How To Bring Color Back Into Faded Red Movie Film

ItsMeRobert wrote on 9/2/2021, 5:25 PM

Hello,

I own Vegas 19. I want to restore faded red movie film to something resembling the original color. I have seen that with today's tools, red film can be restored to bring back much, if not all, of its original color. I have searched but I have not found anything that explains how it can be done. I have seen tutorials on color correcting, but nothing that addresses this specific problem. Most videos I find seem sort of ad-hoc, how to make your picture more blue, or someone likes to fiddle with the color in a somewhat random way until they get something they like, but it doesn't address my issue.

I am sure there are many people with the similar situation. I have seen some videos of restored color, but nothing that explains how to do it.

I have attached two photos to this post. One is a raw film capture. The second shows the blacks and whites adjusted, but still the picture is missing its original color. If the fade is very minor, then just adjusting the white and black can usually make a decent job. If the film is really red, then something more is needed.

So my questions are this:

Can I use Vegas to bring life back into red film? If so, is there a tutorial somewhere that explains how to do it with Vegas? My results have not been satisfying. I know there can be a lot of subtly with color correction but I haven't figured how to fix red film.

If it cannot be done in Vegas, is there something at a reasonable cost that can do it, and if so, is there a tutorial that shows how it can be done?

Thanks for any information on this topic.

Comments

fr0sty wrote on 9/2/2021, 5:35 PM

The film has lost so much of its color, that unfortunately, there is no original color left to bring back. However, hope is not lost. Use the VEGAS "Colorize" effect, which uses artificial intelligence to add color to black and white video, then color correct that to your liking.

ItsMeRobert wrote on 9/3/2021, 6:15 AM

@fr0sty Thanks for the response. I have seen examples of film this red brought back. I remember one video I saw the person said the tools were not yet released. I saw the video last year, but I cannot find it now. The film was very red and they got the original color back but the steps were not explained. There is another example on youtube where someone said they used DaVanci but did not say how. I have not found someone that actually talks about the proper settings for that tool for restoring film like this.

Dexcon wrote on 9/3/2021, 6:32 AM

I quickly found these on YT:

Perhaps one of these is the YT video that you saw last year.

Musicvid wrote on 9/3/2021, 8:09 AM

Looks like Ektachrome 1, with extreme "leuco cyan" dye loss, or even Kodachrome processed with a bad re-exposure lamp.

In any case, it is so bad, that this is about the best that can be done in Photoshop.

You might want to convert to grayscale, and play with Colorization AI in VP19 as an alternative to correction.

Dexcon wrote on 9/3/2021, 8:49 AM

I've just DL'd the red image and, in Vegas Pro 18 , converted it to B&W, and then added Colorization (VP18, not VP19). The results are about the same as @Musicvid got in PhotoShop except that there was a little more red over the entire image. Adjusting the sliders in Colorization only changed the global hue/tint of the image - it didn't create 'color'. Previously, I've had good success with colorizing B&W images in VP18, so this is a bit surprising with your image.

Musicvid wrote on 9/3/2021, 9:40 AM

With more modest leuco cyan loss, good results are often possible using a three-point correction technique.

BTW ,leuco means "invisible" or "fugitive."

I learned my stuff from the venerable Frank Ishihara, a chemist who was known as "King of Kodachrome" in the 1960s. He is best known for his work exposing the horrid Patterson-Gimlin "Bigfoot" film fraud that was going around about the same time. Kodachrome was already being phased out when I joined Technicolor in 1970 because of health concerns for lab workers.

But OMG was it good. Here's a Kodachrome taken on my grandfather's farm about 1953:

Ahh, for blue sky again. Both on film and around our smoky earth ...

Former user wrote on 9/3/2021, 10:47 AM

@Musicvid i was a big ecktachrome fan, but those slides have faded really bad. Didn't have the staying power of Kodachrome.

About the OP. That pic has no color information and very little contrast which is somewhat how the colorizing works. It looks like you have already done the best that can be done.

Musicvid wrote on 9/3/2021, 11:35 AM

It looks like you have already done the best that can be done.

I would not bother to correct it. Convert to grayscale and then be done.

john_dennis wrote on 9/3/2021, 11:46 AM

I'm with Musicvid on this one. I pulled the red channel down to match the rest of the colors of your sample and there's no there there.

@ItsMeRobert @Musicvid

ItsMeRobert wrote on 9/3/2021, 1:59 PM

Thank you to everyone for posting their suggestions and for attempting your own corrections. @Dexcon Thanks for the youtube links. I did see the one that shows the old computer center. That one doesn't say how it restored the color. It is certainly better than it was. The star wars color restoration is very interesting. I see the key there is that they are using a reference print so it can figure out the color adjustments.

I was really hoping something more could be done to give better results than what I was already doing.

I have tried the Vegas colorization feature a little bit but I haven't seen it do anything useful with the few things I have tried.

Someone has more good ideas, please post. It would help me and I expect others too.
Thanks for your comments.