Faded/Damaged 16mm print restoration

Here is a step by step video which discusses the restoration of some faded and damaged film we recently scanned. For more information about this process and costs, please visit our website www.narrowgaugefilms.com for more information

[@RotarySMP]

Nice work. Amazing that much color information could be pulled out of that magenta raw scan.

[@ChrisSmartFilms]

incredible restoration work. Im amazed you were able to bring back so much of the original color

[@DethronerX]

Beautiful work!

[@truefilm6991]

Excellent work! In the wet gate scan it looks like cyan and yellow are still there very very faintly. Beautiful restoration, even if understandably not to its former glory, but excellent nonetheless. I graded a lot of badly faded photos in PS and they usually look rougher in texture. Great work also on fixing issues such as dirt, sctatches, flicker and jitter.

[@loganq]

@ 2:20 Oops!

[@randygrafton3637]

This is a misleading demo. The initial test scan which the video claims is how the color on the film print itself looks has been skewed toward red. The proof is in looking at the sprocket holes. The light shining through them should be pure white, but in your initial test scan it is the same shade of red that is so prominent. In other words, the print was not really faded that badly, it has been digitally manipulated to give the illusion that the print was terribly faded. There is also trickery going on with levels, specifically clipping of the highlights in the initial test scan. The final graded product is obviously better than projecting the faded print but the colors are still off, as are the levels.

[@CinemaRepository]

Yes, the initial scan was more black and white than pink. You’ll notice on the “wet gate pass” the pink is still there but the perfs are white, thus clearly showing the film was pink. The clipping was unintentional, our first scan was bad. Once we cleaned the film and wet gated it, the layers of dirt would be reduced. So I couldn’t show a proper scan post cleaning and wet gate. That would not show anything honestly. So we decided to show the clipped scan and try to make it match pink color of the initial wet gate scan, which is the 2nd clip in this video

[@CinemaRepository]

Also, the prints initial grade was all over the place. It was very inconsistent. It was not my intention to do a shot by shot correction. I was simply demoing the power of the wet gate process and the removal of dirt. The added benefit of a pink print was good as well. The levels being off, you can attribute to the original grade on the film, it’s horrible.