I would like to rebuild an old Analog Photobut have only a Tiff file for you to try. I should take a RAW but need to find the original picture first. Meanwhile, I tagged my post as play_raw nevertheless.
here’s the orig (I uploaded a tiff file but Pixls seems to convert tiff to jpg):
and here is my try:
Before I use masks to customize my retouch even more I am curious to know how far you can push this retouch.
I used color calibration in darktable, and sigmoid to add a little contrast.
This is the best I could do. There seems to be very little colour information left!
I think this looks better… although it is throwing away what little colour was there.
Yeah, theres only so much you can do 
I also killed most color information in highlights and shadows. Maybe try one of the AI colorizer options?!
I just down loaded and looked at the image in GIMP. There is very little color left in this image. I would turn it into a BW or use an online AI coloring service to colorize the image.
agreed, there 's little color info left, but to extract and scale these infos is exactly what makes digital retouching attractive.
I applied just a handful settings but got already some pretty nice results, imo. Ok, there is a little cyan tint in my take above, but that one is easy to remove by shortening the b/w point axis in the color adjustments module.
Anyway, I see Darktable is very capable to do some magic if the right settings are added with good practice.
I don’t rank myself as expert in photo retouching but love doing it - version 4.6 changed a lot and forced me to reconsider my retouching strategies once more.
At the end, I hope to be able to restore this old shot completely - any suggestions are welcome. Thank you!
Hello,
Here’s my proposal, I’ve used many modules for correction and restoration, I’ve tried not to apply any masks apart from those present in my presets in order to keep the vintage look.
I’ve also combined the new color equalizer module in the current master version with the colorize module.
All the best from Bruxelles,
Christian
Interested to hear why you used both and what the relative strengths and weaknesses of each module are. I’ve barely used the new colour equalizer module yet, so haven’t put it through its paces.
Sorry, I wrote too fast, I replaced the color zone module setting with a preset from the colorize module.
For me, the main difference is their color space (RGB vs. LAB) and their position in the pipeline.
The second difference is that the color equalizer has fixed nodes every 45°, with the possibility of shifting them by 23°, which is very practical with my MIDI console (Xtouch mini).
I have the impression that the color equalizer gives me a faster and more harmonious rendering. And with the “Color Zone” module, I have more precision thanks to the separation of color luminosity and AB channels.
In general, I really like darktable’s old LAB modules and think it’s a shame that some of them have been deprecated. I think we need to move towards a hybrid workflow.
In this image, we have very little color information, so I relied on the wooden cane to try and guess the colors. That’s why I used a lot of modules.
I guess it’s already a hybrid workflow because we can pretty much use any module in the pixelpipe.
But I fully agree that some of the “older” modules are great and should remain. I would be very upset if these modules were deprecated:
I also liked using Lowpass, Other modules I use less often but still like the functionality: Low Pass, Zone System, Monochrome…
I realize that some of them didn’t work very well, but I enjoyed their “specialist” nature and ease of use.
I just feel with this image that there is insufficient color to extract and work with. I am often amazed at how digital processing can recover color in faded images, but I don’t see it happening with this image unfortunately. I would like someone to prove me wrong and share their techniques so that I can learn more.
This is my attempt. I mainly use GIMP for this sort of restoration.
Here is an attempt by one of the online AI tools. I tried a few and they struggled with this image. AI makes some dumb decisions if you look at how the details are softened for no good reason.
Seems like this would be a good candidate for this kind of treatment:
Thanks for all your suggestions!
yes, this one is a difficult one but hey, this way we won’t get bored!
My goal was to restore colors and shadow - I tried again and think to be almost there. Maybe yet another attempt. Here 's my 2nd attempt:
