Correcting faded 35mm film

I'm transferring very old 35mm prints (and by transfer I mean shoot off the wall) and trying to see if I can preserve any color in them. The one I'm working on now is quite faded- leaving only the red pigment. In Color I've been able to raise the saturation and bring some of the red down, and the results look great on a frame by frame basis.
However, I'm thinking because each frame of the print has degraded diffrerently, there is quite a change in color from frame to frame. So a clip 'flickers' with color, and it's a bit distracting.
Does anyone know if there is some way of 'smoothing' out the whole clip to avoid a jump in color like this? Or does anyone else have sufficient experience with getting color out of old prints? I'm thinking that the best thing may be to just turn this into black and white, but would like to make sure there's no way of saving the color.
Thanks!

Thanks for your insight Rob. What's interesting is I've tried shooting very new prints, and the color seems to be quite consistent frame to frame in the clips. It seems that the issue is amplified by the older prints, as even without color correction I can see the change in RGB in each frame.
It's certainly not ideal to shoot off the wall, but the budget calls for it. I'm hoping to maybe find a way through trial and error to get a clean sync, but it seems it might be hard. I shot with the same camera and with the same settings, which I'll put below.
Thanks again!
Canon XH-A1
24F 16:9 HDV
Shutter 1/48

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FCP 4 can it produce 16:9 letter box or anaorphic shots to DVD & 35mm film

I'm going to shoot a feature length movie in the near future. I have the anamorphic lens and will purchase the wide-angle lens for my Panasonic DVX-100A. I'm considering upgrading to the G5 with the latest Final Cut Pro software, probably DVD Studio 4. I'm going to shoot in 16:9 24fps Progressive mode. I eventually want have the option from the mini DV master to make 16:9 formatted DVD's and transfer to 35mm film.
My question is; what mode will you suggest to shoot in-letter box or squeeze frame? Should I use the anamorphic lens or just use the wide-angle lens? Will the latest Final Cut Pro DVD software address all of these issues? Thanks.

My question is; what mode will you suggest to shoot in-letter box or squeeze frame? Should I use the anamorphic lens or just use the wide-angle lens? Will the latest Final Cut Pro DVD software address all of these issues?
For the best 16:9 image quality, use the anamorphic lens and, as far as camera settings, shoot in standard (4:3) mode. The image will be distorted - it'll be squeezed - on tape, but you can tell Final Cut Pro to correctly unsqueeze it very easily.
Do not shoot in Squeeze mode (or Letterbox mode) if you're using the anamorphic lens - you'll end up with a doubly distorted image that will give you nightmares in post-production.
If you need to use the wide-angle lens, you won't be able to use the anamorphic lens (from my understanding of how the lenses on a DVX100A work) though. If you're going to be shooting in (uncontrolled?) conditions where the wide-angle lens is needed, then - and only then - shoot in Squeeze mode and use the wide-angle lens.
Personally, though, I would put off purchasing the wide-angle lens if you already have the anamorphic lens. Shooting with the anamorphic lens produces a better 16:9 image than when shooting in Squeeze mode.
And, yes, Final Cut Pro 5 will give you what you need. And, when it comes time to produce DVDs, DVD Studio Pro 4 should be fine as well.

Canoscan 35mm film guide

I found a user on a forum somewhere who needed a 35mm negative film guide for his Canoscan 9000F. I'm in the same boat but the after marcket one is for Lab and manufacturing use and as such are about $100.00.
One respondent said they don't use the film guides any more because Viuscan doesn't require them.
I have a demo version of Viuscan which looks like the full up version except its useless because you can't save the scans as it states it imprints a water mark on the scan output. Plus, the only way I can see how to scan the film is to place the strip on the glass, shut the scanner lid, choose what looks like the Viuscan options for scanning film using the advanced options (only in the full up version) settings and hit "Preview" or "Scan". In all cases I could try, Viewscan simply makes a picture of the strip of film and thats it. No seperating of one image on the strip from the next or anything.
I would rather spend the money on Viuscan then the film guide as long as the software does what I need to do.
Any help?

I have both. My problem was I did not have the 35mm film guide and had heard you didn't need it if you use Viuscan. After experimenting with both software, It turns out you can scan with both without the film guide. The problem is you have to align the film manually which requires a bit of trial and error.
The Viuscan software lets you preview before you scan enabling you to see alignment errors so you can reposition the film and preview again.
In either case it is much easier to use the film guide which I was able to optain. So the problem resolved itself.
The Viuscan software has more settimgs bot it doesn't seem to automaticlly set other required options when you adjust one. So you have to play around with it more to get things right . The user guide and other documentation doesn't help much and the support is via email and is a bit shoudy. Most of the other options I haven't needed so far.
The Canon software works fine but I find it a bit anoiying that you cant save the raw file as jpeg without changing something else in the image too. Plus the dust correction, which I thought was done automatically in the hardware, doesn't seem to do anything., at least for the 35mm film. And I can't find anywhere in the software that allows you to turn it on. I need this.
Thanks for your response.

Can 35mm Film Scans create a profile or must it be digital with EXIF data?

I have a lot of old minolta lenses to go with old manual minolta 35mm film cameras. There is no Meta data in the scans of the film comming off the scanner as I create the DNG file, at least none I'm aware of. However looking at the images in Lightroom it seems as if lightroom attaches such information to every image once it's imported.
Can this applicaiton be used to create profiels for scanned film images? Can I take the 9 shots of a chart, load them up, and create a profile using scans from 35mm film?
I realise that the instrutctions say the EXIF data allows you to have profiles automtaicaly apply. But I'm not worried about that feature.
My plan was to profile my old lenses and label the profiles so I can manually attach them to images in lightroom.
A fried of mine says he doesn't see where the lens profile creator can work without EXIF data but I don't see why not.

download exiftool.exe, drop it in the directory with your dngs, and then create a .bat file with the following command:
exiftool.exe -exif:FocalLength=35 -exif:FocalLengthIn35mmFormat=35 -exif:FNumber=2.8 -exif:SubjectDistance=10.5 *.dng
(adjust your numbers accordingly- subject distance is in meters)
run the .bat and it should tag your images with all the exif info that the profile creator needs. make sure you don't crop your images smaller than the original shot size too, otherwise your FocalLengthIn35mmFormat will be wrong

Color correction followed by Film effects = bad vid?

I have some shots at the beach, and the shots look pretty good after I do the color correction. I want to add the film effect, so composite clips using Screen & Soft light modes, and use the gaussian blur. It results in something that I totally dont want, and it looks all washed out. Color correction and the film effects work pretty good individually, but together they are just not working for me. Can someone please tell me how can I preserve the color correction, and that filmic glow at the same time.
Thanks a lot

You can move the filters around in a different order. Moving them in a particular order will change how the filters interacted with each other.
For example: You might want to do a lighting effect first followed by a blur. In this order you blurring the lighting effect. If you do the blur first and light effect next. You lighting the blur. (OR) You may want to do the color correction last for an over all color effect on the video and how it looks. If you do a color correction first the filter to follow with change how the color correction looks.
Play around with the order and try to get the effect you want.

Trying to load disc with Photos from 35MM/Film

Place disc from 35mm film into iphoto. When I place disc into computer , nothing indicates that I have done that? What am I missing?

d Garmendia
Welcome to the Apple users forum
When I place disc into computer , nothing indicates that I have done that? What am I missing?
what format is the disk and what format are the photos - where did the disk come from - this sounds like a computer problem not an iPhoto problem - could be either hardware or OS related unless you can provide more information - until you can see the disk on your computer and see that the uinformation on it is compatible with yoru computer none of the programs on the computer including iPhoto will be able to access the information on it
LN

How do I remove Pull Down? Editing from 35mm film.

I am editing a film, shot on 35mm film, and doing some compositing so my VFX guy asked me to remove the pull down. I tried reverse telecine in Cinema Tools and in FCP 5. Nothing seems to work. I am not sure what settings I should use in Cinema Tools to remove it (Fields, type, etc). Help please.

You'll need to see what type of pulldown they added...
Step thru frame by frame... if you see three progressives and two interlaced frames for every 5 frames then it is 3:2 pulldown... if you see 4 progressives and 1 interlaced for every 5 frames then you've got 2.3.3.2 or advanced pulldown cadence.
My bet is that you've got 3.2 pulldown cadence and you should be able to remove that in Cinema tools.
Not at Cinema Tools right now, but check to see if you can't find remove 3.2 pulldown or reverse telecine. That should do it.
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CaptM

35mm film finishing on HD - 23.98 or 24?

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HD has many framerates. 59.94, 29.97, 23.98. You have to choose one. 59.94 and 23.98 are the most common. You need to figure out how you want to finish this...what format. D5? HDCAM? HDCAM SR?
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Question: If you are editing with Avid Express Pro HD, why are you asking questions on the FCP helpsite?
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Restoring Faded 35mm slides

I have hundreds of 35mm slides that have faded badly. I would like to scan them and restore them using Photoshop Elements 4. Is there anyone who can tell me how to proceed? Thanks in advance.
Shirley

First scan them. :) This is a good site for some basic information:
http://www.scantips.com/index.html
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35mm film to 2K DPX to FCP to Color to FCP issue.

Hi everyone,
I'm having a problem getting my color grading in Color to show up in FCP. Here's what I've done:
I imported a 10 second test clip of 2K 10-bit Log DPX frames (of a scanned 35mm low contrast print) into FCP, then sent it to Color. Color took the "milky Log look" and made it look nicer (Linear) as soon as it opened in Color, the way it automatically does.
After I did some color grading, I rendered the clips in Color, and sent them back to FCP. They arrived, but in FCP they still have the "milky Log look".
I had selected "Original Format" as the Quicktime Export Codec in the Setup room's Project Settings, so I tried again, changing it to ProRes 4x4 in case that would help. But no luck, still looking milky.
Any ideas on what I did wrong and how to correct it?
My eventual goal is to Color grade the whole feature, then bring it back into FCP to make a Digital Cinema Package. Good thing I tried doing it with a 10 second clip first!
Thanks!

An HDTV has circuitry in it that will alter the image to make it look it's best on that specific TV screen. All TV's have this. So what looks great on one TV may not look the same on another. Which is why you can NOT under any condition to color correction or image quality assessment on one. Go to a store, look at the wall of HDTV screens, and you'll see a variety of tints, image quality, sharpness, etc.
For this same reason, HDMI connections can not be used at all for color correction, as it is a two way protocol, meaning both devices talk to each other, and negotiate how to alter the signal for best performance between them.
A production monitor is a one way protocol, HD-SDI, and shows you the true, raw image, untouched, unaltered. Nothing else can do this. If it looks good there, then you're good on pretty much anything. You can also see the full image without losing anything to overscan on a production monitor, unlike a TV screen, that looses part of the image to overscan, thus you can not know what is action or title safe using an HDTV screen. I personally use an Flanders Scientific LM-2450W monitor with an AJA Kona LHi card. About the best quality and the best price you'll find anywhere.
Anyone who says and HDTV screen works for color correction and image quality assessment is clueless. An MXO with an LCD computer monitor (or even HDTV) is absolutely not a replacement for a real production monitor. But it's closer to it than your computer screen itself.
For more information, I'll refer you to The Color Correction Hand Book by Alexis Van Hurkman. Nothing better has ever been written on the subject.

Looking for a scanner to digitalize 35mm films and photos

Hi!
I have Photoshop CS2 and would like to buy a scaner to digitalize old photos.
Can anyone recommend me one, please?
Are there any small scanners, just for films and photos?
Thanks a million!
Monica

The Epson perfection series scanners work well and are reasonably priced. Just be sure you get a model that has back lighting and a film holder. Something like http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oi d=53540925
should suite you well, but they also have cheaper models closer to $100 that also support film scanning. We have used various models from the Epson perfection series for years with no problems.

Correcting faded 35 mm slides with iPhoto?

I have just scanned some old 35 mm slides to iPhoto and note that many are very faded. Is there a way in iPhoto to improve these images?

Your scanner has ICE4 which includes ROC which restores faded colors.
I found this info here
http://www.bythom.com/coolscanv.htm

OT The CDs that the film processors give you.

I was thinking about dusting off the old 35mm film SLR and shooting a roll or two of film. There are some things I miss about the old days. In any case I am not sure what resolutions that the developers burn to your CD for each picture. If I remember correctly they give a med and high res jpg but I do not recall the specs. Are there places that will allow one to specify the size?
Which leads to a more general question- what is the highest (meaningful) resolution that one can expect to obtain when taking this route?
Thanks,
Don

Hi Don,
Those CDs you got from the film processors were pretty low resolution. The
Kokak Picture CD gave you jpgs at only one resolution (1024 x 1536 1.5MP).
I think this, or the equivalent, is still available and is what you'll
probably get at your local processor. But, you'll need to check.
The earlier Kodak Photo CD was better. It used a proprietary file format
but gave you something like 5 resolutions per image with 2048 x 3072 being
the highest. They had a separate Photo CD PRO product also that went up to
4096 x 6144. But, Photo CD is gone. Kodak stopped making the equipment
and disks and discontinued the service in 2004.
Given the current state of digital cameras and the availability of low cost
scanners which can do a decent job scanning film, this has to be a declining
niche market. I believe there are still some labs that will produce a CD of
high res scans for you, but I haven't keep up and can't refer you to one.
Maybe someone that still shoots film and doesn't have a scanner can comment.

Film to digital

Hello, will my ef 75-3000mm 1:4-5.6 III lens that i used on my eos rebel film camera work on the eos t3i digital camera? i am planning to buy and i looked at bundles for 2 lens and noted one was efs 18-55 and the second lens was simply ef. thank you for helping

cicopo wrote:
The above information is NOT CORRECT. The most important error to point out is that EF-S lenses and their 3rd party equavelents are ONLY designed to work correctly on crop body cameras. They have a smaller light path than EF lenses. The S does not indicate they have a built in Stabilizer.
+1
The "-S" suffix on EF-S stands for "Short back-focus".
An EF lens projects an image circle into the camera body which is large enough to completely cover the size of a roughly 36x24mm sensor (or 35mm film negative frame).
An APS-C crop-frame sensor camera (all Rebel Bodies, the 70D, 60D, 50D, etc. and the 7D) have a physically smaller sensor. The sensor is the size of "Advanced Photo System - Class" size film negative frame.
Since the sensor is smaller, it's not necessary to project such a large image circle into the camera body. These crop-frame lenses are designed to project a smaller image circle and, in doing this, Canon places the rear-most element of the camera lens slightly behind the lens mounting flange -- which means the lens slightly protrudes into the camera body. The distance from that rear-most lens element to the sensor plane is the "back focus" distance. These short back-focus lenses project a circle large enough to completely cover the APS-C frame, but not large enough to fill a full-frame sensor (not with adequate qualiy anyway -- most lenses project a circle far larger) you wouldn't want to use an EF-S lens on a camera with a larger sensor. But it can also create a physical problem (not just image quality problem).
Since a larger sensor requires a larger reflex mirror, the rear-most lens element on an EF-S lens would technically be back far enough that the mirror on a full-frame camera would hit it when it tries to swing clear to take the shot. To protect against this, Canon designed a bit of shelf/ledge in the full-frame camera that prevents an EF-S from even being able to "seat" on a full-frame or APS-H camera. So basically not only should you not attempt to use an EF-S lens on a full-frame body, Canon designed the mount to prevent you from doing that by mistake.
Canon's designation for lenses with image stabilization built-in is the letters "IS" in the name.
Tim Campbell
5D II, 5D III, 60Da

Film look and Pal,what difference should I see?

Forum,
The Sony HC9E PAL has the option to use "film".
Sony tell me this would record at 24 fps.
What difference would I see between 24 fps and PAL?
Would the difference be apparent when viewing in the canvas?
Thank you
Michael Craven
PS I have FCP6.3

I'm not sure of the standards for pal but I know NTSC DV records at 30i (more specifically 29.97 interlaced frames per second). 24p (p being progressive) means that it will shoot 24 non interlaced frames per second which is the 'look' of 35mm film that you see in the movies.
The difference between progressive and interlaced flows very deep, but the most noticeable is the quality. When shooting interlaced you have every frame divided in half, one half is the odd lines drawn across the frame and the other is the even lines - this is why you get that flicker sometimes, the lines dont transfer or werent interpolated correctly. In progressive mode the frame is recorded and stored as one complete frame and therefore exhibits much better quality. So 24p will give you a high quality film like look while PAL (assuming its similar to the standards of NTSC) will give you a lesser quality home movie look.
Hope that helped.

Correcting faded 35mm film

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