The second one ("Color Correction") is infinitely better than the original. When you get selective with the third picture, the foreground begins to wash out a little bit too much. Also, welcome to Retro, Pheisar!
It's not even fan nit picking really, it's quality feedback. There's a reason that professional games are made by large teams with varying talents. In this case, the current team has made a beautiful game with excellent physics, now they just need someone with an eye for color, such as Pheisar, to help "tighten up the graphics" as it were
I have to throw in my agreement too. I certainly don't want to sound like I'm criticising negatively because I was already happy to accept whatever hiccups there may have been, what with how good it's looking regardless. However the colour levels have been an issue that not one person has failed to notice. That second image... you look at it and it's like suddenly you don't even notice colours anymore, just the picture. Really don't want to sound ungrateful but it was quite a nice edit. Edit - Well, the grass does look nicer in the first, but the scene looks sunnier in the second. Could just be a lot of blue.
Assuming you actually mean no one noticed them, that's not correct. A number of us took issue with the excessive blue tint, some time/pages ago. Yes, Pheisar might have articulated the sentiment a little better, but it certainly wasn't the first time.
For the sake of balance, I'd like to chime in to announce that I much prefer the image with the original colours. The "corrected" version - to my eyes - seems like a jaundiced version of the scene. At the end of the day it's only personal preference but if you want reasons, here are a choice few. The grass in the original consists of very rich greens, which I think look great. The "corrected" colours have the grass almost yellow in places - in fact it becomes more obvious with these colours that the grass is in bands or strips - the yellow parts look like a bunch of floppy bananas. I prefer the darker shadows in the original, the "corrected" versions seem to barely feature shadows. Presumably as a result of the same effect, the whale is obscenely bright on it's underside - its skin seems almost mirrored it is so reflective. I think the vivid violet and pink is so much more... nice, in the original image. It seems to lose quite a lot of its appeal in translation. Just goes to show that you can't please all of the people all of the time.
I have to agree with the above quote, the original one looks best. Maybe reduce some blue, but otherwise don't touch it please.
I'm sure some of your issues could be addressed by being more discerning with the recolouration; presumably the filters used above just blanketed the entire image with the same correction values. In any case, I'd really like to see the other colours retain their character, similar to those mockups. In the original image, there's barely any white (ref: waterfall, clouds), as everything’s just been tinted blue. This isn't to disparage the rest of the graphics, which are fantastic, but the blue spoils that fact IMHO.
The color corrected images seem to loose some of the depth that the original had. I'll elaborate on the different points of the color correction: Lets note some key things about the original image. The whale looks to be entirely blue in the original except for part of it's mouth which has gained a purple hue. The top of the whale's mouth is also curiously blue/dark purple fading to a pinker color as we move closer to the jaw of the whale. The bricks are all very dark, with a sort of bloom style highlight. A key example of this, is the block above the furthest ring to the right. Here we can see the "face" of the block is rather dark. While the front of the block is quite bright. If we look where the face and the front meet we see a very sudden drop off and a slight glow. Lets look at the grass in the original. Notice the dark almost playful way the artist used shadows to give us a sense of depth. The color in some of the blades are slightly different giving us a feeling of a more realistic undergrowth. Sonic while poorly positioned in the image is given a much darker shade then what was used in the genesis titles, he also has true light shadows which causes sonic to be slightly too dark and has a slightly muted feel to him. Now lets look at the first recolor. The whale's mouth has been slightly corrected, though I feel the mouth still needs to be pinker towards the roof of its mouth. The whale itself has also undergone a slight color change becoming more purple overall, The purple hue seems a bit off. Not necessarily bad, just off. Lets move on to the blocks, they have become much easier to distinguish compared to the original, the sudden drop offs in light values are not present in the recolor. However, the recolor also looses the slight tinge of green the original had. I feel as if the artist purposely put the green there to give us the feel of moss on them, the recolor loses this in favor of being more uniform and bright. The same effect is applied to the brick art in the recolor, though the green is not completely removed in the level art itself. However the original art had small cracks in the bricks this is a much less noticeable effect now. The grass leaves in the recolor loose the entirely green look in favor of adding some yellow to the mix. This gives the entire scene a much brighter look to it, which is nice. However it also removes the playful shadows the original had. I personally like the addition of the yellow to some of the leaves but I feel they are perhaps a shade too bright. Finally lets look at sonic in the recolor. He was drastically brighten compared to the original, this has a two pronged effect. First it makes sonic sharper and more "hard" compared to the "soft" and somewhat fuzzy look of the original. Secondly because of the way he was brightened he is much closer to the look of the original sonic, he also stands out in the scene much more now. He also loses the blue/green tint which seemed slightly out of place in the original.
I like the color corrected version better as well. The corrections aren't flawless, but they work well.
I keep forgetting to say this, but this is just a minor model nitpick. Why doesn't Sonic have the buckles on his shoes? If it's because of the American boxart of the classics, well, whoever drew them didn't know shit. Sonic has always had the buckles (as proven in the Japanese boxart and concept art), as they're supposed to be Michael Jackson's shoes. Maybe someone already pointed this out, but whatever. It does bother me somewhat.
I agree with iojenkins, but I also like the first colour corrected image. Maybe if you tone the effect down a tad, you can get the feel the original was going for, while still getting the colour correction in.
And what about color correcting the first altered image (I.e. 2nd pic) by adding some black? I think that playing with contrast would be enough to obtain the desired look... PS: Oh, I didn't know the current Sonic model didn't have buckles in his shoes. The nitpicky b*st*rd in me would also like to see those buckles implemented...
Hi again, I'm impressed with the amount of replys and I don't knew that this issue, was noticed before but that was only a little proof... Only I touched the color like an example not like a model to follow; anyway I made the correction, touching only the general shadow/light "incoherences" and the gain color. Was only an exercice purely subjective to show a possible way, not the final solution So, to do a good color correction, isn't enought with the filters, the gain or the gamma corrections. To do it well (perfect) is necessary work over the textures, element by element. Any other thing, will result in a incomplet correction because between the scene elements, must exist a "color coherence" beyond posible comparisons with the 16-bits pallette color. By other way, one thing is sacred, a callibrated monitor, without this, all the work (in this area) it will be useless It's dificult to me say what I want in english but I hope you understand what I'm trying to tell. Regards PS. Thank you all for the welcome
