I haven't made a ton of progress on this, mainly due to other projects and the fact that my previous upscaling methods are pretty bad. Here's a comparison between Topaz (what I used before) and ESRGAN (what I plan to use going forward. Not entirely sure what model I'm going to use though, I'm thinking about training a custom one on sailor moon cel scans but it's a bit difficult to find clean, high res scans)
Imgsli
As you can see, the linework is alot thinner/cleaner in the ESRGAN upscale.Thankfully, the episodes that I've cleaned dust/dirt from can still be used, I just have to re-upscale/color correct them (one of the disadvantages of ESRGAN is that it takes hours to upscale even a minute of footage) I want to say that I don't want to abandon this, though it may take some time. If you want something like what sapphire91 has posted here, an uploader by the name of [EG]/RX782 has released the first 3 seasons, upscaled to 1080p, but only with minor color correction and no dirt/artifact removal. There are also a few other issues with his release, but overall if you want something now I'd go looking for it.
You can check out this thread in videohelp forum comparing the different AI upscale. The VSGAN with DigiFrames model looks amazing. But I haven't dig deeper because of other works.
Anime re-mastering - how to achieve a particular look?
I assume you're referring to Dr Dre's color matching tool, which is actually what I've been using, albeit in a weird way.
Nah, I'm using 3D LUT Creator. The main problem I had with Dr. Dre's tool is that it doesn't have an accuracy rating "average DeltaE", so I wouldn't know how accurate the match is, therefore no further adjustment can be done. It would be a lot tolerable for live movie, but for animation, a slight shift in hue would be immensely noticeable.
Also, I believe I found your scanned color code chart, but the labels on your Ami image either don't match with the right colors or they aren't there.
I want to address some differences before it gets confused. There were two kind of paint animation studios use back then. The older Saito Tele-Anima Colors (STAC) and Taiyo-Shikisai (Sun Color). Anime from Toei (Sailor Moon) all use STAC.
This is
database of my scan of the STAC chart.
I think what you were referring to was
this chart? This is the Sun Color chart, not STAC. It was made by a Japanese animator 20 years ago using a measuring device of that time. The device, however, is faulty, as it couldn't capture all the brighter/lighter/saturated color.
Is there a definite way to use the tool for this sort of project?
Unfortunately the development of 3DLC was pretty much dead. Its author was pushing his other software and abandoned the project for over a year now, it was a pity.
My thought on general workflow of this sort of project is first collect the color design sheets of characters, then do the color matching using the sheets and the color chart, and then apply the generated lut file for each scene, and repeat for every scene.
In practice though, that's not going to be a simple one two three. For example, hunting down color design sheets is going to be a headache because they don't come by often. In case of not finding any, we would have to rebuild one ourselves from the scattering genga sheets that has the color code and piece them back together. Another challenge we may have is that there would be artifact in the matching result when we have a grainy source. In that case, an AI upscaled image would be much desired, cleaner source = no artifact.
I think what you can do now is start collecting the color design sheets or rebuild it yourself, and testing out the AI upscale options.
Currently I'm working on building the Sun Color chart database. The chart had like 700 color, so it's going to take time and luck lol. Fortunately I was able to find another enthusiast that's going to send me his cels for scan since he doesn't have the proper measuring equipment.
But the creator of the thread is working on it as well and seems determined.
) a straightforward upscale and color correction alone should be sufficient as a better alternative to Toei's DNR'd Blu-ray release.
