Problem with old slides.

I have some old slides that have a reddish tint to them. Is there a way to clean them up?

Yes - scan and use your histogram function. Works wonders on old E3s.

PS - if you have an Epson scanner, it has an auto-correction function that works fairly well. I would guess other scanners have a similar function.

Nikon scanners used to have such a feature as well. It couldn't fix a really deteriorated one, but did pretty well. You can likely do just as well or better with a histogram, but it was nice to have something that did most of it with a single switch. Some of my old Ektachromes from the 1960's have become essentially orange monochromes, and there's little color to restore, but the program found a little.

 

Alas, no more Nikon scanners, I guess, and my old one doesn't like recent versions of Windows.

Alas, no more Nikon scanners, I guess, and my old one doesn't like recent versions of Windows.

Man, I'm in the same boat!

 

I have gotten some good results shooting with Nikon ES-1 on my FX cameras. They can be had for around $60 if you look - a whole lot cheaper & quicker than a scanner.

Here are two samples. A before and after using Epson's Auto Correction. I had some more dramatic examples, but this was the only "before" that I still have on my computer. These were from about 1960, taken by my father in Rome

 

 

When Digital ICE was owned by ASF (Applied Science Fiction!), it had a restoration of colour (ROC) function that worked quite well. However, I think the sample shown above is too far gone for any auto-colour correction to work fully.

 

There are many scanners on the market with ICE or similar software/IR hardware restoration. Canon have their own FARE version. I think Ed Hamrick's Vuescan has a colour restoration function too, and that can be fed with an image from any source - scanner or digital camera.

 

I managed to get this result just using the curves tool. The highlight blowout could probably have been avoided working from a RAW file.

Edited August 16, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

Yikes, Joe, what you did looks worse than the original. It looks like zombies in Rome. (my mother was fascinated by all the cats in the forum)

 

No, I don't claim that the Epson correction was even close to perfect. The real point is, don't toss all those color shifted photos. They can be brought back to something that's not all that bad.

 

About a year ago my brother was about to toss out about 500 E3s from my parent's trip to Italy in ~1960. Pictures of the Coliseum with nobody in them we tossed, but those with my parents, I said, "not so fast". There were many examples worse than the above "before' photo, and many cases where the "after' was pretty darn good. I had never needed the auto correct feature before and was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked all by itself.

 

To get even better results, I went into my software (Paint Shop) and playing with the red in the histogram, things got a whole closer to what they looked like in the 60s.

 

So getting back to the OP, fear not, all is not lost. Those old slides that are important to you deserve a little extra TLC.

I modified CHucks with "flesh tone" on PS Elements and came up with:

 

Nice job Alan. I've sharpened a little using the sharpening slider in OSX Preview's Adjust Color panel

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by kmac

I modified CHucks with "flesh tone" on PS Elements and came up with:

 

[ATTACH=full]1258121[/ATTACH]

 

Which version did you start with Alan?

I used the 'all red' original and simply used the editor on my phone - looks like it, I know.

 

Anyhow, what's obviously happened is that the cyan dye has faded badly. Raising the green and blue channel contrast should rescue anything that can be rescued.

 

Anyhow, an 8 bit JPEG isn't the ideal starting point, and a 16 bit scan will almost certainly yield a better result.

 

Since the weakness is mainly in cyan; I'm wondering if inverting the colours to negative, boosting the red channel, and then converting back to positive might work? It would save trying to adjust the green and blue channels equally.

 

Yep. That worked a lot better.

Oops. Hit upload twice.

Edited August 17, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

That's an improvement Joe. It's probably getting down to a matter of individual taste now but I like the truer color of the concrete. At the risk of ruining your effort, I've put a bit of warmth back into the image by manipulating the "Green" curve in Photoshop. Plus a little extra vibrance and saturation

 

In the event I was paying to get a similar original image corrected, and not expecting miracles, this is still sort of result I'd expect to receive back for my hard earned cash

A bit more work on the above:

 

Massive saturation boost + a further slight tweak of the red curve and overall tone curve to lighten the shadows.

 

I reckon this is as good as it can get from the all-red 8 bit sample posted. But as you say, it's down to personal taste (and maybe monitor calibration) at this stage.

You guys are getting pretty good at this. I hope that the OP has seen what can be done. If I still had the originals (my brother does), I'd be doing some serious playing. Years ago, my father saw how badly they had faded. Too bad he's not around to see the restorations.

 

PS: Can you get my mother to turn around and smile? :)

OMG - I got her to turn :-). The reason for this post is that the original was faded even more, Again, this was just a quickie using auto correct with the Epson Scanner

 

Some earlier discussion at

Some examples of striking differences in slide preservation

Hi, there were drivers for nikon scanners under linux. the project was called sane or scanner access now easy. You might want to try with a linux distribution. SANE - Scanner Access Now Easy . Might want to check with the contacts if there is any update.

FWIW, IN GENERAL I find that I prefer the results from the scanner manufacturer's software for good, clear slides but I prefer the color restoration tools in Vuescan.

 

This has a processing date of August of '67...not sure if that makes it an E3 or an E4.

 

Uncorrected

 

 

Vuescan "restore colors" and "restore fading"

 

With Windows Live from original

Too easy Ben!

Hardly any challenge at all in getting a decent result just with the curves and saturation tools.

From the cyan deficient original.

Incidentally, the slight underexposure of the scan really helps.

From original - quite a few adjustments in Photoshop plus cropping on right edge

 

This book is a pretty good reference book on how film ages. Not really a book that's super fun to read, but it is very good.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Permanence-Care-Color-Photographs-Traditional/dp/0911515003