I have a set of about 125 35mm slides (nature shots) that I took in 1980. The film for these slides was left-over reel ends from Hollywood pictures (film and development by RGB Labs in Hollywood, CA). They have all turned VERY pink. I have been told that 2 of the 3 dyes have lost it, but I have also been told the colors might be there enough to adjust.
I had an 'unknown quality' professional who took 5 minutes on one of them using Photoshop (the full version), but the result was not as good as I tried, using my Mac's Preview software.
Will PE give me more control over tint correction, that is, restoration of the two lost dye colors, than would Preview?
Does PE do batch mode adjustments? It is possible all the slides need the exact same correction, or at least start off with this correction and minor adjust the few that are still not okay?
Does it matter that when I read about how to fix this issue, I don't understand must of that is said? Does PE have one of those automatic thingies that do tint? I see there is a color adjuster, but the words next to it only reference saturation and such, not actually adjusting colors, and no mention of tint.
I have attached a slimmed down example (original 3.6 meg, this one 786KB
).
[I wish I could have asked this of Adobe sales, as that seems most appropriate! But all links send me to the forums.]
1 Correct answer
Elements is on sale for $70 right now, probably because a new version usually comes out by October if not September, and is normally $100. PS+LR is $120 / year and if you cancelled after 6 months it'd be $60 + $30 penalty or $90 so about the same.
Anyway you seem to have Elements, already, since you're asking questions as if you have it open.
Taking a step back, I realized that you can use the superior Auto White-Balance function in the Camera Raw plug-in of Elements, too, just not the radial fil
...
8
Replies
First have a look at what I can obtain by editing in the ACR module of Elements 2018.
That's about the best it can do in the ACR module, before additional saturation for the greens in the regular editor.
If you think the result is worth trying, we can see how the ACR module (which works not only with raw files but also with jpegs) can correct white balance and green/magenta tint. The advantage of that ACR module is that you can open a batch of images and apply the same correction to all at the same time, before adding individual tweaks.
The full Photoshop ACR has more control on the R,G,B channels as well as more powerful batch solutions, but the limit is the quality of your slides.
Wow, Mr. Paris, your work is fantastic. I am now very hopeful at recovering this subset of slides. If Elements can make it look so close to original colors, then I don't think I need Photoshop, fortunately 
. Of course, now I can see focus is not where I wanted it to be 
.
Can you briefly list the changes you made, to help me focus on the right controls and help my learning curve?
I could not get this to work in Elements very well. It does work using either the Camera Raw Filter in Photoshop or Lightroom, both have the same controls. The cost of both together in the Photography Plan is $120/year billed at $10/month for 12 months with a half-remaining-balance early cancellation fee. There is a 7 day free trial, but sometimes it ends early and it starts the moment you install the first time, and cannot be extended that I know of.
The main thing is to adjust the white-balance and mostly the Tint slider to the left but some addition of blue as well, but the corners are yellowish while the center is more purple, especially the shadows. You can see the color of the leaves change from the center to the top and bottom. I was able to reduce the yellow-purple amounts by using a radial filter and changing the tint of things outside the oval. Here is my attempt using the Camera Raw filter, but LR would be the same:
This happens to be a tree with leaves so the uneven color isn't that important, but imagine if this was a group of people, with solid-color clothing, and the skin color being off would be obvious and it'd take many more adjustments to make things acceptable. It's really a case-by-case basis if you can get things to work very well beyond the initial white-balance adjustment, and this is in Photoshop or Lightroom not Elements.
BTW, this is what I could do in Elements by moving the Tint slider all the way to the left, which did make the leaves more green but left the tree a bit too brown with green shadows and of course has the yellow-green corners. So you can somewhat do what you can do in PS-Camera Raw or Lightroom just not as easily or as well:
Elements is on sale for $70 right now, probably because a new version usually comes out by October if not September, and is normally $100. PS+LR is $120 / year and if you cancelled after 6 months it'd be $60 + $30 penalty or $90 so about the same.
Anyway you seem to have Elements, already, since you're asking questions as if you have it open.
Taking a step back, I realized that you can use the superior Auto White-Balance function in the Camera Raw plug-in of Elements, too, just not the radial filter. To do that use File / Open in Camera Raw:
Then once in Camera Raw, where for this photo I set side-by-side before/after, selected Auto WB instead of As Shot, and arrived at a more purple version, but halfway corrected:
Then you can correct it more by sliding the Tint slider even more green:
It has the yellow-edges/purple-left-center problem and is a bit hazy but you can try a few more adjustments in the Toning area, including Auto and then back off some of them as it's too much, especially the negative Blacks on this particular image, and here is my final result in the Camera Raw plug-in in Elements where I messed with most of the sliders:
The Camera Raw plug-in seems superior for fixing the colors on this particular image. The drawback is that you have to use it on the way into PSE, and once you click Open image to do other fixes in PSE, itself, you have to reopen the original image (that wasn't saved over the top of) in File/CR to get back to where you can do the same edits, so do as much as you can in the ACR plug-in then do the final bits in PSE, itself, and SAVE A COPY not over the original, so you can easily start over if you figure out some superior technique halfway through the images.
One reason to reopen the image, for me, was to do some noise-reduction, mainly to get rid of the color blotches in the green leaves with the Color Noise reduction, but also to smooth things out a tiny bit with some Luminance Noise reduction. In either case don't over do it because a little noise grain makes the images look crispier than if they are overly smoothed and plastic-looking. You probably want to zoom in to 100% to view the noise-reduction effects properly. Here is my attempt with the leaves on the pink image, after re-opening so the Before is not pink, but where I left off with CR before. The pink and blue spots are smoothed more into the green with the NR I applied. If the image had legit color details that were much smaller, say a more wide-angle image with flowers intermixed with the leaves, then be careful not to smear the colors of the flowers into the leaves with too much Color Noise reduction:
AdChoices