Film Restoration

[Graham Ritchie]

Check this out?

[Oliver Feld]

Wow... What a difference!

[Mark Mander]

Looks great, so that's what they should look like

[Ali Hipperson]

Is that just a copy that hasn't faded Graham, or is it projected using one of those gel-filters??

[Dominique De Bast]

The comment on youtube says : "One application for the Pro8mm Film out system might be to do restoration work on existing Super 8 & 16mm Prints . This is a test a Super 8 Sound print of "Star Wars" . Test shows the potential to restore Magenta faded film materials. This was printed on the New Ektachrome 94 stock."

[Ali Hipperson]

Oh I see Dom and thanks - when I clicked on the clip it just went straight to the clip and I didn't see any comment.

[Mark Mander]

It looks too good to me, I cant see how a faded film can look that good after a treatment of any kind, it looks brand new, other treatments I've seen are an improvement but that's all, Mark

[Brian Fretwell]

From the description it is reprinted onto Ektachrome after restoration. It doesn't say if that is chemical restoration or telecined and computer restored before reprinting.

[Osi Osgood]

I certainly want to read up on this! Is this a person advertising a service? I can't be sure, and I certainly don't want to send any wrong signals, (well, who wants to do that?), But I am not entirely convinced that the "before" restoration image isn't a print that is "colorized" to look really faded. The reason why I say this is that, for color to be restored, color has to still exist in the "source" print. This is true even with Alberto's treatment. I don't see any color still existing in the source print.

[Martin Davey]

I'm guessing that the original fade print is scanned in at HD res, and then the colour is recovered and the final output back to film. I believe it is possible with the correct digital tools to get some colour back, mainly the green and blue, and introduce more contrast in the image to get to something that looks right. One thing I did notice is that the extract is from the scenes in bens house, which are quite brightly lit with soft, warm colours. If a scene involving lots of dark, cold colours, like a space scene then perhaps the limitations of the system may have been shown.

[Osi Osgood]

I agree, though the beginning of the video does show straight blacks. If this is a reality, for folks like me, this would be a Great option. The question would be, would you be willing to still do a color treatment, (ala Alberto) or, honestly, if you'd chose to do a full feature, quite a price tag for a brand new print? On the plus side, you would have a brand new print that is probably on low fade, but a high price tag. On the side of a "color treatment", a lot lower price tag, but no promise that it'll last a long time and the truth that the original color under the treatment still continuing to fade?

[Dominique De Bast]

The video was made by the American pro8mm company but on I didn't see anything about that on their site. Maybe Graham knows more ?

[Graham Ritchie]

Hi Dominique.

It came through on Facebook, The only information is that the The Super8 film is scanned to digital a little color correction, then printed back on Super 8 film using the Ektachrome stock'

To give you an idea of costs, film processing alone he states today for 50 foot reversal film is about $70 US.

Don't forget you will have to stripe and re-record the sound track etc. He is only testing things out at the moment.

You can google Pro8mm, at Burbank California. I must add he is mostly into film making, this is just a side line thought at the moment. If anybody want's to know more then contact him.

[Dominique De Bast]

Thanks, Graham.

[Mark Mander]

Yes thanks Graham that clears things up, at that price for a 400ft film it seems a lot of money but it's nice to know it could be done,Mark