Ok.
Where do I start , where can I go that I haven't been before?
Sequential 3-strip Technicolor is a black and white color separation process, with subsequent color dye transfer
prints.
In the Disney Technicolor camera black and white film is used and the cel+background are shot through 3 color filters into three successive exposures (3 frames exposed per image) to make a full-color black and white separation record. The red green and blue filters are very pure with the black and white negative's spectral sensitivity (its reaction to the spectrum of colors) fairly even and matched to the filters transmittance bands. For example Kodak Wratten No 25 (red), 58 (green) and 47B (blue) can be used. (Anyone that has used Calibration DVDs like A Video Standard has seen filters similar to these). If you saw those 3 filter's colors in a chromacity chart, you'd see they fairly match the original NTSC's color gamut which is 40 to 50% more area than what you've been accustomed seeing on normal TVs (SD
and HDTV) or computer monitors all these years, which have either SMPTE "C", PAL EBU, or sRGB/HDTV color primaries. Re-read that: the Technicolor black and white negative color separations have, and are capable of recording a color gamut/space 40-50% wider (deeper, more saturated) than what you've seen in the last 30 years of NTSC TVs (SMPTE "C", P22), PAL TVs, computer, and HDTV monitors (remember, original NTSC gamut is
not modern NTSC gamut, modern NTSC gamuts is actually SMPTE "C" gamut, they just keep calling it NTSC) (that's why I call the original,
original).
And black and white negatives don't fade in color, because they're not in color.
So therefore the Technicolor negative can reach deeper more saturated color than images you see on a normal TV or computer monitor.
These Technicolor b/w negatives were exposed onto a set of matrices that absorbed pure cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes which then were transfered to the Technicolor IB print. Dye transfer color is one of the highest quality color processes. And just like a photographer can manipulate a black and white negative to make a great custom print, similar contrast/mask dye concentrations manipulations could be done to to get the look and color the artist wanted on the Technicolor print.
Furthermore a cel is reflection art. While a technicolor print is a transmittance medium. Apart from wider color gamut differences, there's also another variable that affects the color space: density of the image, or "Luminance". Reflection material has only a contrast (difference between the whitest part and the darkest part) of about 200:1,
its maximum density not very high. While a movie print made from a negative (or a slide/transparency) can have much much more density and contrast ratio reaching into the thousands. This gives the image a much more vibrant, contrasty and saturated look. Just compare a photographic slide or transparency to a photographic paper print. That's exactly the same as comparing a movie print, to a cel: transmissive slide (movie print) vs reflective media (cel + background). On a cel, white highlights or luminous colors can't go higher than paper white, while on a movie print, they glow brighter than surface diffuse white therefore looking like a true source of light, unlike on the reflective cel, and of course blacks and deep colors on a cel can't go darker and deeper that the reflective pigment black, while on a print they can go a 1000 times deeper than the paper white and therefore, darker than on the cel itself. .
Furthermore, all photographic processes change colors in some manner, so the final resulting color on the Technicolor print might be different than on the cel, so Technicolor had color consultants and Disney too, which would choose a particular color pigment or color fabric to be used so that when
photographed and printed through the
whole Technicolor process would give the desired results
on the print
To use a made up example, if a certain mustard yellow gave a lemon yellow on the Technicolor print in the color tests,, the actor would wear a mustard yellow shirt or the cel be painted mustard yellow if you wanted it to be lemon yellow on screen.
With that longwinded explanation I'm sure you'll see that just by reproducing or "restoring" the colors to look exactly like the reflection cel, that s just a restoration of the artwork. Not necessarily of The Movie.
A straight print from an Ansel Adams black & white negative is not necessarily an "Ansel Adams Print". I might look faithful to the scene photographed in front of the camera but it might not be the art, the image, that was intended.
Now back to the subject and the comments. Shooting movies in the Technicolor process stopped in the mid 50's (sequential Technicolor animation by Disney continued for a while after). In the 70's Technicolor stopped production of Technicolor IB prints, so after that if you wanted a print from even a Technicolor negative you'd need to make it on Eastmacolor (regular color process used today). In this process all the color dyes are already in the print material and the individual dyes react to the other colors, instead of being kept separate and transfered like in a Technicolor print. So the prints would look different and often less contrasty or saturated.
Furthermore, these Technicolor films are sometimes 70 years old, and unless one has a reference Technicolor print to compare, most people might not have ever seen what the original color was.
Arrive at today: Disney or anyone with the b/w separation negatives can scan them into RGB and recombine them electronically in any kind of mixture (color matrix) . As I mention above, sRGB/HDTV,PAL,modernNTSC colors might not match the original Technicolor ones. . Netty is right in that these purer colors transfers might be closer to the Technicolor quality that other older transfers specially ones made with non Technicolor materials. But at the same time as I mentioned above, if the transfer is made to look like the reflection art cel precisely, that might or might not accurately reflect the intended look of the original transmissive print on a screen
There's also a new development, in that there are
now new monitors coming out (those extended gamut fluorescent and LED backlight displays etc) that are starting to have a color gamut closer or equivalent to the wider gamut color spaces like the original NTSC and Technicolor, and a HDMI color standard to go with it (xvYCC).
.
See aprox Technicolor/original NTSC/xvYCC (wide extended gamuts) triangle area left, relative to the narrower (current NTSC/PAL/HDTV) color gamut spaces triangle area, right:
<IMG SRC="
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 1_sRGB.png" HEIGHT="490" WIDTH="444">
It has taken more than half a century for consumer displays to reach that extended gamut in a few newer "extended gamut" HDTV displays and computer monitors models. "The wider spectrum of LED backlighting replacing cold cathodes has enabled this extension of the LCD display color gamut." <- from wiki.
btw a gilcee if I'm not mistaken was a high quality inkjet print a few years ago (I haven't checked photo printers lately)
I honestly don't think the Disney film restorers are out to ruin their most prized possesions.
