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I tracked down a Retro-8 scanner and am overall very pleased with it. Now comes the issue of post-processing. The combined 15,000 feet of Regular-8 and Super-8 I've scanned so far range from well-exposed with nice color, to over/under-exposed and with a range of levels of "funkiness."
Now that I have a baseline "safety capture pass" on all these films, I may try some cleaning and lubrication with rescans, but many of these films hadn't been unspooled for decades-- they were sticking together, and were needing a very slow, very careful initial unspooling after sitting unwatched for decades, and I could see no smoother way to do that than simply doing a 2fps capture pass on the Retro-8.
So here's my question-- what post processing works best to clean up standard film dust and dirt, align frames and adjust exposure to the best degree possible? I've got (the current) FCP available but I'm fine with either FCP plug-ins or stand-alone options, preferably for a Mac M1 (11.6.4) second choice is for a Mac i9 (12.3.1) and I can also use a PC if necessary, but I'm much more comfortable with the Mac workflow, plus, as mentioned I have FCP available for the Mac, if needed.
I want to see how well things can clean up from these scans, then explore cleaning and rescanning a few films and see what further actual scanning efforts are justified.
Everything is scanned at 720-- the max of this Retro-8 model. I didn't go with the up-res option as I assume that some more modern software may well do a better up-ressing job, if the improvement on any of these actually justifies the increased file sizes.
I'm thinking there must be some post-processing threads in here somewhere, but so far I'm not finding the magic search phrase.
I've played with AVC Labs Video Enhancer AI. It was seeming to want to remove things like grass texture along with dirt and noise-- not super helpful... Maybe that was a settings issue, but I wasn't super-impressed with my exploration so far. I've heard some super things about Topaz Video Enhance. I found that less impressive than AVC, again, based on limited testing.
I know there are some $20,000 options out there. I'm looking more in the $200 range. I can't mortgage the house over this project...
A consensus (or any guidance at all!) on the best software would definitely be helpful to help me make the best use of my time...
Thanks in advance for your potential suggestions.
Now that I have a baseline "safety capture pass" on all these films, I may try some cleaning and lubrication with rescans, but many of these films hadn't been unspooled for decades-- they were sticking together, and were needing a very slow, very careful initial unspooling after sitting unwatched for decades, and I could see no smoother way to do that than simply doing a 2fps capture pass on the Retro-8.
So here's my question-- what post processing works best to clean up standard film dust and dirt, align frames and adjust exposure to the best degree possible? I've got (the current) FCP available but I'm fine with either FCP plug-ins or stand-alone options, preferably for a Mac M1 (11.6.4) second choice is for a Mac i9 (12.3.1) and I can also use a PC if necessary, but I'm much more comfortable with the Mac workflow, plus, as mentioned I have FCP available for the Mac, if needed.
I want to see how well things can clean up from these scans, then explore cleaning and rescanning a few films and see what further actual scanning efforts are justified.
Everything is scanned at 720-- the max of this Retro-8 model. I didn't go with the up-res option as I assume that some more modern software may well do a better up-ressing job, if the improvement on any of these actually justifies the increased file sizes.
I'm thinking there must be some post-processing threads in here somewhere, but so far I'm not finding the magic search phrase.
I've played with AVC Labs Video Enhancer AI. It was seeming to want to remove things like grass texture along with dirt and noise-- not super helpful... Maybe that was a settings issue, but I wasn't super-impressed with my exploration so far. I've heard some super things about Topaz Video Enhance. I found that less impressive than AVC, again, based on limited testing.
I know there are some $20,000 options out there. I'm looking more in the $200 range. I can't mortgage the house over this project...
A consensus (or any guidance at all!) on the best software would definitely be helpful to help me make the best use of my time...
Thanks in advance for your potential suggestions.
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