Need help to identify and restore old negatives.

S
Posted By
seachest
May 13, 2004
Views
847
Replies
12
Status
Closed
Hi group,

I’m trying to restore some color photos taken in New York about 1946. I have 6 negatives, but only 3 of the original prints. All of these are faded, the negatives worse than the prints. I have been able to scan them and restore the images created from the prints, but not those from the negatives.

The negatives were scanned in a transparency scanner and the histograms adjusted in Photoshop. But, the colors are very wrong. They don’t agree with the colors in the prints nor with the tones in the scenes. It almost appears that the red and blue layers are reversed (is this possible?).

I don’t know if the colors have shifted because of the fading or if this is due to the type of film. It would help if I could identify the negative material. The negatives measure 2.25 x 4.5 inches. They are orange-brown in color and have no identification markings except for two sets of holes along the edges that look like this:

Left edge (7 holes) o o O o o O O

Right edge (12-13 holes) o o Ooo ooO oO O O O

(the right edge hole spacing varies slightly on each print, and some of the holes even overlap)

I would appreciate any help to identify this material and advice on how to restore these images. I can supply a sample of the RAW and TIFF files, if needed.

Thanks,

emr

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D
dadiOH
May 13, 2004
seachest wrote:

It would help if I could identify
the negative material. The negatives measure 2.25 x 4.5 inches. They are orange-brown in color and have no identification markings except for two sets of holes along the edges that look like this:
Left edge (7 holes) o o O o o O O

Right edge (12-13 holes) o o Ooo ooO oO O O O

IIRC, the only US negative film then was Kodak’s Kodacolor. It was the first color negative film and was introduced in 1941. I sure don’t remember anything about holes though. Could they have been made by the user to ID the negatives in some manner? Size sounds like 616.


dadiOH
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Jim
May 13, 2004
If they had only used Kodachrome…. It was sold in medium format sizes at that time, but it was so slow that the only practical film size was 35mm.

Digital ROC is the best bet for restoring these negatives. It won’t restore all negatives though.

The film type was Kodacolor (Kodak’s first color negative). What you describe as the orange brown color is the orange mask. This mask color provides a know color for the printer to use. So, if the mask is wrong, the scan will also be wrong.

Digital ROC examines the color layers to determine what the color might be in addition to the mask.

Jim
"seachest" wrote in message
Hi group,

I
D
Don
May 13, 2004
The holes were made by the processor to identify the roll. They correlate with the receipt number given to the film’s owner. It was similar to today’s barcodes.

I am currently working on many slides taken in the 50s and 60s which have also faded in the manner you describe. The ones taken with Kodachrome are not too bad, but many of the ones taken with Ektachrome run from so-so to awful. I’ve been able to restore most of them in PS 7.0.1 by using a combination of contrast boost, saturation boost, and color correction. In a few cases I’ve also adjusted the levels of each color separately. The process is labor intensive, but does salvage some otherwise lost pictures.

Don

"seachest" wrote in message
Hi group,

I
H
Husky
May 13, 2004
On Thu, 13 May 2004 13:03:19 GMT, seachest wrote:

I’m trying to restore some color photos taken in New York about 1946. I have 6 negatives, but only 3 of the original prints. All of these are faded, the negatives worse than the prints. I have been able to scan them and restore the images created from the prints, but not those from the negatives.
You say the photos, not the negatives.
So just as a test starting point you could try viewing the bad shots in irfanview. and use it’s rgb-> brg -> grb etc.. swap options and see if one of those works.
Then make an image from that point. Then with a close up lens and hood create another image negative from the fixed ones.

more pix @ http://members.toast.net/cbminfo/index.html
MR
Mike Russell
May 13, 2004
seachest wrote:
Hi group,

I
R
RSD99
May 13, 2004
"Mike Russell" posted:
"…
I have an example of restoring faded film in my Misfortunate Images Tutorial. If your image turns out to be of general interest, I’d like your permission to add it to the tutorial.
http://curvemeister/tutorials/misfortunate/
…."

Just an FYI:

I’m getting all kinds of 404 Errors from your URLs.
Not only is the URL you posted bad (note the missing ‘(dot)com’), but others also seem to have problems.

Your tutorials are actually on
http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

where the URL for the "Misfortunate Images" page is given as http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.h tm

Which comes up with
"…
Not Found
The requested URL /geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.htm was not found on this server.

———————————————————— ——————–

Apache/1.3.29 Server at home.pacbell.net Port 80
…."

Your page actually sounds interesting, and I’d actually like to read what you have to say.
MR
Mike Russell
May 13, 2004
RSD99 wrote:
"Mike Russell" posted:
"…
I have an example of restoring faded film in my Misfortunate Images Tutorial. If your image turns out to be of general interest, I’d like your
permission to add it to the tutorial.
http://curvemeister/tutorials/misfortunate/
…"

Just an FYI:

I’m getting all kinds of 404 Errors from your URLs.
Not only is the URL you posted bad (note the missing ‘(dot)com’), but others also seem to have problems.

Your tutorials are actually on
http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

where the URL for the "Misfortunate Images" page is given as http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.h tm
Which comes up with
"…
Not Found
The requested URL /geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.htm was not found on this server.

Thanks very much for the heads up. The web pages have been fixed. http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

BTW – the tutorials do use curvemeister, and the curve files are compatible, and the actual curve operations can be duplicated using Photoshop’s normal curves.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
D
DR
May 13, 2004
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
RSD99 wrote:
"Mike Russell" posted:
"…
I have an example of restoring faded film in my Misfortunate Images Tutorial. If your image turns out to be of general interest, I’d like your
permission to add it to the tutorial.
http://curvemeister/tutorials/misfortunate/
…"

Just an FYI:

I’m getting all kinds of 404 Errors from your URLs.
Not only is the URL you posted bad (note the missing ‘(dot)com’), but others also seem to have problems.

Your tutorials are actually on
http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

where the URL for the "Misfortunate Images" page is given as http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.h tm
Which comes up with
"…
Not Found
The requested URL /geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.htm was not found on this server.

Thanks very much for the heads up. The web pages have been fixed. http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

BTW – the tutorials do use curvemeister, and the curve files are compatible, and the actual curve operations can be duplicated using Photoshop’s normal curves.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

Does the curvemeister work with other PS Plugin compatible programs like Jasc PaintshopPro?
MR
Mike Russell
May 13, 2004

D.R. wrote:
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
RSD99 wrote:
"Mike Russell" posted:
"…
I have an example of restoring faded film in my Misfortunate Images Tutorial. If your image turns out to be of general interest, I’d like your
permission to add it to the tutorial.
http://curvemeister/tutorials/misfortunate/
…"

Just an FYI:

I’m getting all kinds of 404 Errors from your URLs.
Not only is the URL you posted bad (note the missing ‘(dot)com’), but others also seem to have problems.

Your tutorials are actually on
http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

where the URL for the "Misfortunate Images" page is given as http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.h tm
Which comes up with
"…
Not Found
The requested URL /geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.htm was not found on this server.

Thanks very much for the heads up. The web pages have been fixed. http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

BTW – the tutorials do use curvemeister, and the curve files are compatible, and the actual curve operations can be duplicated using Photoshop’s normal curves.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

Does the curvemeister work with other PS Plugin compatible programs like Jasc PaintshopPro?

Unfortunately, PSP does dot work with Curvemeister because it uses some of Photoshop’s more advanced features that are supported by PSP.

The tutorials for the RGB examples can be adapted to PSP, and the curve file format is the same.

Curvemeister will work with certain other Adobe products. http://www.outbackphoto.com/workflow/wf_32/essay.html


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
H
Hecate
May 14, 2004
On Thu, 13 May 2004 13:03:19 GMT, seachest
wrote:

Hi group,

I’m trying to restore some color photos taken in New York about 1946. I have 6 negatives, but only 3 of the original prints. All of these are faded, the negatives worse than the prints. I have been able to scan them and restore the images created from the prints, but not those from the negatives.
The best advice I can give you is go and look at www.retouchpro.com and if this is the sort of work you’ll be doing with any regularity buy Katrin Eismann’s book Photoshop Restoration and Retouching (and in there you’ll fin precise methods for restoring damage, discolouration and so forth).



Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
D
DR
May 14, 2004
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
D.R. wrote:
"Mike Russell" wrote in message
RSD99 wrote:
"Mike Russell" posted:
"…
I have an example of restoring faded film in my Misfortunate Images Tutorial. If your image turns out to be of general interest, I’d like your
permission to add it to the tutorial.
http://curvemeister/tutorials/misfortunate/
…"

Just an FYI:

I’m getting all kinds of 404 Errors from your URLs.
Not only is the URL you posted bad (note the missing ‘(dot)com’), but others also seem to have problems.

Your tutorials are actually on
http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

where the URL for the "Misfortunate Images" page is given as http://home.pacbell.net/geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.h tm
Which comes up with
"…
Not Found
The requested URL /geigy/tutorials/misfortunate/index.htm was not found on this server.

Thanks very much for the heads up. The web pages have been fixed. http://curvemeister.com/tutorials/

BTW – the tutorials do use curvemeister, and the curve files are compatible, and the actual curve operations can be duplicated using Photoshop’s normal curves.


Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net

Does the curvemeister work with other PS Plugin compatible programs like Jasc PaintshopPro?

Unfortunately, PSP does dot work with Curvemeister because it uses some of Photoshop’s more advanced features that are supported by PSP.

D’oh! Are there any other 3rd party plugins that are considered essential for PSP and PS users?

The tutorials for the RGB examples can be adapted to PSP, and the curve file format is the same.

Thanks Mike.
S
seachest
May 16, 2004
Thanks to everyone who responded to my request. I really appreciate all the help. It’s going to take me a while to check out all of the ideas that I received. I think the effort will be worth it just to develop some new restoration techniques. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

emr

seachest wrote:
Hi group,

I’m trying to restore some color photos taken in New York about 1946. I have 6 negatives, but only 3 of the original prints. All of these are faded, the negatives worse than the prints. I have been able to scan them and restore the images created from the prints, but not those from the negatives.

The negatives were scanned in a transparency scanner and the histograms adjusted in Photoshop. But, the colors are very wrong. They don’t agree with the colors in the prints nor with the tones in the scenes. It almost appears that the red and blue layers are reversed (is this possible?).

I don’t know if the colors have shifted because of the fading or if this is due to the type of film. It would help if I could identify the negative material. The negatives measure 2.25 x 4.5 inches. They are orange-brown in color and have no identification markings except for two sets of holes along the edges that look like this:

Left edge (7 holes) o o O o o O O

Right edge (12-13 holes) o o Ooo ooO oO O O O

(the right edge hole spacing varies slightly on each print, and some of the holes even overlap)

I would appreciate any help to identify this material and advice on how to restore these images. I can supply a sample of the RAW and TIFF files, if needed.

Thanks,

emr

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

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