Saturday, November 14, 2009

Precious Slides

Precious memories fade and if they were on Kodacolor slides they become rosy memories. We just got a stack of commercially produced slides from various tourist destinations. They all appear to be Kodacolor. This one is copyright of Leicester Museums and is the AD 125 Jewry Wall. First is the raw scan that is pretty much what you would see if you projected it.
From blogpics

But all is not lost. It is possible to fix the colour and restore a reasonable colour balance.
From blogpics

Afgacolor also fades but tends to go the other way, the blue stays strong but green fades a bit and red a lot. The message is clear. If you have slides that you want to keep, NOW is the time to archive them to digital. Unless you were rich enough to shoot in Kodachrome then rest easy. Those images are supposed to last a very long time.
The next pair is a shabby copy of Campement de bohemiens, les roulottes by Vincent Van Gogh. Marked Cinemati Paris, Reproduction interdite. And indeed it should be forbidden as it is a cropped and out of focus duplication. The colour seems to have been wrong in the first place as it is impossible to correct. All the subtlety of the painting has been lost. Before:
From blogpics

After:
From blogpics

Better but still poor.

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