the overuse of color correction?

[acroyear]

Disney artists do like to clean up the masters these days, and in many cases rightfully so. But it should be noted that ANY artist that cleans up an ancient piece of work, be it a classical Greek mosaic, a Michaelangelo ceiling, a Rembrant painting, a Shakespeare text, or a Disney feature, is doing so slightly tainted by their own times and their own vision of what the work is. In striving to make it as good as it can be, it can often end up cleaner or different even from the original they claim to be striving to achieve. Here's one brief but well known section of Fantasia, showing the 1990 cleanup (where most of the clean-up was physically on the print - the 2000 release was a digital master of this final 1990 print) vs the 2010 cleanup for the blu-ray, where most of the work was done using software. It shows there was a definite pass made through digital color correction. In fact, if I were to color-balance the 2010 in Picasa, I actually end up getting something very close to the 1990 version.

1990 (2000)	2010 (DVD)

While software and perhaps an old-man's memory or two might hint that the yellowish tint (which is even more pronounced on the blu-ray than the DVD) is closer to the original, there are other pieces of evidence, like the cell print on Walt's wall in many a Wonderful World of Color/Disney intro, that show the blue-gray that most of us remember is "the original".

So which is it? Are either of them right? Does it matter?

Is color-correction of the classics the next "compression war", where artists don't restore the originals so much as make them palatable for the current trend in playback technology?

Certainly I'm keeping my 2000 DVD because the extras on it weren't duplicated on the Blu-Ray, nor did we get a new documentary feature like Beauty and the Beast - in fact even the old ones weren't duplicated, but only are available as BD-Live features.

Comments

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Certainly, the debate on restorations have been going on for years with Disney films, if it is pure digital restorations or remixing and "sweetening" original audio tracks.

My first blush from the pictures is that the new colors look "better", since it looks less muddy. Whether that is "right" is another debate. Also, I'm not nearly as familiar with Fantasia as I probably should be, even tho I do own the 2000 set.

It is good to know (and disappointing) that some of the extras from 2000 didn't make it to the new edition. I'm probably going to make a copy of the extras and get rid of the original set, since I don't have the room for it.

[cozit.livejournal.com]

To me the newer "fix" has the "light" more the way I've seen it appear magically in some Disney films... but the colors in the older on look more in line with the tones used more.

Be interesting if the appearance of light showed as well with color closer to the older (but maybe somewhere between the two)

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

there is also the degree where the later colors were meant to make this sequence more distinctive. under the 1990, it looks more winter than autumn, but in context it is still supposed to be autumn. as i said, it is even more pronounced on the blu-ray where it is far more yellow than this off-yellow-off-pink.

the pastorale is also pretty excessively saturated. i may run my tv through the THX system setup disc again just to tone it down and see where i'm at to where i should be.