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M
marqueebee
Participating Frequently
May 29, 2021
Question

Colors changed/corrupted in old JPEG images, what is this effect?

  • May 29, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 2184 views

I have a large series of old JPEGs coming from an old harddrive. They are all perfectly wrongly colored. If I change them to Grayscale they look fine. I can not find out what effect or color error has occurred, but I would like the original color back. 

 

Anybody has a clue what happened. It does not seem the same as what they call JPEG corrupted file. 

 

I am not sure how to name this problem, so forgive me if the question has been asked and answered before. 

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 30, 2021

It appears that the incorrect version have been converted to CMYK mode with an embedded legacy custom CMYK ICC table/profile of SWOP (Coated), 20%. The damage has been baked into the image pixels, making possible recovery much harder than if this was an RGB image.

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 30, 2021

    Indeed. This weird solarization effect almost looks deliberate, like something people would play with back in the analog days. But the fact that there's a mystery CMYK embedded is the corpus delicti. Here's the cyan channel:

     

     

    Obviously, you can't recover something like this without rebuilding it completely. Possible, maybe. Worth the effort? Only you can decide. That's a lot of manual labor.

    M
    marqueebeeAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 30, 2021

    Thanks for this explanation and all for checking this. If it is embedded that's what it is.... sh*t happens. I did find the Neural 'Colorize' Filter though which does a good trick (no return to original colors though, but at least use-able)

    Thanks again!

     

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    May 29, 2021

    (To add: please post those few "reference" pictures and tell us EXACTLY what colour you believe they should show, and where).

    M
    marqueebeeAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 29, 2021

     

     

    I found one that still has the original color, does that help?  

    M
    marqueebeeAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 29, 2021

    And another one

     

     

     

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    May 29, 2021

    This isn't corruption in the normal way. It may be that the app which wrote them did something weird which it could also undo. Never seen this affecting a whole collection of images before.

     

    It might be a simple colour mapping or it might be beyond hope. To have a guess, see if you can find any pictures with colours you were certain of. For example, a picture which should have a clear blue sky. A picture by a bright red truck. A picture of a lime green jersey. By knowing roughly what the colours SHOULD be someone may be able to make a suggestion.

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