restoring faded transparencies

I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years ago,
and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a lot
of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
collection of the good and bad results at
www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in hearing
from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let me
know how it works for your pictures.

> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years ago,
> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a lot
> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
> collection of the good and bad results at
> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in hearing
> from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let me
> know how it works for your pictures.

Although your maths is way above my head your results are most
impressive. I have worked with old colour transparencies most of which
are Kodak processed and have been stored in relatively good conditions.
They were copied using an attachment to my digital camera and processed
using UFRaw and Gimp. I will be happy to try your plug-in especially if
it will work with RAW images. Please let me know which is the best to
use JPEG or RAW.

Norman

>
>> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years
ago,
>> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a
lot
>> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the
digital
>> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and
a
>> collection of the good and bad results at
>> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in
hearing
>> from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let
me
>> know how it works for your pictures.
>
>Although your maths is way above my head your results are most
>impressive. I have worked with old colour transparencies most of which
>are Kodak processed and have been stored in relatively good conditions.
>They were copied using an attachment to my digital camera and processed
>using UFRaw and Gimp. I will be happy to try your plug-in especially if
>it will work with RAW images. Please let me know which is the best to
>use JPEG or RAW.
>
>Norman
>
>
I have no experience of UFRaw. If you can get your images into gimp my
plug-in should work. I have just changed it to remove the saving of debug
data. I will be interested in your experience.
Geoff

< snip >
> >
> I have no experience of UFRaw. If you can get your images into gimp my
> plug-in should work. I have just changed it to remove the saving of debug
> data. I will be interested in your experience.
> Geoff
>
I have tried with the plug-in but, unfortunately, I cannot detect
anything happening. I use Gimp 2.6.X and Ubuntu 10.4 and I will try to
explain what I did. I downloaded the file, installed it in the
appropriate plug-ins folder and set the permissions to execute. The
entry Batch Restore appeared in Gimp at the bottom of Filters. With a
slide copy loaded in Gimp I selected Batch Restore and a window opened
headed python-fu_batch_restore offering various options. I tried various
Degree of Restoration settings with Make less blue and also tried
turning Make less blue to No but in all cases on clicking OK the window
immediately closed and nothing seems to happen.

The image I am working with was prepared by photographing the slide
using a close up attachment and is the JPG image straight from the
camera.

Am I doing something wrong or should I assume that the slide which is
getting on for 30 years old and from which the copy was made has no
deterioration in the colours?

Norman

>< snip >
>> >
>> I have no experience of UFRaw. If you can get your images into gimp my
>> plug-in should work. I have just changed it to remove the saving of
debug
>> data. I will be interested in your experience.
>> Geoff
>>
>I have tried with the plug-in but, unfortunately, I cannot detect
>anything happening. I use Gimp 2.6.X and Ubuntu 10.4 and I will try to
>explain what I did. I downloaded the file, installed it in the
>appropriate plug-ins folder and set the permissions to execute. The
>entry Batch Restore appeared in Gimp at the bottom of Filters. With a
>slide copy loaded in Gimp I selected Batch Restore and a window opened
>headed python-fu_batch_restore offering various options. I tried various
>Degree of Restoration settings with Make less blue and also tried
>turning Make less blue to No but in all cases on clicking OK the window
>immediately closed and nothing seems to happen.
>
>The image I am working with was prepared by photographing the slide
>using a close up attachment and is the JPG image straight from the
>camera.
>
>Am I doing something wrong or should I assume that the slide which is
>getting on for 30 years old and from which the copy was made has no
>deterioration in the colours?
>
>Norman
>
>
Sorry you are having problems. It sounds to me that you are confusing the
"batch_restore" plug-in with the "restore" plug-in. The former is for doing a
whole set of photographs. The latter is for a single one. Load the image into
gimp and go to the "restore" menu at the top of the window. It should open a
new window containing the restored image.
Geoff

< snip >

> Sorry you are having problems. It sounds to me that you are confusing the
> "batch_restore" plug-in with the "restore" plug-in. The former is for doing a
> whole set of photographs. The latter is for a single one. Load the image into
> gimp and go to the "restore" menu at the top of the window. It should open a
> new window containing the restored image.

My most sincere apologies. I must be getting too old for this game, this
idiot loaded the wrong plug-in. Load the correct file and all is well
and works like a charm. Now, perhaps when I have refreshed my brain, I
will have a serious look at what can be done.

Norman

Hi all,

I am very excited to read about this plugin to restore old pictures. I have
installed it in GIMP 2.6.4 under Fedora 9; the 'Restore' button appears in the
main menu and the dialogue comes up. However when I click OK, I get an error
message:

IndexError: tuple index out of range

and this output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/python/gimpfu.py", line 692, in response
dialog.res = run_script(params)
File "/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/python/gimpfu.py", line 353, in run_script
return apply(function, params)
File "/home/jan/.gimp-2.6/plug-ins/restore.py", line 112, in restore
av=[(newc[R][i]+newc[G][i]+newc[B][i])/(3.0*255) for i in range(0,256)]
IndexError: tuple index out of range

What can I do to repair this?

By the way it was difficult to get Gimp 2.6.4 running under FC9. YUM would
not install it (only 2.4), and I had to collect the correct babl and gegl
versions from various places on the net, each with problematic dependencies of
their own. It took quite some time to figure it out; fortunately everything
could be found.

geoff wrote:
> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years ago,
> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a lot
> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
> collection of the good and bad results at
> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in hearing
> from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let me
> know how it works for your pictures.
>
Beautiful work, Geoff. Looks like it might be something that could be
expanded into other kinds of exposure problems.

Quoting geoff <forums@gimpusers.com>:

> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years ago,
> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a lot
> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
> collection of the good and bad results at
> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested
> in hearing from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try
> the plug-in let me know how it works for your pictures.

Your script produces some very impressive results and your methodology
is quite ingenious. I especially like how you exploit the quantization
capabilities of GIMP (i.e., using Indexed colormaps).

I was wondering what licensing your script is released under. There is
room for improvement of your script, particularly with regard to its
behavior as a GIMP plug-in and it would be easier to develop your
script further if it were licensed to allow the sharing of derivatives
(GPL, BSD, etc). This is especially true if your main interest lies
with the image algorithms and you are less interested in the demands
of the GIMP plug-in interface (e.g., handling UNDO, honoring
selections, providing more flexible utility, menu location, etc). One
thing that should be fixed fairly soon is that your script seems to
produce a hidden image (i.e., no "view" associated) and neglect to
remove it when finished.

Regards.

>Quoting geoff <forums@gimpusers.com>:
>
>> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years
ago,
>> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a
lot
>> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the
digital
>> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and
a
>> collection of the good and bad results at
>> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested
>> in hearing from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try
>> the plug-in let me know how it works for your pictures.
>
>Your script produces some very impressive results and your methodology
>is quite ingenious. I especially like how you exploit the quantization
>capabilities of GIMP (i.e., using Indexed colormaps).
>
>I was wondering what licensing your script is released under. There is
>room for improvement of your script, particularly with regard to its
>behavior as a GIMP plug-in and it would be easier to develop your
>script further if it were licensed to allow the sharing of derivatives
>(GPL, BSD, etc). This is especially true if your main interest lies
>with the image algorithms and you are less interested in the demands
>of the GIMP plug-in interface (e.g., handling UNDO, honoring
>selections, providing more flexible utility, menu location, etc). One
>thing that should be fixed fairly soon is that your script seems to
>produce a hidden image (i.e., no "view" associated) and neglect to
>remove it when finished.
>
>Regards.
>
>
Thanks for your message. As you deduce I am more interested in the
processing algorithm than the coding. There are too many poor results at the
moment and I suspect there will be modifications to the method when I have
more experience of its performance. For this reason I have not put it on a
gimp site. I am happy for anyone to develop the plug-in further and improve
the interface but there is not much point until the algorithm is unlikely to
change. I have killed the spurious hidden image which was left over from the
way of correcting the side absorptions.

< snip >

> Thanks for your message. As you deduce I am more interested in the
> processing algorithm than the coding. There are too many poor results at the
> moment and I suspect there will be modifications to the method when I have
> more experience of its performance. For this reason I have not put it on a
> gimp site. I am happy for anyone to develop the plug-in further and improve
> the interface but there is not much point until the algorithm is unlikely to
> change. I have killed the spurious hidden image which was left over from the
> way of correcting the side absorptions.


Geoff, I have started to look at a number of copies of old Kodachrome
slides and I am beginning to get together several comments many of which
would be best exemplified by examples. Therefore, I would like to know
whether, at this stage in the development and because of your main
interest being in the algorithm, you and other readers would think it
best if this subject was continued outside this list.

Norman

norman wrote:
> < snip >
>
>
>> Thanks for your message. As you deduce I am more interested in the
>> processing algorithm than the coding. There are too many poor results at the
>> moment and I suspect there will be modifications to the method when I have
>> more experience of its performance. For this reason I have not put it on a
>> gimp site. I am happy for anyone to develop the plug-in further and improve
>> the interface but there is not much point until the algorithm is unlikely to
>> change. I have killed the spurious hidden image which was left over from the
>> way of correcting the side absorptions.
>>
>
>
> Geoff, I have started to look at a number of copies of old Kodachrome
> slides and I am beginning to get together several comments many of which
> would be best exemplified by examples. Therefore, I would like to know
> whether, at this stage in the development and because of your main
> interest being in the algorithm, you and other readers would think it
> best if this subject was continued outside this list.
>
> Norman
>
The subject's of considerable interest to me and I'd like to be kept
aware of any developments. So for my 0.02c worth, I'd prefer it to stay
on the main list.

Doug

geoff wrote:
> I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years ago,
> and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a lot
> of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
> scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
> collection of the good and bad results at
> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in hearing
> from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let me
> know how it works for your pictures.
>
I have a large collection of old slides showing all the problems you
describe in your article to greater or lesser degree, so
I was extremely interested in your post. I've downloaded your plugins.
Unfortunately I get a "Forbidden" error when I try to download the
readme.txt; and it's not clear to me how to get the python plugins
actually installed in Gimp 2.6 after copying them into the
~/.gimp-2.6/plugins directory.
Can you help?

Doug

< snip >

> I have a large collection of old slides showing all the problems you
> describe in your article to greater or lesser degree, so
> I was extremely interested in your post. I've downloaded your plugins.
> Unfortunately I get a "Forbidden" error when I try to download the
> readme.txt; and it's not clear to me how to get the python plugins
> actually installed in Gimp 2.6 after copying them into the
> ~/.gimp-2.6/plugins directory.
> Can you help?

I read the photorestore.pdf file.

Norman

norman wrote:
> < snip >
>
>
>> I have a large collection of old slides showing all the problems you
>> describe in your article to greater or lesser degree, so
>> I was extremely interested in your post. I've downloaded your plugins.
>> Unfortunately I get a "Forbidden" error when I try to download the
>> readme.txt; and it's not clear to me how to get the python plugins
>> actually installed in Gimp 2.6 after copying them into the
>> ~/.gimp-2.6/plugins directory.
>> Can you help?
>>
>
> I read the photorestore.pdf file.
>
> Norman
>
So did I, but there's no protection against senility :-[ .
However, I then read your earlier post, Norman - bangs head on wall!! -
of course, permissions :-[ :-[
(it's normally the first thing I think of, but my excuse is that I've
got used to gramps, where 'Reload Plugins' does that for you).

Yes, they're all there. Now I can get down to trying them out.

Doug

Hi,

I have problems to open the readme.txt:
http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore/readme.txt
403 Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /photosoftware/restore/readme.txt
on this server.

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:51, geoff <forums@gimpusers.com> wrote:
> www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in hearing
> from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let me
> know how it works for your pictures.

Where can I find the plugin?

Regards,
Tobias

Tobias Jakobs (tobias.jakobs@googlemail.com) wrote (in part) (on
2009-02-22 at 14:51):
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:51, geoff <forums@gimpusers.com> wrote:
> > > www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be
> interested in hearing
> > > from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the
> plug-in let me
> > > know how it works for your pictures.
>
> Where can I find the plugin?
@Tobias - since Geoff hasn't had time to respond ...
Go up one level (click Parent Directory) then down to gimp_plugins
http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/gimp_plugins/
restore.py is the one discussed in the PDF - the others may also be of
interest.

>I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years
ago,
>and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a
lot
>of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
>scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
>collection of the good and bad results at
>www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in
hearing
>from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let
me
>know how it works for your pictures.
>
Thanks for all the interest. By publicizing my plug-in I hope that: (1)
people with faded slides will be able to restore them, (2) that it will be
possible to improve the method by input from others and (3) if (2) happens
someone will take up the task of improving the coding so that the plug-in can
be distributed more widely.

I think that we should keep general discussion of this topic in this forum,
so that everyone can join in, but it would be useful if there was a single
collection of sample images, with commentary and perhaps carefully considered
reviews of the conclusions made from them. I am happy to put these on my
website along with my own examples. My email is geofxf@plyus.cozm (delete the
x y and z to get the correct address and avoid my getting spam). Please keep
the file size down, the pictures will only be viewed on a webpage. Also be
selective about what you send; images similar to existing ones are not very
useful, but examples of good restorations of very poor originals are of
interest as are failures of the method. It is probably also better if any
very technical discussions are done by email.

First, to put things into context. It was always a source of frustration
that one was not able to manipulate colour transparancies in the same
way that black and white negatives could be manipulated in the darkroom.
(Amateur colour printing had not yet arrived). So, when I had set up my
digital darkroom I decided to investigate copying and manipulating some
of my old colour slides. After studying the literature, I decided to
make copies using my Olympus SP-500 UZ with an adjustable close-up
attachment with supplementary lenses attached to the front of the
camera. Images were recorded in both RAW and JPEG.

Images for this exercise were selected, more or less at random, from
those which had been made from Kodachrome 25 colour transparencies
which were about 30 years old. Only JPEG images as produced by the
camera were used and no attempt has been made to produce the correct,
restored image but rather to be able to compare the results obtained
from the two extremes of the slider setting and the original copy. Also,
as this was not a debuging exercise, no reference has been made to any
images which caused error messages to be displayed. The settings were
'Make less blue' -> Yes, 'Combine all layers' -> Yes and 'Degree of
Restoration' slider settings were either 1.2 or 0.7.

The images are available at www.littletank.org/upload and are arranged
in groups of 3. The left-hand image is the original slide copy, the
centre image is with the slider set at 1.2 and the right-hand image is
with the slider set to 0.7. You are free to use these images for any
tests, measurements or observations you care to make and if you have any
questions please do not hesitate to ask. All I ask is that if you want
to use any of them in any publication, please let me know.

So far, the process looks very encouraging but there must be many
questions to be answered before it will be possible to comment with
confidence on the use of the Restore plug-in. For example, what effect,
if any, is there on the fine detail stored within the original
transparency.

I hope that these observations and the images will prove to be useful.

Norman

It would be useful if the slider range could be altered, especially to
be able to go below 0.7. I am not a programmer and, therefore, I do not
know if this is possible or how complicated it is but, if it can be
done, I would love to be able to try the effect.

Norman

norman wrote:
> It would be useful if the slider range could be altered, especially to
> be able to go below 0.7. I am not a programmer and, therefore, I do not
> know if this is possible or how complicated it is but, if it can be
> done, I would love to be able to try the effect.
>
> Norman
>
>

>It would be useful if the slider range could be altered, especially to
>be able to go below 0.7. I am not a programmer and, therefore, I do not
>know if this is possible or how complicated it is but, if it can be
>done, I would love to be able to try the effect.
>
>Norman
>
>
The "degree of restoration" is designed to be 1.0 according to the
mathematics in my technical notes but I have found that for some images the
resulting colours become a bit too garish, hence the slider. I had not
expected values below 0.7 would be useful but the default range can be changed
in the line (PF_SLIDER, "contrast", "Degree of Restoration", 1.0, (0.7, 1.2,
0.1) ), near the end of the file.

My apolgies to Doug - I got my email address wrong (I never use this one), it
is geoxff@lionhyouse.pzlus.com (delete the xyz)

I will look at your examples and also find out why some crash the program; I
have not had this.

< snip >

> The "degree of restoration" is designed to be 1.0 according to the
> mathematics in my technical notes but I have found that for some images the
> resulting colours become a bit too garish, hence the slider. I had not
> expected values below 0.7 would be useful but the default range can be changed
> in the line (PF_SLIDER, "contrast", "Degree of Restoration", 1.0, (0.7, 1.2,
> 0.1) ), near the end of the file.

Thanks, I will try my hand at changing the slider and see what happens.
The main reason I have in wanting to go lower than 0.7 is to see, if
possible, where the loss of detail starts to occur.

Norman

> < snip >

> Thanks, I will try my hand at changing the slider and see what happens.
> The main reason I have in wanting to go lower than 0.7 is to see, if
> possible, where the loss of detail starts to occur.

I changed the 0.7 setting to 0.2 and ran restore. Just had a quick look
and report that the results are very interesting. What seems to be
happening is that the amount of blue removed is about the same but the
contrast is increasing as the slider setting is increased. I would be
interested to know if anyone else has tried going to lower settings and
with what results. I must spend a lot more time and follow this up.

Norman

geoff wrote:
>> It would be useful if the slider range could be altered, especially to
>> be able to go below 0.7. I am not a programmer and, therefore, I do not
>> know if this is possible or how complicated it is but, if it can be
>> done, I would love to be able to try the effect.
>>
>> Norman
>>
>>
>>
> The "degree of restoration" is designed to be 1.0 according to the
> mathematics in my technical notes but I have found that for some images the
> resulting colours become a bit too garish, hence the slider. I had not
> expected values below 0.7 would be useful but the default range can be changed
> in the line (PF_SLIDER, "contrast", "Degree of Restoration", 1.0, (0.7, 1.2,
> 0.1) ), near the end of the file.
>
> My apolgies to Doug - I got my email address wrong (I never use this one), it
> is geoxff@lionhyouse.pzlus.com (delete the xyz)
>
> I will look at your examples and also find out why some crash the program; I
> have not had this.
>
Geoff, if you like, I can send on on example of a slide crashing the
plugin for a restoration setting of 1.2

Doug

I am still interested in the use of this plug-in and have been trying
out a variety of tests with a selection of my slide copies. This test
may not be strictly valid but I have been measuring the colour value of
a white item using different settings of Restore and assuming that the
blue cast has been removed when the white item gives "ffffff".
Generally, I have found that a setting of 0.1 will not give this but a
setting of 0.2 does. The resulting images look quite pleasant, not too
contrasty and retaining a good level of detail.

If any one else is trying Restore I would like to exchange views and
images.

Norman

>I am still interested in the use of this plug-in and have been trying
>out a variety of tests with a selection of my slide copies. This test
>may not be strictly valid but I have been measuring the colour value of
>a white item using different settings of Restore and assuming that the
>blue cast has been removed when the white item gives "ffffff".
>Generally, I have found that a setting of 0.1 will not give this but a
>setting of 0.2 does. The resulting images look quite pleasant, not too
>contrasty and retaining a good level of detail.
>
>If any one else is trying Restore I would like to exchange views and
>images.
>
>Norman
>
>
I owe Norman a sincere apology. At some time in the past a line of code got
deleted from my plug-in. (It went through dozens of versions!) This has no
effect on the restorations with default settings but the "degree of
restoration" slider does not work properly, especially when the original is
dark. Further tests showed that, even with the missing code, it did not work
as planned. A setting of 0.0 was intended to leave the original unchanged and
1.0 is the "theoretical" correct value. I have corrected the plug-in and
fixed several minor bugs in a new version.

So I am very sorry but some users may have been wasting their time. I
suppose if the restorations look good it is not wasted. I did, of course,
test the plug-in before release, I just did not test it on a wide enough range
of images to detect the error.

I have put a more detailed document update.pdf on the website and the results
of some more tests.

< snip >

> I owe Norman a sincere apology. At some time in the past a line of code got
> deleted from my plug-in. (It went through dozens of versions!) This has no
> effect on the restorations with default settings but the "degree of
> restoration" slider does not work properly, especially when the original is
> dark. Further tests showed that, even with the missing code, it did not work
> as planned. A setting of 0.0 was intended to leave the original unchanged and
> 1.0 is the "theoretical" correct value. I have corrected the plug-in and
> fixed several minor bugs in a new version.

No apology needed but thanks all the same. The new version is indeed an
improvement and I will start a new set of tests. When the restore is
complete the new image appears behind the original. Is that always the
case or is it due to the way I have things set up?
>
> So I am very sorry but some users may have been wasting their time. I
> suppose if the restorations look good it is not wasted. I did, of course,
> test the plug-in before release, I just did not test it on a wide enough range
> of images to detect the error.

Time certainly has not been wasted, it is most interesting trying out
different ideas.
>
> I have put a more detailed document update.pdf on the website and the results
> of some more tests.

A most impressing collection of results.

Norman

Looking through the examples I noticed that B and G had a colour cast
similar to the colour produced by the filter on colour negatives. Some
months ago I spent some time turning colour negatives into a digital
form and then processing them in GIMP. Having got the original RAW
images I had a look to see what Restore could do. The results are most
encouraging and could lead to another use of the plug-in.

It is really very simple. Take the image of the colour negative and
apply Restore at the default settings. Then choose Colours -> Invert and
the positive image is there.

I suppose there is no reason why the invert step could not be
incorporated into the plug-in as another option.

Norman

Geoff,

great work, I am particularly impressed by the theory behind your plugin. I
ran into a bit of trouble (see error messages at the end). While I typed this
message, I came across the solution, so I'll post my question together with
the answer in case others run into the same glitch. I have kubuntu 8.04 with
GIMP 2.4 and Python 2.5. GIMP dumps the attached message in the console when
it is loaded, and the plugin fails to load (yes, I did chmod a+x Restore.py).
Apparently, kubuntu's GIMP package does not include the gimp-python package,
which needs to be installed manually with `apt-get install gimp-python' (or
with aptitude).

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/marcus/.gimp-2.4/plug-ins/Restore.py", line 8, in <module>
from gimpfu import *
ImportError: No module named gimpfu

(gimp:3591): LibGimpBase-WARNING **: gimp: gimp_wire_read(): error
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/marcus/.gimp-2.4/plug-ins/Restore.py~", line 217, in <module>
register(
NameError: name 'register' is not defined

(gimp:3591): LibGimpBase-WARNING **: gimp: gimp_wire_read(): error

>I was scanning a lot of colour transparencies, some taken up to 40 years
ago,
>and found that in some cases the colours had deteriorated badly. After a
lot
>of experimenting I have developed an automatic way of improving the digital
>scans using gimp. I have put a technical article, the gimp plug-in, and a
>collection of the good and bad results at
>www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/restore. I would be interested in
hearing
>from anyone who has worked on this problem and if you try the plug-in let
me
>know how it works for your pictures.

I am in the fortunate position of having a professionally made print, some 20
years old, from a transparency (Kodachrome) some 40 years old, one of very
many! My first attempt with my new slide scanner was on this same slide, and
hence I am able to see the colour changes over those past years.

I would like to try your restore.py plug-in, and have copied the restore.py
file to the script directory. However, here I am stuck, as I have to admit
that I don't understand your instructions in step 3! Could you be so kind as
put step 3 in a more elementary form! Many thanks, Alanp

> I am in the fortunate position of having a professionally made print, some 20
> years old, from a transparency (Kodachrome) some 40 years old, one of very
> many! My first attempt with my new slide scanner was on this same slide, and
> hence I am able to see the colour changes over those past years.

I have spent many hours experimenting with the restoration of old colour
slides but have never had an old print from the slide as a comparison
and I would be very interested to learn of any results you may get. Just
a note of caution, how can you be sure that the colours of the print
have not changed over the years?

Norman

>
>> I am in the fortunate position of having a professionally made print, some
20
>> years old, from a transparency (Kodachrome) some 40 years old, one of
very
>> many! My first attempt with my new slide scanner was on this same slide,
and
>> hence I am able to see the colour changes over those past years.
>
>I have spent many hours experimenting with the restoration of old colour
>slides but have never had an old print from the slide as a comparison
>and I would be very interested to learn of any results you may get. Just
>a note of caution, how can you be sure that the colours of the print
>have not changed over the years?
>
>Norman
>
>


A very fair question! The answer is simply that the colours in the print are
far more "natural" than those in my newly digitised slide. For example, in
the print the sky contains grey, rainy looking clouds below a pale, whitish
background of higher cloud. The digitised slide makes the grey clouds more
blue, and the background cloud layer has splashes of yellow! A comparable
change is in the mountain peak below the clouds - formerly a steely grey
colour, it is now quite bluish. The view in this picture is one with which I
was very familiar, and I am certainly more comfortable with a grey mountain
than a bluish one!

Are you using the restore.py plug-in? If so, can you enlighten me as to the
mechanics of adding this to my version of GIMP?

Alan

< snip >
> >
> A very fair question! The answer is simply that the colours in the print are
> far more "natural" than those in my newly digitised slide. For example, in
> the print the sky contains grey, rainy looking clouds below a pale, whitish
> background of higher cloud. The digitised slide makes the grey clouds more
> blue, and the background cloud layer has splashes of yellow! A comparable
> change is in the mountain peak below the clouds - formerly a steely grey
> colour, it is now quite bluish. The view in this picture is one with which I
> was very familiar, and I am certainly more comfortable with a grey mountain
> than a bluish one!
>
> Are you using the restore.py plug-in? If so, can you enlighten me as to the
> mechanics of adding this to my version of GIMP?
>
There is lots of useful information to be found in

http://forum.meetthegimp.org/

Might I suggest you have a look there and then, if there is anything
more you would like to know, or discuss, please come back here.

Norman

>< snip >
>> >
>> A very fair question! The answer is simply that the colours in the print
are
>> far more "natural" than those in my newly digitised slide. For example,
in
>> the print the sky contains grey, rainy looking clouds below a pale,
whitish
>> background of higher cloud. The digitised slide makes the grey clouds
more
>> blue, and the background cloud layer has splashes of yellow! A
comparable
>> change is in the mountain peak below the clouds - formerly a steely grey
>> colour, it is now quite bluish. The view in this picture is one with
which I
>> was very familiar, and I am certainly more comfortable with a grey
mountain
>> than a bluish one!
>>
>> Are you using the restore.py plug-in? If so, can you enlighten me as to
the
>> mechanics of adding this to my version of GIMP?
>>
>There is lots of useful information to be found in
>
>http://forum.meetthegimp.org/
>
>Might I suggest you have a look there and then, if there is anything
>more you would like to know, or discuss, please come back here.
>
>Norman
>

After a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, plus an element of magic, I actually
found the "Restore" item in the menu!

I then tried two scanned slides with Restore. The one I have described
already (boy in Napoleon outfit in front of mountain) and another, a field of
red poppies with fringing bushes. The former showed little change after
trying all variations of Restore, notably that the blue tinge was not
lightened and the yellow splashes in the sky stayed there. The poppies,
however, did shown an improvement in that the fringing bushes certainly became
more green than before.

Having no instructions for using Restore, I assume I used in correctly - I
suppose there's not much more to be done than ring the changes on the
controls?

Where does one find the file referred to earlier - photorestore.pdf?

Alan

< snip >

> After a lot of too-ing and fro-ing, plus an element of magic, I actually
> found the "Restore" item in the menu!
>
> I then tried two scanned slides with Restore. The one I have described
> already (boy in Napoleon outfit in front of mountain) and another, a field of
> red poppies with fringing bushes. The former showed little change after
> trying all variations of Restore, notably that the blue tinge was not
> lightened and the yellow splashes in the sky stayed there. The poppies,
> however, did shown an improvement in that the fringing bushes certainly became
> more green than before.
>
> Having no instructions for using Restore, I assume I used in correctly - I
> suppose there's not much more to be done than ring the changes on the
> controls?
>
> Where does one find the file referred to earlier - photorestore.pdf?

Before you can really start to get involved in the restoration of old
transparencies I would suggest that you try to understand what has, in
fact, happened to the dyes responsible for producing those colours. You
can take it from me that there is no single, easy way to solve the
problem without producing some degradation in quality and detail and I
am of the opinion that each slide has to be treated on its own merits.
I am sure a Google search could be most productive and, if you would
like to make copies of your slides available I would be delighted to try
to see what various methods could do.

There are some interesting examples to found at :-

http://www.23hq.com/photogroup/5034048/

Norman

On 2009-09-28, Marcus <forums@gimpusers.com> wrote:
> Geoff,
>
> great work, I am particularly impressed by the theory behind your plugin.

http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/gimp_plugins/

gives err404. Any idea where one can currently get it?

Thanks,
Ilya

> http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/gimp_plugins/
>
>gives err404. Any idea where one can currently get it?
>
>Thanks,
>Ilya

Strange. I tried your link, and it works for me. Can you get to Geoff's web
page with the following link?

http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/

On 2009-10-05, Marcus <forums@gimpusers.com> wrote:
>> http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/photosoftware/gimp_plugins/
>>
>>gives err404. Any idea where one can currently get it?

> Strange. I tried your link, and it works for me. Can you get to Geoff's web
> page with the following link?
>
> http://www.lionhouse.plus.com/

Thanks, looks like it was a temporary server problem.

Yours,
Ilya