Cooperation with Scan2Screen

Scan2Screen offers a modular multispectral digitization workflow for historical color films.
The workflow consists of a multispectral scanner and corresponding software for image processing, all of which are based on more than a decade of scientific research into film digitization and historical film colors by Barbara Flueckiger, founder of the Timeline of Historical Film Colors, and the Scan2Screen team.

Read more about this on the Scan2Screen website.

Dye Fading

Scan2Screen’s Unfading Tool is available as plugin inside the DIAMANT Software and also works on conventional scanned images.

Faded chromogenic film stocks have challenged film archivists and restorers for decades. Most chromogenic film stocks produced between the 1940s and 1980s – such as Agfacolor, Eastman Color, and Fujicolor – exhibit decay of one or two of their dyes.

At Scan2Screen, we have been developing a new, material-based approach to address this issue. Under the guidance of color scientist Dr. Giorgio Trumpy, we’ve worked on reconstructing the original dyes of chromogenic film materials in several research projects, laying the foundation for the powerful new tool.

Scan2Screen’s new technique for digitally restoring faded chromogenic film and photographic materials is grounded in the materiality of the image. Rather than simply adjusting RGB values in a digital scan, the tool analyzes the remaining dye concentrations to estimate  and reconstruct the original dye levels. The result of this material-based method is a restoration with greater subtlety, fidelity, and visual coherence, often surpassing traditional color grading methods.

Image provided by National Library of Scotland