In this example, we have some outdoor footage that is severely overexposed and tinted blue. We decreased the highlights and blue levels while adding some mid-range. We go from washed out to blue skies and color that appears lost returns. We’re not always able to make this much of an improvement but it’s certainly a great demonstration of what is possible with the right tools and skilled professionals to use them.
Whenever we transfer film for a client we always use the DaVinci color correction system to balance color levels. Sometimes we get a film that’s severely faded and needs intense correction to look normal.
A client sent us some skydiving footage where the film had gone almost completely blue, as you can see in the picture below:
Using the DaVinci color correction system we were able to balance the levels and restore the image:
We recently transferred some films for the Luehrmann family. The film, titled “Timeshared Computer Graphics”, details Arthur Luehrmann’s early work with computer-generated imagery, commonly referred to as C.G.I. these days.
The film was badly faded and red, which is an issue we see frequently with prints from the 1960s and ’70s. Using the DaVinci color correction system we’re able to add back some of the faded blue/green to balance the film’s color so that it more closely resembles the original appearance. Check out the video below to see the difference!
The Camera was an unmodified Arri SR1. The Telecine employed was a Cintel Turbo3 with a Teranex. We adjusted the scanner framing to crop a little of the image from the top and bottom of the 16mm frame in order to fill a 16:9 aspect ration. Cinematography was framed in anticipation of this cropping. The footage was captured directly into Final Cut via a Kona3 card.