# Suggestions on how to restore this?



## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

I am currently digitizing almost 300 negatives from about 25-30 years ago for a Youth Club Reunion,
scanning all sorts, slides, 35mm, 126 film and 110 film, these latter negatives are REALLY kicking my butt.

I can't get a decent look to them unless I desaturate to B&W, however, I would like, if possible, to keep them in color.
Can anyone point me at a tutorial specifically made for restoring old 110 film negatives?

Failing that, could somebody please give me some pointers?
I have LR 3.5 & 4, Photoshop and PaintShop Pro Photo X4 at my disposal.

Here is a fullsized scan of one of the 110 film negatives,
I already did spot, scratch and dust removal and saved it as a TIF, filesize is 2.43 MB,
and about three-quarters of the 110 film shots look like this.

*Direct link to TIF:-* http://www.interceptor-one.com/fyc80s/IMG_158.tif

*Miniature view:-*







*[EDIT:]*
I tried to put a clickable Thumbnail up, but imageshack converted it to a PNG, so put up a direct link to the TIF.


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## LouieSherwin (Mar 15, 2012)

Hi Chris,

What scanning software are you using? If you haven't tried it already I would recommend that you try ViewScan. Ed Hamrick has been working on this tool since 1991 and it is probably the best tool out there now. He has worked a lot on methods for making good scans from color negatives. This is really challenging because of the orange mask in the negative. The software includes a large selection of presets for many if not most color film types that help minimize these problems.

It will probably be best if you can solve this problem with in the scanning step rather than trying to adjust it out in Photoshop or Lightroom.

-louie


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## Uncle Don (Mar 15, 2012)

I am short on time right now, but I did this in a few minutes with Lightroom 3.6 and Photoshop CS5.  I'll post the steps later tonight.


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## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

*@ LouieSherwin*
Unfortunately, being unemployed and thereby broke, I had to purchase a cheap (60 Euro incl. shipping) scanner off eBay,
it's a standalone, meaning it doesn't scan to computer, and the scans are less than satisfactory, on top of that, they are saved to SD as JPEG's,
however, better these than nothing.
So in this particular case, the software is irrelevant, since the only USB connection the unit has is data transfer from SD card to PC only.

I am aware of VueScan, I just do not have a need for it until I can afford a proper negative scanner,
but thank you much for the info, I was NOT aware that it had presets for negatives at all, let alone various types of film negatives.

*@ Uncle Don*
Thanks for the effort, and I look forward to trying your steps.

Is there no way to get rid of the red cast and yet retain the image as color?  If not, I think I will go with converting to B&W.


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 15, 2012)

Something like this?


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## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

Most definately Jim, I'm impressed.
Would you mind sharing how you did that?


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 15, 2012)

LR4....new feature, RGB tone-curves. Just dropped the red channel down a bit and tweaked some of the basic controls. I'm no expert, so I should imagine it possible to improve on what I did. Settings:


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## Uncle Don (Mar 15, 2012)

What part of the photo do you want to get the red out of.  If it is just the face, just use the local adjustment brush to desaturate the face.

Is this closer to what you are looking for?


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## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

Thanks Jim, a touch of clarity and NR Luminance also helps,
and makes a very acceptable restoration considering the nasty quality of the original negatives.

I think I'll make a preset of that and use that as a base for all the other similar-looking scans.


*@ Uncle Don*
Jim pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding what I wanted, so unless you can beat what be did to it,
I can only thank you for your time, and go with what Jim did.
But considering the crappy originals, I don't think it can get much better.


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## Uncle Don (Mar 15, 2012)

I think Jim's photo looks really good as well.  

To improve it further, you might try ...

photo edit in photoshop with lightroom adjustments

Now in photoshop
duplicate layer (control J)
blend layers with multiply
lower opacity if needed
flatten layers
save

Now, back in lightroom, edit as needed.  This may or may not improve on what Jim did.

(I don't have photoshop on this computer, so I cannot test this here)


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 15, 2012)

As you can see, I really didn't do very much after tweaking the Red tone curve....there's probably plenty of scope for further improvement, especially in Photoshop, and especially by folks who have far more skill than I do in that area....


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## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

I'll give Uncle Don's suggestion a try and see what happens.

*Pause while tinkering with LR and PS (tick-tock-tick-tock)...*

Ok, here's what happened, based on the result from Jim's suggestion seen here (I tweaked a little more on your settings Jim):





I then followed Uncle Don's suggestion, and then brought it back into Lightroom,
then I tweaked it a bit more thus:


*Basic Panel:*
Exposure +0.40
Clarity +20
Highlights -20
*Graduated Filter rightside (to even up that side):*
Exposure +1.00
Clarity +100
Saturation -65
*Brush Adjustment face (just looked better):*
Exposure +0.53
Clarity +39
Saturation -50
did a little adjustment brush deletion from where it was too much, and came up with this,
which I don't think I will get much, if any, better and is satisfactory for the purposes of the reunion project:


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## Uncle Don (Mar 15, 2012)

I think your image is looking good.

I took your image, and clicked the white balance tool on her shirt.

What do you think?


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## Chris_M (Mar 15, 2012)

Good idea, but a bit too warm I think.  Expanding on your idea, I raised the Temp by +18 and the tint by +24.
Now it almost looks as good as a print from a 126 film negative.


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## Uncle Don (Mar 16, 2012)

Great!

One last (maybe) comment.

Before sending to photoshop, over expose your image by about .5.  Then multiply blend mode may work even better.


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## Chris_M (Mar 16, 2012)

On this particular photo I don't see any great improvement, but I will keep that in mind.
There are a LOT of them to go...


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