old video

morgill wrote on 9/4/2002, 12:31 PM

I have digitized and am editing an eleven-year-old video (2nd generation dub from 8mm original. Its quality is so-so with few drop-outs, but blurry images and washed-out color. I'm looking for suggestions on how to approach the color-correction and other processes that could render this video more enjoyable to watch. I realize you can't improve the sharpness of an old video but there must be some way to "improve" it. I've never "corrected" a video before so would appreciate all suggestions.

Comments

Summersond wrote on 9/4/2002, 1:07 PM

Go through the clip and split it at points where the scenes change dramatically. Example: daylight, evening, indoors, etc., and when that is accomplished, go back through and apply correction by way of using the color balance plugin, brightness plugin, and color curves to each clip as needed. Any other plugins may work also.
Hope this helps some.

dave

BillyBoy wrote on 9/4/2002, 4:16 PM

To me "correcting" a bad video is a lot of fun. The rewards are worth the effort. In fact that's what I enjoy most about VV, how powerful it is with a little experimeting to pull out details you thought weren't there.

For washed out color use the HSL filter and don't overlook levels in addition to those mentioned by Summersond. You can attempt to improve the sharpness also. Try the unsharpen filter and convolution kernel and sharpen filters. Results depend on how much you attempt to correct. Don't expect miracles with the sharpening, but you generally can make some improvement.