Scratches vs Fade

[Melvin England]

For years I have had in my collection the 400' version of The Deep (Nick Nolte). Sadly, one or two tiny tramline scratches but nothing too serious. I have always been on the lookout for another better copy.

Recently, I tracked one down which looked good so I bought it and compared the two. After viewing them both I was left in a dilemma. The second copy had several tramline scratches down the right hand side of the screen, more than my first one, but, oh, what a great improvement in the colour and definition.

So what am I going to do ? Put up with an obviously fading to pink copy with only a few lines, or a pretty damn good colour copy but with several more lines on the picture? The sound was equal on both, by the way.

I would be interested to see which one you would choose.

I have already made a decision, which I shall reveal later, after I hopefully receive a few responses from yourselves.

[Mike Newell]

Hard call. Depends how much fade or how evident and annoying are the scratches. I would tend to go for colour and scratches over the fade unless a filter can help.

[John Armer]

Good question, and a hard one to answer!

For me, the level of fade matters. I can stand a print that has lightly faded but has some colour left; I hate those that have gone beet red though.

If I had a mint print with light fade, I'd probably go for that.

If that faded print was red, or had scratches, then I'd go for the better colour, but with lines. Not huge green ones though.

[Graham Sinden]

I would go for the good colour one with a few more scratches and sell the faded copy.

[Oliver Feld]

Try to clean the film and maybe parts of the scratches disappear

[Shane C. Collins]

I bet a good clean and lube with Filmguard would make some of those scratches and lines disappear. I use this stuff on all my currently shot Ektachrome Super 8 home movies. This modern stock resists scratching pretty well, but Filmguard gives me a little extra insurance.

[Melvin England]

Thanks for your responses everybody.

I am really pleased to say that your opinions seem to run true to mine. My decision will be to keep the latest copy with good colour but more scratches and my older faded, less scratched copy will be going on Ebay fairly soon.

It goes without saying that I shall now be on the hunt for a good colour/low or no scratches copy......

Shane - Thanks for the advice.