Death in Venice (1971)

[johnpaul2]

Originally Posted by jakdstew

I think people are making a little too much of the yellow problem. The blacks are much more of an issue based on those screenshots.

1. About the blacks : Gary's screenshots are likely to be off by 2-3 RGB values, not more. If the blacks are not pure blacks, this won't be enough to explain a bigger shift, like on Gary's captures 3, 11 or 14.
2. We're making so much of that because Death in Venice is about the 50th movie showing these biases, and the only constant between those movies is the lab who restored them. Sure, there are worse offenders, sure it's not as bad as a cataclysmically poorly graded movie, but it is likely, nevertheless, to be unfaithful to the original photography simply because this really looks like Ritrovata's signature.

Except no restorer should leave a signature on a restoration or a grading.

When you look at Gary's captures 3, 11 or 14, they show the same type of biases in low-lit areas than plenty of others restorations performed by Ritrovata, biases that are nowhere to be found in restorations performed by virtually any other restoration lab.

If I had to nuance, I would however say the white balance seems a tad better in highlights and carnations, while usually you'd also have creamy beige-y whites and pastel faces.

In any case though, most of these caps allow to guess instantly who performed the grading, while they shouldn't.

Originally Posted by Sheriff Hobbes

Are you talking about this company?
Are they the same guys who restored "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"? I remember this BD had an extremely yellow touch.

Same lab, different intensity of the issue.
TGTBTU is very golden, but the issue isn't so much the overall golden aspect than the yellow bias other colors get. The skies for instance get because of this a greenish tint which makes it quite easy to guess which lab restored the movie.

Except you shouldn't be able to guess that, because a lab work should be transparent and leave no signature.

Originally Posted by Sheriff Hobbes

Sitting at my PC monitor, the blacks look very black to me, not greyish at all.

They're neither blacks nor grey, but slightly yellow. Other Ritrovata restorations showing this :
http://www.imagebam.com/image/d42d68737210543
http://www.imagebam.com/image/d80b34737210583
http://www.imagebam.com/image/e636b2737210703
http://www.imagebam.com/image/90e177737210733
http://www.imagebam.com/image/b4c858738180323