yellow spots on old negatives

[helenovsky]

Hi,

I'm getting some experience scanning old negatives.
However, some negatives have this problem: Yellow spots, especially in lighter colors like sky or walls.

So I am looking for a solution that preserves all colors, without use the brush tool or any other mouse required tool .

I already tried the mistermonday's solution but the purple chemise turned brown after adjust hue to tweak the skin color.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-restoration/26047-orange-spots-70s-photo.html

Thanks for any suggestions.

Heleno.

[Tony W]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

I am rather doubtful that you will get a result that requires no further work with brush - the image colours including the purple chemise have been unevenly affected.

Still for this image it is possible to minimise the brush work. Add a HSL layer select Yellow and reduce saturation so that the yellow stains become grey, now add lightness to blend. Do the same selecting the green chanel

The blue contamination could be taken care of by new layer Color blend and paint low opacity grey (selected from shirt).

This will still leave remedial work but may help

[Wolfman]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Similar to Tony W's method but using hsl in Camera Raw seemed to work better.
I also toned down the red in the skin.

[chillin]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Camera RAW & HSL would do it.

[Cupcake]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

This was done in RAW.

[helenovsky]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Cupcake,

Could you say steps you done ?

[Cupcake]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Cupcake,

Could you say steps you done ?

Raw
Exposure +95
Shadows -32
Highlight +17
Black 0
Variance -5
Clarity -13
Saturation 0

Camera Profile
Red Primary
Green +24 Primary +13 Blue Primary +11
Saturation -27
In CS6
Hue & Saturation Green -48

[frairep]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Hi! I'm new to the site. I am scanning my old negatives and have a similar problem.

Previous to use digital corrections I would like to know if someone has any clue to solve it in physical world

They were stored in Hama sheets but it seems that humidity was not ok and they stuck to the paper. I tried submerging them in destillated water but no success.

If you consider this a wrong post to this thread, please forgive me and I´ll move it to a new one.

Many thanks;
Pablo

[Cupcake]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Photo storage Boxes.



This photo was done in raw

[frairep]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Thanks CupCake, digital magic is great!. Probably in the end I would fall there but I would like to try a little more with something previous to scanning.

Nevertheless, which sw did you use to convert jpg to raw and process? Did you use the same values as you used in helenovsky answer?

[Cupcake]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

To open a jpeg or tiff in RAW
Open Photoshop
Preferences
File handing
Camera Raw Preferences
Jpeg & Tiff
Ck.
Open all supported jpegs
Open Tiffs with settings

Picture
Exposure +2.15
Whites+27
Clarity +24
Vibrancy +4
Saturation -13

Camera Calibration
Green Primary
Saturation -58
Blue Primary Hue -37
Saturation-2

Photoshop
Levels

[Tony W]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

...Nevertheless, which sw did you use to convert jpg to raw and process? Did you use the same values as you used in helenovsky answer?

FWIW, you cannot convert a JPEG, TIFF or any other file format to raw.

JPEG etc have already been baked (or half baked depending on what you are going to do edit wise) from the raw data that digital device captures.

What you can do of course is use the tool set supplied in the raw editor (in this case ACR) to perform non destructive edits to your JPEG or TIFF. If you are only going to use ACR occasionally for JPEG edits then you may want to use Open As from PS and select Camera Raw from the drop down menu

[Cupcake]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

I know that Tony.
But some people do not know.

[Tony W]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Hi Cupcake,
I know that you know but as the word converted used thought it worth flagging that no conversion taken place. I perhaps should also have added that a sidecar file will be spawned to carry the edit instructions and will need to be present with the original should you need to maintain a non destructive workflow relating to this image file.

...They were stored in Hama sheets but it seems that humidity was not ok and they stuck to the paper. I tried submerging them in destillated water but no success.

...
Many thanks;
Pablo

Probably not a good idea to submerge in water due to the fact that these negatives may have been processed through C41 chemistry. The last bath in C41 process is Stabiliser and it is designed to do several jobs including, hardening the film, aiding colour fastness of the dyes and basically protecting the film against fungal attack. By washing you have removed some/all of the protection so it would normally be recommended that you put the film through the final Stabiliser bath once again.

The uneven staining you are seeing is likely to be due to the reaction between the Hama sheets and film emulsion plus the effects of high humidity. You may want to consider washing the films and stabilising once again prior to putting the films in Archival storage bags and boxes

[frairep]

Re: yellow spots on old negatives

Thanks Tony, to both posts.
I knew that I cannot get a full raw from jpeg, but supposed that CupCake was referring to open as and applying to that file the set of transformations, now its confirmed.

Going to the wash, you are right the negatives were C41 processed. My intention was to get some of the last bath to try to recover the films, but unfortunately I could not get any sample.

Nevertheless I applied the water treatment only to one strip (I also digitized it previous to the water treatment). Caution is safer!

I'll try again to get some C41 stabilizer to wash them and see if I can get some improvement previous to go for the digital solution.

Many thanks to both you and CupCake