Digital Roc for restoring color

[Royce]

Hi all, I'm trying to restore the color to a faded picture. I have a demo CD of Digital Roc and was wondering if anyone had experience with this or other software for restoring color. All responses are appreciated.

I tried to search the forum for references to this software, but 'Roc' is less than 4 characters, so I couldn't search for it!

Thanks in advance,
Royce

[Tim_S]

Royce,

I have the ROC demo too, as well as the version built in to my Minolta scanner. I have played with it a bit, and find that some times it works wonderfully, and other times it fails miserably, and there is little in-between. I never developed much skill with the controls since what I found was that it either did well automatically, or in those cases it didn't work well, fiddling with the controls did little to improve it.

You can try color correcting it with Photoshop. The best books I've found on color correction are by Dan Margulis. Check out "Professional Photoshop 6" (or is there a 7 now?). Try not to be put off by his strong opinions and demeaning attitude toward anyone not working in pre-press, because what he can teach about color easily worth it.

I have tried a plug-in called ColorMechanic which is great for adjusting a narrow range of colors at one time. I'm not sure it would work for a badly faded image.

Do you have a particular picture you are working on? If you cold post it, there are many people here who could give some specific suggestions based on the picture...

--tks

[Ed_L]

I'm not familiar with Digital Roc, so I can't offer an opinion on it. But if you have a scanner, and you use Vuescan software (a great buy here ), there is an option to restore colors when scanning. I've only used it a couple of times, but the results were impressive.

Ed

[Royce]

Ok.. I loaded Digital ROC and here are the before and after pictures...

[Royce]

Ok..here is the after pic... Sorry for 2 posts, but I wasn't sure how to post two pictures at once.

[KenB]

Photoshop's curves or levels do a pretty good job on color correction problems. I'm attaching an example, did this really fast.

Ken

[Royce]

Thanks Ken, I tried PS also but I wasn't nearly as successful. Levels changed all of the colors equally, and I'm a coward when it comes to curves. Can you summarize the steps you took in PS to get your image?

Thanks,
Royce

[KenB]

Royce, In the levels dialog box change the channel to a specific channel. red in the case of your image and adjust just the red channel, then I think I moved on and adjusted the green channel a bit, from there it was just a little adjustment of the contrast and the brightness. Curves can also be used on a specific channel instead of all channels at once.


Ken

[roger_ele]

Royce, I have digital ROC and find that it usually does the correction to intensly for my tastes. Here is the correction I did with the steps ...

1)added a levels adjustment layer, clicked OK without correction and changed blending mode to Multiply. Opened levels adjustment layer and pulled shadow slider on the left to the right a little (not all the way to the blacks, I like an illusion of detail.

2)added a curves adjustment layor, clicked the white eyedropper and clicked on the white barn, then adjusted to taste in each channel. clicked grey eyedropper and clicked on the road until I got close to what I liked, then adjusted each channel slightly to taste.

That's it ... I judge color accuracy by the variety of colors shades that I can see with-in an area, like the road or the field.

Hope this helps - and thanks for the fun.

[roger_ele]

sorry - new to this, the after image doesn't appear to have attached - here it is - keeping my fingers crossed

Also - I darkened the image a little in the levels adjustment layer with the mid tone slider and I darkened the image in the curves adjustment layer with the overall RGB curve.