Sailor Moon Color Correction

[foenyanko]

You got a screenshot taken from said OP without credit right there

to the stacking issue
Cels and backgrounds being stacked wouldn't just be it, there also had to be keying involved (which can be done on film)

from what I see here, this IS a single cel Luna-Art's Cel Gallery - Sailor Moon - Bank: OP/ED

It's the backgrounds that have to be keyed out and stacked separately to complete such a shot.

I've done a simpler (and yet more layered) version of this when animating/editing the Tokyoma Gaiden opening, (Prepare for Photodump)
The six separate elements

And the final composited image, done with luma keying:

My guess is they did a somewhat similar trick to get the three separate backgrounds for Moon, Mercury and Mars in that shot.

Sorry for putting my screenshots on here, I did it just to illustrate what I think they did.

One of the worst parts about the discoloration isn't the fact that it's the wrong colors, but that detail has been lost. Mars' eyes in those comparison images is a great example of it. If it's muddy enough, I don't think it can be restored with simple brightening and color correction.

 

[Lady Pen]

One of the worst parts about the discoloration isn't the fact that it's the wrong colors, but that detail has been lost. Mars' eyes in those comparison images is a great example of it. If it's muddy enough, I don't think it can be restored with simple brightening and color correction.

Exactly. Lost details are the worst part of the digital masters. I'd rather have details with wrong colours than muddy & blurry drawings and backgrounds with the right ones.

 

[lansing]

Some example of the results by using cel color as reference.

 

[lansing]

I'm trying to figure out the dress color for Naru's mom from the first episode. I found the screen shots from this wiki page matches what I come up with after matching the color of other characters in the image. Does anyone know the source of those screen shot?

Mayumi Osaka (anime)

 

[YuYu Yuichiro]

If these episodes do get finished. where would they be released?

 

[blastilonic]

Hello everyone! I'm new here.

I've been trying to remove the pink tint from the Sailor Moon Italian DVD using DaVinci Resolve and creating a 3D LUT CUBE file. I quite like the result so far, but it's still not perfect. Is there a chat group where you’re organizing this massive project? I’d love to join and help!

 

[lansing]

Hello everyone! I'm new here.

I've been trying to remove the pink tint from the Sailor Moon Italian DVD using DaVinci Resolve and creating a 3D LUT CUBE file. I quite like the result so far, but it's still not perfect. Is there a chat group where you’re organizing this massive project? I’d love to join and help!

I don't think there's anyone who's actively working on it atm. What level of color accuracy are you striking for?

 

[blastilonic]

@Starlight @sapphire91

Upscaling a video is very easy. You just need to install a few stuff. And copy/paste a command that will use a model on the frames of the video. Then you just have to wait the end of the process.
The problem is that my hardware is not good enough to upscale a video. My gpu is REALLY bad

The reason I posted my results here is to ask for help. If a lot of people are willing to help the whole series can be done quickly whereas it would take more than forever for one person. I'll share the model and then people will just have use it on the Dynit DVD Remux. There is no need for special skills, just a good gpu

I don't want to go too much into the technical aspect but this model was mostly a "proof of concept". I wanted to see if I could get good results with esrgan. The model I trained is slow, I don't think it's realistic to use it for a project aiming at upscaling 200 episodes. That's why I plan to use the results of this slow model to make a much faster model (the quality would be a bit lower but the speed difference is huge)

After reading all the comments of this post, I'm trying to do this, I think the results are looking really well. What do you guys think?

 

[YuYu Yuichiro]

Could stuff like pictures and magazines or cards help tell what the colors are

 

[lansing]

Could stuff like pictures and magazines or cards help tell what the colors are

It depends on the color reproduction of the card/magazine. From my experience with my Dragon ball cards, while the Super Battle series were decent on color, the Hondan series were extremely inconsistent. That being said, they could be of use to find color relatively. For example, if there's a card with two characters where I know the color of only one of them, relatively I can use the yellow of the known character to find the yellow of the unknown one.

 

[lansing]

Here is an example showing the limited usefulness of using card to find the correct color. This is a card I scanned with a scanner. I know the correct color of all five of the main girls like their skin, eyes and hair color, and I didn't have any source of their dress color.

Referencing from usagi's yellow hair, I can relatively identify the yellow on ami and rei's dress. However that is about it from this card in term of guaranteed found color. For all the other color, I have tested them and I'm not confident to confirm on any, they don't match in terms of hue and brightness to the color chart.

 

[YuYu Yuichiro]

Would the last episode of R need corrections? The clip show one.

 

[tiktoktic]

Would the last episode of R need corrections? The clip show one.

The versions available are still miscoloured, yes.

 

[KingPriceman]

Would the last episode of R need corrections? The clip show one.

The versions available are still miscoloured, yes.

Even videotapes can suffer color degradation, a lot of the 80's-early 90's clips from WMGM's "NewsCenter 40: Stories behind the station" can testify to that.

 

[blastilonic]

Looks like it's impossible to correct the colors of this anime, what a mess did Toei with Sailor Moon?

I really hope one day we get the original masters.

 

[ParagonSailor]

Glad to also see other people still doing this. Got back to grinding myself after some time. Managed to do a few episodes in Davinci Resolve by now. I would say it’s going alright even if snail paced because of limited free time.

One episode tends to take me somewhere between 6-8 hours going scene to scene. It’s no joke and I've only done three. After a while I really start to appreciate why this is a profession that a colorist gets paid for. The time sink is enormous.

The other thing that grinds my pace are animations that repeat across episodes. They are harder to color correct due to being more faded than the rest. It’s tedious doing so much repetition.

 

[SailorStarsFan]

Some example of the results by using cel color as reference.

MISS HARUNA'S HAIR ISNT RED?!

 

[Rika-Chicchi]

MISS HARUNA'S HAIR ISNT RED?!

Demonstrating that color correction can make a huge difference in color perception, even tho it's a fine tuning work.

 

[lansing]

MISS HARUNA'S HAIR ISNT RED?!

Yes, here is her color sheet I have rebuild so far.

 

[blastilonic]

Glad to also see other people still doing this. Got back to grinding myself after some time. Managed to do a few episodes in Davinci Resolve by now. I would say it’s going alright even if snail paced because of limited free time.

One episode tends to take me somewhere between 6-8 hours going scene to scene. It’s no joke and I've only done three. After a while I really start to appreciate why this is a profession that a colorist gets paid for. The time sink is enormous.

The other thing that grinds my pace are animations that repeat across episodes. They are harder to color correct due to being more faded than the rest. It’s tedious doing so much repetition.

Love the results!!!

Could you explain to us how you do this?
I tried it, but I'm a mess with it. What color curves did you change in the example you showed us?