slightly desaturated in the process. You can brighten up the film a bit to make the contrast come out a bit more or do grading and what not, but to try and get flat colors from color charts is just gonna look too punchy and bizarre. What Kai does is near perfect in my eyes because it fixes the non-color timed 16mm negative colors and gives off a natural look. It's the same kind of colors you would see on a lot of foreign DVD and home video releases

Example here:
https://i.slow.pics/p6mavRYs.png

How you should CC the DBox:
https://i.slow.pics/dcKiELQi.png

[Trachta10]

A test with the Trunks special,
didn't try to go for a 100% cel look, just what seems good to me

https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjYz
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY1
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY3
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY4
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY5
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcw
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcx
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjc5

[supersaiyamangod]

A test with the Trunks special,
didn't try to go for a 100% cel look, just what seems good to me

https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjYz
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY1
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY3
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY4
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY5
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcw
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcx
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjc5

Your color correction isn’t bad but the colors now look a bit washed out.

[Lorium_O]

A test with the Trunks special,
didn't try to go for a 100% cel look, just what seems good to me

https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjYz
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY1
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY3
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY4
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY5
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcw
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcx
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjc5

My guy, I'm happy you tried, but you desaturated the image.

Dragon Ball Z was intended to be dimmer and with clear colors. Not very saturated, but still being colorful.

Your ccs are a mixture of high gamma and low saturation. That's not a very good idea, especially for dbz colors.

Your color correction also had brown lines, so watch out for that if you ever do any other color correction.

[Trachta10]

A test with the Trunks special,
didn't try to go for a 100% cel look, just what seems good to me

https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjYz
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY1
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY3
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY4
https://imgsli.com/MTA5MjY5
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcw
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjcx
https://imgsli.com/MTA5Mjc5

My guy, I'm happy you tried, but you desaturated the image.

Dragon Ball Z was intended to be dimmer and with clear colors. Not very saturated, but still being colorful.

Your ccs are a mixture of high gamma and low saturation. That's not a very good idea, especially for dbz colors.

Your color correction also had brown lines, so watch out for that if you ever do any other color correction.

I get it that some color are desaturated, like the reds or yellows, I could try to fix that
The increase in the gamma is needed if you want to fix the colors, in the source some colors are too much darker than it should be

Also, I can't help but mention that I find it kind of funny the way you criticize when you are by far the worst I've seen doing cc in this forum, no offense, but you don't even do a proper white balance and the hues look always completely wrong

The rocks here for example are too red, all the colors are really far from how they should look, is a disaster


Here your white balance is absolutely terrible


My corrections are far from being perfect of course, but I think that you have really no idea how to do a good color correction.
How can you criticize someone else's work when you are that bad? It's so funny

[dragonmagico]

He's only criticizing stuff on par with what he's done himself. I don't see the harm