Heavy Colour Cast Slides - help needed.

[tmurphy]

Whilst working through scanning and retouching some fourteen hundred 126 slides from the early 70's I came across a batch of bought souvenir 35mm slides from my parents holiday.

They all have degraded over the past 37 years and have a severe red tint to the images. The Kodak 126 slides are still pretty much as the day they where taken

Attached is a sample image and a purely level adjusted fix. I used the threshold method to pinpoint the darkest and lightest pixels in the image and set these as black and white and pretty much guessed at the grey midpoint from some of the clouds!

The result is OK, but are there any other techniques for correcting such heavily tinted images?

Many thanks for any help

Tony

[0lBaldy]

This video is pretty interesting-- Katrin Eismann-Image Restoration, Repair & Enhancement: Extreme Color Correction
If the link does not work ... go to photoworkshop.com Scroll down to "Adobe Training Area".... click on "Tutorials" ..... Under "Software Cinema" select Adobe Cs, CS2, and CS3... Click Katrin Eismanns' name (OR as on my computer I had to click on "Rick Sammon" to bring up Katrins menu) when Katrins menu pops up ... select "Image Restoration, Repair & Enhancement: Extreme Color Correction"

Various usefull techniques and some other nice videos on that site!!

[llinares]

Mostly I duped the background image and then clicked Image>Adjustments>Match Color and checked Neutralize. Then used that as starting point to add adjustment layered for Curves.

[philbach]

Well I took a look at Katrin's video as OLBaldy mentioned. After doing that I went into lab and made more color adjustments.
Notice that there are a few areas around white bright pixel areas that have a greenish tint to them.

[philbach]

In this photo I felt that some of the stones in the left foreground would be neutral gray. The building in the background pure white and to the right side a black stone. So I placed color samplers on these areas and then using a curves adjustment layer I used the eyedroppers. White, Black, and then moved around with the gray one. That did most of the initial work.

[tmurphy]

Many many thanks for the help and pointers, the Katrina video looks excellent. I've had a very quick play with one of the images, and the results are not too bad.

I'm just glad it was only the handful of bought slides that were affected. 2 reels down 8 to go !!!

Tony

[crazyfly1]

tmurphy,
I 'm not sure if this tip is in the katrin vid (I can't watch her, she bores me to tears).
Wanted to let you know you don't have to guess at the grey point.
After you set black and white points-create a new layer filled with neutral grey (do this by picking add new layer from the drop menu, not the icon, choose the overlay blend mode, press ok).
Now change the blend mode to difference, the areas that show as black are nutral grey-set your point and then delete the layer and add another curves adjustment.

[crazyfly1]

Here is another. I started the same way you did, added the grey point, added a laer set to color with gausian blur set to 5.
Added a HS layer and bumped color 20%. Finished with unsharp mask with high radius.

[jojaspi]

had some reasonably good results with the Kodak ROC filter ...

[marek]

Grey point
1. Dup image
2. invert image
3. blur a little
4. Blend Mode : Difference
5. threshold to the most left of the histogram... the black is your grey point from the threshold view

Heres my color correction

http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=95651295.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/my.php?image=55341478.jpg

[philbach]

This is from Scott Kelby's The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book page 221 and is similar to what has been described by crazyfly1.

• Create a new layer and fill with 50% Gray

• Go to the Layers Panel and change the blend mode of that layer to difference.

• On top of the Gray Layer add a Threshold Adjustment Layer

• In the Adjustments Panel of the Threshold Adjustment Layer drag the slider under the histogram all the way to the left. (Your Photo Will turn completely white.

• Now slowly drag the slider to the right and the first areas that appear black are the neutral midtones.

• Add a Color Sampler Point as a reminder to that Black area.

• Discard the Threshold and Gray Layers

• Place a curves adjustment layer on top of the original layer and click on the Sampler Point with the middle (Gray) eyedropper.

[crazyfly1]

philbach, I like that, the threshold layer makes it much easier to see the target.
Thanx

[Cupcake]

I used Light Room for the color adjustment.
I then took it into CS3 to recolor the sky.
Used the CS3 noise filter also.

[imagicphoto]

Hello, I made several repeated adjustments with color balance, then recolored the lake blue the old fashioned way. Amazing that there was still any color information remaining!

[mistermonday]

Kodak has a neat Photoshop plugin (or stand alone program) called Digital ROC. It was designed by them specifically to correct slides and negatives that have shifted over time. There is nothing to do but go Filter>Kodak ROC. Most of the time it is very accurate. There are controls to fine tune the color. Often it does a great job in 2 seconds and you don't need to mess with curves or HSL etc.
The sample attached would have come out better but the images you uploaded were severely pixelated due to over compression. In future you would be better to reduce the resolyion to 72 ppi, size the image to 6 or 8 inches on the tall side, and save with a higher jpgsetting (you should be able to get 7, 8, or 9 and still fall within the 100KB limited for upload.
Regards, Murray

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by crazyfly1

tmurphy,
I 'm not sure if this tip is in the katrin vid (I can't watch her, she bores me to tears).
Wanted to let you know you don't have to guess at the grey point.
After you set black and white points-create a new layer filled with neutral grey (do this by picking add new layer from the drop menu, not the icon, choose the overlay blend mode, press ok).
Now change the blend mode to difference, the areas that show as black are nutral grey-set your point and then delete the layer and add another curves adjustment.

I've used this tip before. But the way I was told was to make a new layer filled with 50% grey and set to difference. Is that accomplishing the same thing?

[crazyfly1]

"create a new layer filled with neutral grey (do this by picking add new layer from the drop menu, not the icon, choose the overlay blend mode, press ok).
Now change the blend mode to difference"

I'm not sure where I'm missing you. I guess the answer to your question is yes? I think the bump in the road must be the overlay blend mode at the start. If you create a new layer by using the little tiny drop arrow at the top right of the layers pallet you will get a dialouge asking what kind of layer. here you have several options and can also set the blend mode and fill. The difference mode does not come with a fill with 50% grey option, the overlay blend mode does so I start there and then change blend mode to difference once I've crated the layer filled with grey.
Just saves a step, could just create a new layer with the icon and then select grey with a color tool then use the paint bucket to fill and set the blend mode to difference.

[0lBaldy]

This action uses the 50% Gray layer and the Threshold layer plus a levels layer to utilize the Gray, Black, White points found..
After setting the Gray point, This action unchecks the Gray layer but keeps the threshold layer for setting the Black and White points also. This way ALL the points Gray, Black, and White are set and then used with a Levels layer... Corrections are saved as a combined layer to use as you wish

[jaxx]

I neutralized the blacks, whites, and midtones. Then I used color balance to visually fix some of the remaining color problems. I then boosted the vibrance and merged all layers. OnOne has a neat photo kit called PhotoTools 2.0 Light. Its free and has 14 of the full versions effects. I added a kodachrome effect for contrast and to make the reds punch a little more, boosted the color, and sharpened.