Please help with this bad color shift.

[Marni48]

Hi

Although I look like a newbe I used to post quite a bit a few years ago. We moved and until a little while ago, I was in remodel &%$# so now back to the photo restoration. I had to re-register and get a new name, but anyway, here goes.

I am scanning a bunch of my old photos and so many of them have awful color shifts. I have tried so many different ideas from many posts on this site but to no avail can I get this picture to a good coloration. I even tried to delete a channel using one of the tutorials and all I ended up with was a really pink image. I used Katrin Eismann's suggestions also, but can't get it right.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate your help.

[mistermonday]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Hi Marni, looks like you figured out the attach process on your own. As for the color shift, this is quite normal as photos age and this degree of shift is easily fixable. Attached are several examples.
First is a conventional Levels adjustment. You add a Levels adj layer and compress the histogram of each channel individually. Usually this brings the image back in line fully or you can adj the level of one of the channels to shift the color until it looks just right.
Second is to use the automatic adjustment that most image editing programs like Photoshop have. Here I used Image>Adjust>AutoColor. For moderate color shifts it works a high percentage of the times. Like any automation, sometimes it gets tricked by the damaged areas of an image.
Third, use one of many available PS plugin filters to assist the task. Below is an example of Kodac's Digital ROC plugin for Color Correction
Finally, another plug in called iCorrect 1Click. This one is semi automatic. You need to tell it where the image should have a neutral color. It then does the rest. Both Kodac ROC and PictoColor's 1Click are very good for images which have extreme color casts and are difficult or time consuming to fix with custom curves.
Oh, BTW, prior to making any color corrections to the image, I ran a noise filter (Noiseware) to smooth out the noise so that the noise would not get amplified by the color correction steps.
Regards, Murray

[pixelzombie]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

they may look bad, but they just seem to have a strong yellow cast, here's a quick correction with just a single curves adjustment layer...

[Marni48]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Gosh, thanks so much for the examples. You all are awesome !!! I have soooooo many pix like this in need of various degrees of color correction, I wonder if a plug in might be warranted. One of the things I noticed was the smoothing of the photo that was achieved. I had used a blur in the blue channel and it helped somewhat, but I like the other examples using the software. I think I might have to look into that since I have 1000+ photos to do. I inherited the family pix of over 50 years to restore and the job is going to be quite a commitment.

[Marni48]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Murray, I did a search for Kodac ROC and PictoColor's 1Click. I couldn't find the Kodac one, do you have a web site for it? Also, would you suggest the stand alone for the picto color or the plug in for photoshop. I have photoshop 7 Which would you think I would be better off with?
Thanks
Marni

[mistermonday]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Marni, here is the link to Kodak's Digital ROC (sorry about the Kodak typo).

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/software/imgEnhancePlugIns/roc.jhtml

Unless your images have very severe casts I would recommend Kodak over Picto but I think both may have a free trial version.
If you already use PS, then the plugin is probably the way to go. Otherwise you are always having to switch between two separate applications whereas the plugin is i\under the filter menu and is fully integrated.
By the way, there are many other products like these on the market - I just did not spend a lot of time testing them all.
FYI, Photoshop is capable of doing every bit as good a job as any of the filters out there - but the issue is time. If you have a 1000 images to do, the time consuming curve and level tweaks may not be the way to go for the relatively low cost of a plugin.
The other suggestion is that you should definitely get a noise filter plug in. Photoshops noise filters are very inadequate for most applications - here it is not a question of time - they are just too simple (or dumb). There are some free ones avail like Neat Image but the free ones have limitations (image size, color space, etc). I have used all the popular ones but find the best results with Noiseware from Imagenomic. As you scan old film, you will find many with large grain and many underexposed. That means you may have lots of noise. Smoothing it out will make color correcting more accurate.
Regards, Murray

[Charlene5]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

I have a suggestion that is so simple that I hesitate to offer it! When I have color cast, the first thing I try is in the Levels adjustment. Click on the Options button and make sure "Enhance Per Channel Contrast" and "Snap to Neutral Midtones" are checked. Click OK and the cast vanishes.

[duwayne]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Don't give up on the "orange" photos. A lot of mine from the 1960's turned orange. I was able to recover about 95% of then with very good results. The other 5% I converted to black & white. Here's my go at your photo. I used curve adjustment layer to correct the color and then a hue/saturation layer to boost the blues and green. The lower left corner has a little light leak that I mask off and darkened. As Murray said, a third-party noise filter is an absolute necessity when working with old scanned photos. Be careful not to overdo it so the image becomes plastic looking. I used NeatImage on your photo.

I also attached a quick conversion to B&W.

[cebe]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Hi Marni,
I first "repair" the poor histogram and try Ctrl-shift-B. Not so bad, but still yellowish. If you try to remove completely that yellow, you will be too blue !!, so I decide to go more red to have a pleasant look. I don't imaging a method to be perfect, sorry
CB

[whiteivy]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Its important to set the black point white point and grey point correctly when scanning.
If you get theses right you will have an easier task in correcting the colour.
Look for the neutral greys

[Marni48]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

Wow, so many great ideas, I love this site and will be visiting for advice alot now that the move is over. Thanks to all.

[chillin]

Re: Please help with this bad color shift.

I used similar techniques mentioned by duwayne with some additions.
I added a noise filter in the LAB channel at the beginning of the process.
I also used different photo filters with masks to selectively enhance some parts of the picture.