You may recall that some time ago TN1 was experimenting with a very faded Eastman Reel 5, using Histograms and HSV color spaces to try to restore the colors. Anyway, the end results were not really usable, some color was restored and some of it even looked ok, but there was also a lot of noise and a lot of artifacts, so ultimately the reel was put aside.
However, I just rediscovered it while trying to free up some hard drive space, and figured I would run it through Dre’s tools to see what would happen. Now I only have access to an 8-bit color version of the reel so these aren’t as good as they could be… But, well, see for yourself:
Here is the original frame (actually it’s just a nearby frame, I didn’t make note of the frame number when I started, but it’s close enough to illustrate the faded colors of the original):
First I used the color balance tool, which gave me this:
Next I used the Match tool and matched the balanced version I just created to the same frame from the SSE:
Not too shabby! And look how clean the reel is. Makes me wish we had more than just the one reel.
Dre: Why hasn’t Hollywood come knocking and offered you millions of dollars for these tools?!