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Contrast adjustment advice?

hbenthow

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I've been attempting to regrade "The Rocketeer", as the Blu-ray has an ugly yellow blanket tint. I found a seemingly easy way to achieve this by using a white balance tool in Vegas, selecting a white object (a nurse's hat in this case), and thus getting rid of the yellow tint. It worked, but I noticed that the result seems to have been slightly brightened in a way that reduces the contrast (arguably washing the image out a bit). I then tried remedying this by adding 0.25% contrasting using the Vegas brightness and contrast adjustment tool, but this seems to darken everything a little more than on the Blu-ray and make the faces a little redder.

I have screenshots of the three different versions below. In each set of three, the top screenshot is the original Blu-ray, the middle is with just the white balance tool applied, and the bottom is white balanced and has 0.25% contrast added as well. In order to be able to see the subtle differences, it might be helpful to right-click on the images, download them, and compare them in a photo viewing program on your computer (perhaps clicking quickly between them).

Which do you think looks best? Does the white-balanced version without contrast adjustment look too washed out? Does the version with contrast added look too dark and/or too contrasty? Do you think the original Blu-ray has the right amount of contrast or needs a touch more? Should I add contrast or merely use the white balance tool and nothing else? If the former, how much contrast would be ideal?



 


 



 
 
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Gaith

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Numbers three look good to me! :)
 

Plissken1138

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to my eyes, white ballanced are not brighter that originals. contrast corrected are darker and lose slight amount of shadow details (jugding by jon polito's wardrobe) compared to originals, but I'd guess the difference in negligible in motion.

on the other hand, are you sure there's uniform yellow push across the whole film?
on last two sets of screens (dalton/connely and sorvino) it doesn't look too yellow to start with and regrades are almost moving blacks into blue range and faces into pinkish red. my suggestion would be to try removing yellow slightly only from highlights, and maybe on scene to scene basis.

this is photoshop's color ballance filter, highlights pushed 20 units into blue.

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hbenthow

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Plissken1138 said:
to my eyes, white ballanced are not brighter that originals. contrast corrected are darker and lose slight amount of shadow details (jugding by jon polito's wardrobe) compared to originals, but I'd guess the difference in negligible in motion.

Do you think the Blu-ray has good brightness and contrast as-is?
 
on the other hand, are you sure there's uniform yellow push across the whole film?
on last two sets of screens (dalton/connely and sorvino) it doesn't look too yellow to start with and regrades are almost moving blacks into blue range and faces into pinkish red. my suggestion would be to try removing yellow slightly only from highlights, and maybe on scene to scene basis.

It looks like a uniform blanket yellow tint to me. A lot of Blu-rays have these types of blanket tints for some reason (the most notorious is the Extended Edition Blu-ray of "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring", which added a green tint).
 
this is photoshop's color ballance filter, highlights pushed 20 units into blue.

It looks better than the Blu-ray, but still looks just a bit too yellow to me in a few shots. I found the color balance filter in Vegas and tried upping the blue in the highlights by 5 more units for a total of 25 (the second image in each set of three - they still look a bit too yellow in places to me). Then, I tried adjusting both the highlights and mid-tones toward blue by 20 units (the third photo in each set). What do you think of these two versions?

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Plissken1138

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Second screens look better to me than the thirds, overall. It's more the matter of my taste or maybe different monitors. I haven't seen the Blu-ray and am judging only by the screenshots. It maybe pushed to yellows more in highlights than midtones (or more in daytime scenes than in nighttime scenes) and taking yellows uniformly all across can mess up other colors. That can lead to pink faces, and to me, Dalton/Connely shots here (first set much more than second set) are on the verge of that.

esR3Tibp_o.jpeg

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I hope others will chime in here, more eyes can get better conclusion.

I've never subscribed to that kk650 blanket theory. He did some good regrades, and enough awful regrades for which there were no logical explanations - other than blankets. So whenever I see blankets thrown around I tend to get wary.

After all, this takes place in California so, as David Lynch says, "blue skies and golden sunshine". ツ
 
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