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fading colour photographic images



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 30th 18, 04:15 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

While reading the cropping thread, which has varied into general
image-manipulation software (such as IrfanView and FastStone), it has
occurred to me that there is something that is increasingly needed: a
slider for restoring faded colour photographic material. Let's say
mainly prints, as they're likely to be the commonest material that's
going to need it. (Films also.)

I'm sure IV, FS, PhotoShop, PSP, and the others _can_ all be used to
restore the degradation that colour material undergoes, but it would
require skill and knowledge. The main reason is that the various colour
dyes used in such material tend to fade *at different rates*; the end
condition being, usually, a more or less monochrome image consisting of
mostly the green dye, which is probably non-recoverable, but there can
be intermediate stages where some of the other colours are still
present, but in different levels to the green.

What I'm envisaging is a single slider control that would apply the
necessary corrections in their correct and differing proportions as the
slider is varied. (It might have to be a two-dimensional control with
the other axis being just overall brightness and/or contrast.)

I can see _lots_ of difficulties: the biggest probably being either:
different overall casts (colour, brightness, contrast) being caused by
different scanners, or: different fading characteristics due to
different chemistries involved. But I can't help feeling that _some_
common set of parameters might be usable across the _majority_ of
material: certainly, when I see old colour prints that have faded
(especially where only slightly - you could say "faded" isn't quite the
right description; initially just "colours changed"), there does seem to
be a common track the _majority_ of the material follows as it degrades.

For the different chemistries, different presets (Kodak, Kodachrome,
Agfa, Perutz ...) might be relevant (especially for movie film), but I
envisage that as being the more specialist end of the user base; I think
a large proportion of the material is likely to fall close to the "main
sequence" as astronomers would call it. (Would that be, in effect,
"Kodak and its clones"?)

What does anyone think - is it _possible_ that such a slider could
become a common control in image manipulation software, or is it just
too difficult (too many variables)?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

No sense being pessimistic. It wouldn't work anyway.
- Penny Mayes, UMRA, 2014-August
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  #2  
Old October 30th 18, 05:45 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2018-10-30 11:15, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[...]
What does anyone think - is it _possible_ that such a slider could
become a common control in image manipulation software, or is it just
too difficult (too many variables)?


It's too difficult. You need to adjust each colour channel plus
contrast, brightness, saturation, and gamma. "Hue" is sometimes offered
as a method of adjusting all colour channels at once, but in my
experience it's a kluge that rarely works


I've always assumed "hue" was to restore colour balance that was wrong
on the original - say due to incorrect choice of film/filter for the
type of lighting used, or to correct NTSC screengrabs.

Irfanview and XnView do a nice job with automatic level/contrast
adjustments. I recommend both.

I've also found that if you start with gamma, manual adjustment is
usually somewhat easier.

But you're right, there's that pesky 5% or so of poor images that are
very difficult to adjust.


If such a slider could do 95% of images, I'd be more than delighted!

So try scanning programs. Some come with a selection of film profiles.


Again, I think those are intended to handle initial colour casts (and
similar), rather than ones due to fading.

All that I know come with both automatic and manual adjustments.

The program bundled with my Canon scanner fixes better than 90% of
cases. I've also tried Vuescan, which includes colour profile for
different films. I used it a lot with previous scanners, but I've not
paid for upgrades to new versions after the two or three free updates.


Did these have a single "colour photographic material fade correction"
control though, or did you have to do a lot of tweaking of the
individual parameters?

Another program that includes film profiles is Silverfast. An early
version came with a slide scanner that I've long since given away. It
was limited, but reviews of the latest versions indicate that they are
very good. Payware of course.

HTH, best,

Thanks for replying.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

in the kingdom of the bland, the one idea is king. - Rory Bremner (on
politics), RT 2015/1/31-2/6
  #3  
Old October 30th 18, 05:48 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mayayana
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Posts: 6,438
Default fading colour photographic images

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote


| What I'm envisaging is a single slider control that would apply the
| necessary corrections in their correct and differing proportions as the
| slider is varied. (It might have to be a two-dimensional control with
| the other axis being just overall brightness and/or contrast.)
|
| What does anyone think - is it _possible_ that such a slider could
| become a common control in image manipulation software, or is it just
| too difficult (too many variables)?

The Color Correction window in IV shows you
most of what's possible, if you don't want to
wrestle with an editor program. Brightness and
contrast are limited in what they can do.
Saturation will intensify color and you can
adjust hue with the RGB controls. But there's
only so much you can do.

Unless you're dealing with RAW it's just
a 24-bit pixel map. The adjustments you
make are just mathematical, changing the
color of pixels or the relationship between
pixels. That's why image quality is so
important in the first place. If you have a
small image or a degraded JPG then there
just won't be enough subtlety, enough data,
to do much with it. So every image will be
different.

I remember once brightening a dark image
from a scanned B/W photo and seeing a 6-panel
door appear out of the wall behind a sofa. The
data was there, but the image was so dark it
couldn't be seen.
But usually you're not going to get effects
like that. Usually it's just a tradeoff. You
sharpen the image but lose detail. You brighten
the image but lose clarity. Usually the image won't
have enough data to do much with it. Though
if you're scanning photos you can at least start
with an image that has high resolution and
hasn't been damaged by being JPG-ized.

The idea of an automatic, magic wand to
restore color would imply knowledge of what
a color should be. Was that pale green shirt
originally lime or forest green? Should lips look
typical color or was there lipstick? At that point
you're creating an image, not restoring it. You
might find expensive plugins to do stuff like that,
but they'd have to guess.

But all of that assumes colors are absolutely existing...

All of that is not even getting into issues
of relativity. There's lighting. There are differences
in monitors and display drivers. There are
differences in vision... That's a big problem with
webpages. Everyone sees something different.
In the early days there were "web safe" colors
that were said to be dependable across devices,
but it was never really true. One person sees
raspberry while another sees cranberry or coral.

I once installed Linux and was surprised by how
beautiful it was. It was using the exact same
hardware as Windows, but displaying a richness
of color that seemed impossible in Windows.
(Probably because the Linux version was new
and the Windows version was a few years old.)

Then, if you want to reprint scanned photos
you'll need a very good printer. You'll need to
deal with color profiles between printer and
computer... But in the end, the real test is just
whether your final print looks right to you.

It's tempting to think of color as having absolute,
objective reality, but it just doesn't work that way.
Even the eye is very limited. We can't see yellow,
except as a balance between red and green. Which
is why it's so hard to get a pure yellow. We don't
have receptors for it. Likewise, a light cream will
look pastel next to white but will look white next
to tan. You can say that you know for sure that
one is such and such RGB and the other is so
and so RGB. But so what? The lime green shirt will
look like a different color next to blue as opposed
to being next to pink. And that will vary depending
on the amount of black, yellow, etc in each hue.
Salmon will look dirty next to cool pink but bright
next to brown-olive. The RGB is only part of it.

Kids learn that with the trick of staring at a flag
and then looking at a white wall. A flag image in
opposing colors is seen. In the same way, if you
shine a bright red light and make a shadow with your
hand, that shadow will seem green on a white wall.
In both cases the colored light doesn't exist. It's
just an example of how our eyes create patterns
and colors in a relative way.

We could go even deeper with that. Look at a
chair. You know it's a chair and you have a like
or dislike of the color, shape, etc. That happens
instantly. But you didn't actually see a chair. You
saw simple patterns of light and color. Your existing
preconceptions, based on past experience, told
you it's that ugly avocado chair that your wife
inexplicably won't allow you to throw out. Or that
it's your beautiful, cozy, favorite, chair. A gorgeous
hue of avocado.
A 6-month-old would see no such thing. They
only see the patterns and colors, with no conceptual
or emotional context.

..... Then of course there's the question of
how long those newfangled printer inks will last.
Don't get me started.


  #4  
Old October 30th 18, 06:18 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote


| What I'm envisaging is a single slider control that would apply the
| necessary corrections in their correct and differing proportions as the
| slider is varied. (It might have to be a two-dimensional control with
| the other axis being just overall brightness and/or contrast.)
|
| What does anyone think - is it _possible_ that such a slider could
| become a common control in image manipulation software, or is it just
| too difficult (too many variables)?

The Color Correction window in IV shows you
most of what's possible, if you don't want to
wrestle with an editor program. Brightness and


Would an "editor program", even if I "wrestled" with it, actually have
such a control anyway?

contrast are limited in what they can do.
Saturation will intensify color and you can
adjust hue with the RGB controls. But there's
only so much you can do.


But these aren't "ganged" in the way I am after.

Unless you're dealing with RAW it's just
a 24-bit pixel map. The adjustments you
make are just mathematical, changing the
color of pixels or the relationship between

[eight more screenfuls deleted - all good stuff]

Basically, you're answering (at great length - worse than me even!) the
question I didn't ask.

I'm sure _most_ people know what I mean: the _majority_ of colour prints
I've seen, whether the original pieces of photographic paper or scans of
them (i. e. differences due to scanners/cameras aren't _that_
significant), fade along a course which follows a fairly common path. It
obviously varies with manufacturer and, mainly, how long it's been
exposed to daylight, but on the whole, there is a general overall
fading, but some colours disappear first, and the order and proportion
they go with/in is _fairly_ consistent. I don't actually _know_ what the
sequence is, but it's _something_ like: first a general almost
_increase_ in saturation, rather like old four-colour printing (CMYK)
where the black has been omitted; then I think the yellows go, then the
reds, leaving ultimately just a blue/green monochrome image. I'm talking
about the average, outdoor, well-lit photograph: typical family snaps,
which, when film actually cost, tended mostly to be taken outdoors in
good sunlight. I'm envisaging a control which counters this process -
and I _do_ think it ought to be possible to make one which would work
for, say, 60% of images.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Who were your favourite TV stars or shows when you were a child? Sadly they've
all been arrested ... Ian Hislop, in Radio Times 28 September-4 October 2013
  #5  
Old October 30th 18, 07:11 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mayayana
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Posts: 6,438
Default fading colour photographic images

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| The Color Correction window in IV shows you
| most of what's possible, if you don't want to
| wrestle with an editor program. Brightness and
|
| Would an "editor program", even if I "wrestled" with it, actually have
| such a control anyway?
|

Not so much. That's why I pointed you to IV.
An editor would be more sophisticated, but what
IV provides is pretty much the same thing. But
an editor provides a better GUI. And there are lots
of other options, like selecting an area to saturate
while leaving the rest as-is.

| contrast are limited in what they can do.
| Saturation will intensify color and you can
| adjust hue with the RGB controls. But there's
| only so much you can do.
|
| But these aren't "ganged" in the way I am after.

Saturation is "ganged" RGB. But if I understand
you correctly, you want some kind of intelligent
adjustment. An apple gets more red while a
blue shirt gets more blue. There's no way to do that
if you don't have the data. If you have a red apple
and blue shirt you can intensify the color. But you
can't take a scan of a faded image, with a gray/pink
apple, and expect the software to recognize that
it's an apple, then somehow know exactly how it
should be colored, perhaps based on a database of
apple images. You can only saturate it, which would
mean getting a more intense pink/gray. You can only
wortk with the pixel data you have.

| I'm sure _most_ people know what I mean: the _majority_ of colour prints
| I've seen, whether the original pieces of photographic paper or scans of
| them (i. e. differences due to scanners/cameras aren't _that_
| significant), fade along a course which follows a fairly common path. It
| obviously varies with manufacturer and, mainly, how long it's been
| exposed to daylight, but on the whole, there is a general overall
| fading, but some colours disappear first, and the order and proportion
| they go with/in is _fairly_ consistent. I don't actually _know_ what the
| sequence is, but it's _something_ like: first a general almost
| _increase_ in saturation, rather like old four-colour printing (CMYK)
| where the black has been omitted; then I think the yellows go, then the
| reds, leaving ultimately just a blue/green monochrome image. I'm talking
| about the average, outdoor, well-lit photograph: typical family snaps,
| which, when film actually cost, tended mostly to be taken outdoors in
| good sunlight. I'm envisaging a control which counters this process -
| and I _do_ think it ought to be possible to make one which would work
| for, say, 60% of images.

Interesting idea. I expect such a thing would be
an expensive Photoshop plugin if it exists at all.
But it probably doesn't. And it probably can't.
I'll spare you my longwinded reasoning.


  #6  
Old October 30th 18, 07:28 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
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Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
| Saturation will intensify color and you can
| adjust hue with the RGB controls. But there's
| only so much you can do.
|
| But these aren't "ganged" in the way I am after.

Saturation is "ganged" RGB. But if I understand


Yes, but ganged in a fixed manner. I have in mind something that - I
_think_ - has different curves for the three colours, depending on what
part of the curve/slider/whatever you're on.

you correctly, you want some kind of intelligent
adjustment. An apple gets more red while a
blue shirt gets more blue. There's no way to do that
if you don't have the data. If you have a red apple
and blue shirt you can intensify the color. But you
can't take a scan of a faded image, with a gray/pink
apple, and expect the software to recognize that
it's an apple, then somehow know exactly how it
should be colored, perhaps based on a database of
apple images. You can only saturate it, which would
mean getting a more intense pink/gray. You can only
wortk with the pixel data you have.


I'm not expecting some sort of image-recognition like OCR for text. But
some sort of curve (or maybe more complex process) derived from a large
number of faded images I would have _hoped_ might be possible - if not
now then soon.
[]
| and I _do_ think it ought to be possible to make one which would work
| for, say, 60% of images.

Interesting idea. I expect such a thing would be
an expensive Photoshop plugin if it exists at all.
But it probably doesn't. And it probably can't.
I'll spare you my longwinded reasoning.


Thank you for that (-: (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

… too popular actually to be any good. - Alison Graham in Radio Times 2-8
February 2013
  #7  
Old October 30th 18, 08:22 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
Default fading colour photographic images

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 18:28:53 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

I'm not expecting some sort of image-recognition like OCR for text. But
some sort of curve (or maybe more complex process) derived from a large
number of faded images I would have _hoped_ might be possible - if not
now then soon.


If you can wait long enough, there might someday be AI for that. At
first, you'll upload your photos to a paid web service, then a free web
service, and eventually it'll just be a profile or filter setting on
your cell phone.

--

Char Jackson
  #8  
Old October 30th 18, 10:23 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default fading colour photographic images

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| What I'm envisaging is a single slider control that would apply the
| necessary corrections in their correct and differing proportions as the
| slider is varied. (It might have to be a two-dimensional control with
| the other axis being just overall brightness and/or contrast.)
|

Here's something from Kodak:

http://www.asf.com/products/plugins/.../pluginROCPRO/

It doesn't look promising to me, though. First, it's $100.
Then, it's just a plugin, so you need Photoshop. On top
of all that, their sample photos look fake to me. It looks like
the before versions are just the after version with a color
wash added.
You can try a trial, but for that you have to sign up
and give them an email address.

It doesn't look any better to me than just using the
basic controls in IV. I downloaded their sample of the boy
on the beach and got nearly exactly the same result by
first adjusting gamma with high red, reduced green,
very reduced blue. In PSP I applied gamma correction
of 2.49, 1.40, 1.00. Then I opened it in Hue, Saturation
and Lightness. I reduced the saturation and increased
the lightness.

I also tried the last image, of the young girl.
I was able to improve that significantly but that
one seems to have just been treated with a semi-
transparent flood fill. There's no tool to reverse
an unknown flood fill. In other words, the whole
image seems to have been treated with an orange
wash.

I think this highlights part of the problem with
these "technologies": In addition to just being
math, many fancy plugins are really just "for dummies"
options that apply the standard tools for you and
usually don't work as well as doing it yourself.

Awhile back there were some plugins being
given away. I think they were called Nik -
DxO Optics Pro. They gave away an older version.
I don't remember for sure now. I just remember there
were something like 4 free plugins that had originally
been expensive. I installed them. Extremely bloated.
But they also didn't offer anything new.

I think a lot of this stuff just suckers beginners
who fall for throwing money at problems. The same
people who believe they'll never have to scrape a
pan again if they just buy the set of Super-X-Sticko
pans for 6 easy payments of $59.99.

The samples on the Kodak webpage are small and
very low quality. Yet even with such a paltry selection
of pixels to work with I was able to get the
same results they show, at least in some cases.
What they really should do would be to offer fullsize
samples, so that experienced graphic editor users
could really test whether their plugin is actually
any different from adjusting RGB, saturation, etc.

You might want to at least experiment with the IV
Image - Color Corrections before you start buying
new software and scanners. If, as you suspect, most
of your photos have the same problem, then you
might be able to come up with a standard of steps
to fix it. Maybe even batch-able.



  #9  
Old October 30th 18, 10:56 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default fading colour photographic images

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 18:28:53 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

I'm not expecting some sort of image-recognition like OCR for text. But
some sort of curve (or maybe more complex process) derived from a large
number of faded images I would have _hoped_ might be possible - if not
now then soon.


If you can wait long enough, there might someday be AI for that. At
first, you'll upload your photos to a paid web service, then a free web
service, and eventually it'll just be a profile or filter setting on
your cell phone.


This is an example of a colorizer I played with.

https://s26.postimg.org/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg

One weird part, is how the damn thing "can't paint within the lines" :-)

The neat part, is it picks colors without human input.
It knows the trees are green. And it picked a "parrot
color scheme" for the parrot all on its own.

I agree that some day, it'll offer possibilities.

Discerning photographic tastes need not apply. Nobody
from the photography group would be impressed.

Paul
  #10  
Old October 30th 18, 10:57 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default fading colour photographic images

Paul wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 18:28:53 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

I'm not expecting some sort of image-recognition like OCR for text.
But some sort of curve (or maybe more complex process) derived from a
large number of faded images I would have _hoped_ might be possible -
if not now then soon.


If you can wait long enough, there might someday be AI for that. At
first, you'll upload your photos to a paid web service, then a free web
service, and eventually it'll just be a profile or filter setting on
your cell phone.


This is an example of a colorizer I played with.

https://s26.postimg.org/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg

One weird part, is how the damn thing "can't paint within the lines" :-)

The neat part, is it picks colors without human input.
It knows the trees are green. And it picked a "parrot
color scheme" for the parrot all on its own.

I agree that some day, it'll offer possibilities.

Discerning photographic tastes need not apply. Nobody
from the photography group would be impressed.

Paul


Sorry, the URL should be:

https://s26.postimg.cc/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg

Paul
  #11  
Old October 30th 18, 11:41 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Mayayana
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 6,438
Default fading colour photographic images

"Paul" wrote

| https://s26.postimg.cc/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg
|

Very interesting. The leaves look great. But I
can't tell whether that bird is a purple finch with
a broken nose, or a pigeon that's fallen into a
bucket of salsa.

There's a sample of something similar he

https://tinyclouds.org/colorize/

It seems to be trained to look for plant life patterns,
as a safe bet. The software saw grass in a monkey's
fur, on a boy's shirt, on soil with no plant life, and
on a stone wall. When in doubt, green it.


  #12  
Old October 31st 18, 01:11 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2018-10-30 12:45, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Wolf K
writes:
On 2018-10-30 11:15, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[...]
What does anyone think - is it _possible_ that such a slider could
become a common control in image manipulation software, or is it
just too difficult (too many variables)?

It's too difficult. You need to adjust each colour channel plus
contrast, brightness, saturation, and gamma. "Hue" is sometimes
offered as a method of adjusting all colour channels at once, but in
my experience it's a kluge that rarely works

I've always assumed "hue" was to restore colour balance that was
wrong on the original - say due to incorrect choice of film/filter
for the type of lighting used, or to correct NTSC screengrabs.


That's possible in a few cases, but by and large it doesn't work as
well as colour channel adjustments.


So the "hue" control is mainly for newbies (-:?
[]
But you're right, there's that pesky 5% or so of poor images that
are very difficult to adjust.

If such a slider could do 95% of images, I'd be more than delighted!


It would have to be more of a wheel within which you move a pointer around.


Yes, I thought it might need two axes, to cover initial/overall
brightness and/or contrast.

So try scanning programs. Some come with a selection of film profiles.

Again, I think those are intended to handle initial colour casts
(and similar), rather than ones due to fading.


Vuescan did an amazing job on faded slides when I used it. My father
used Ansco films for a while, because you could get a kit to develop
them yourself. But the slides fade to a brownish cast prettty quickly.
Vuescan handles those very well.


Several posts in this thread [not sure if all from you though (-:!] have
mentioned VueScan; maybe I'll have to look into it. If it's the software
I think it is, I thought its main claim to fame was making scanners that
didn't work under Windows 7 do so - certainly there's a piece of
software that does that with a name like that; however, it may well have
other features.
[]
The Vuescan version I sued about 10 years ago had (limited) film
profiles (eg Kodachrome). Silverfast advertised added-cost profiles for
slide and negative films, which I did not buy (the program was bundled
with a slide scanner of middling quality).


Again, I think those are to account for the peculiarities of various
film types as they are initially, rather than after they've faded.
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

A. Top-posters.
Q. What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?
  #13  
Old October 31st 18, 01:14 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 18:28:53 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

I'm not expecting some sort of image-recognition like OCR for text. But
some sort of curve (or maybe more complex process) derived from a large
number of faded images I would have _hoped_ might be possible - if not
now then soon.


If you can wait long enough, there might someday be AI for that. At
first, you'll upload your photos to a paid web service, then a free web
service, and eventually it'll just be a profile or filter setting on
your cell phone.

That's probably what I _will_ end up doing; I wasn't planning on
digitising all my family photos (including those I've inherited) - it's
a huge task - any time soon. (Though I hope I don't have to do it on a
dratted 'phone!)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

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  #14  
Old October 31st 18, 01:25 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Paul
writes:
Paul wrote:

[]
This is an example of a colorizer I played with.
https://s26.postimg.org/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg
One weird part, is how the damn thing "can't paint within the lines"
:-)


That looks like fun to play with! (The "within the lines" bit just
reflects how our eyes work; we have much greater luminance than
chrominance resolution - that's how the various colour TV systems [NTSC,
SECAM, and PAL] managed to squeeze a quart into a pint pot/remain
compatible. Manual colorisers have known it for ages: my mum used to
colour old engraving prints as a hobby.)

The neat part, is it picks colors without human input.
It knows the trees are green. And it picked a "parrot
color scheme" for the parrot all on its own.


That _is_ clever of it.

I agree that some day, it'll offer possibilities.
Discerning photographic tastes need not apply. Nobody
from the photography group would be impressed.
Paul


Sorry, the URL should be:

https://s26.postimg.cc/eg27sn7sp/autocolorize_021.jpg

Paul


As I say, fun - though not what I was after: I wasn't after colorisation
of completely monochrome images; more something that could be applied
to, say, very faded colour prints (look around your room, or your
parents' or grandparents' - there are probably some there, such as
embarrassing ones of you when you were little!). These tend _towards_
monochrome, but if you look carefully, you can see there _is_ colour -
but some of the colours fade more than others. I was hoping for
something that could reverse that process: I'm not sure how. Obviously
it can _probably_ be done manually by playing with the brightness,
contrast, and gamma of the three colours separately manually; I'd just
hoped that maybe someone would have come up with a slider control that
took account of how the _majority_ of such material degrades, to give a
slider to bring it back, without having to manually do all the separate
tweaking that would be required. It _may_ not be possible, but I think
it is - or will be in the near future.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

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Q. What's the most irritating thing on Usenet?
  #15  
Old October 31st 18, 02:04 PM posted to alt.windows7.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,679
Default fading colour photographic images

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote

| What I'm envisaging is a single slider control that would apply the
| necessary corrections in their correct and differing proportions as the
| slider is varied. (It might have to be a two-dimensional control with
| the other axis being just overall brightness and/or contrast.)
|

Here's something from Kodak:

http://www.asf.com/products/plugins/.../pluginROCPRO/

It doesn't look promising to me, though. First, it's $100.


Me neither. The _description_ doesn't look too bad - "restore faded or
lost color" - although I wasn't too impressed that they combined it with
an ability to fix "color problems due to lighting conditions like
fluorescent or tungsten lights, or indirect/insufficient lighting",
which made it sound like just a general tweaker.

Then, it's just a plugin, so you need Photoshop. On top


Which I don't have, and haven't learnt.

of all that, their sample photos look fake to me. It looks like
the before versions are just the after version with a color
wash added.


Yes, _all_ of them - with the possible exception of boy with cake - were
definitely not faded originals, but darker! Even that one, it looks as
if all they've done is up the contrast.

You can try a trial, but for that you have to sign up
and give them an email address.

It doesn't look any better to me than just using the
basic controls in IV. I downloaded their sample of the boy
on the beach and got nearly exactly the same result by
first adjusting gamma with high red, reduced green,
very reduced blue. In PSP I applied gamma correction
of 2.49, 1.40, 1.00. Then I opened it in Hue, Saturation
and Lightness. I reduced the saturation and increased
the lightness.

I also tried the last image, of the young girl.
I was able to improve that significantly but that
one seems to have just been treated with a semi-
transparent flood fill. There's no tool to reverse
an unknown flood fill. In other words, the whole
image seems to have been treated with an orange
wash.


Interesting point; you mean an offset rather than a gain adjustment! I
remember seeing - _many_ years ago, I think it was CorelDraw 3, possibly
even under Windows 3.1! - and being impressed with, a function where you
clicked on a pixel that was supposed to be white, and it adjusted the
colour balance accordingly. Of course, that's pretty common now. But of
course it did a hue (relative gain) adjustment. It ought to be possible
to do something similar with a fixed offset; probably not something
that's been implemented as a common tool, since an unknown flood fill
isn't something likely to have been applied!

I think this highlights part of the problem with
these "technologies": In addition to just being
math, many fancy plugins are really just "for dummies"
options that apply the standard tools for you and
usually don't work as well as doing it yourself.


Indeed. But I'd hoped that maybe something might have been developed
that had involved knowledge of how the _majority_ of such fading occurs.
Maybe there will be, or maybe there are just _too_ many variables.

Awhile back there were some plugins being
given away. I think they were called Nik -
DxO Optics Pro. They gave away an older version.


(I presume, since you're calling them plugins, that they go with some
specific software, probably PhotoShop.)
[]
I think a lot of this stuff just suckers beginners
who fall for throwing money at problems. The same
people who believe they'll never have to scrape a
pan again if they just buy the set of Super-X-Sticko
pans for 6 easy payments of $59.99.


Or the "winter service" garages used to offer for cars.

The samples on the Kodak webpage are small and
very low quality. Yet even with such a paltry selection


And _none_ of them were really faded materials: mostly exposure and/or
colour balance (e. g. lighting/filter) errors, or - as you suggest -
deliberately-degraded images!

of pixels to work with I was able to get the
same results they show, at least in some cases.
What they really should do would be to offer fullsize
samples, so that experienced graphic editor users
could really test whether their plugin is actually
any different from adjusting RGB, saturation, etc.

You might want to at least experiment with the IV
Image - Color Corrections before you start buying
new software and scanners. If, as you suspect, most
of your photos have the same problem, then you
might be able to come up with a standard of steps
to fix it. Maybe even batch-able.

Maybe. (I'm not intending to buy any new scanners - except possibly for
slides, most of which touch wood haven't faded; I think most scanners
are adequate. It's not just _my_ photos that mostly look the same: when
I see old pictures on, say, Ancestry, I see the same sort of
degradations.)


Being the pedant (?) that I am, assuming I ever get round to doing the
scanning at all, I'll probably keep both the raw scans _and_ any tweaked
versions, so any future person can have their own go.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

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