Mutt & Jeff
Added 2022-03-19 15:01:02 +0000 UTCYet another project that I'm working on is related to Mutt and Jeff. For the better part of a year, I have been collecting new scans of those films.
The Library of Congress was a good starting place. Perhaps some of you have seen the videos on RockinPins Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/RockinPins)?
A full blown restoration project is a few months away yet, but I had some time last week to clean up approx. 1 min of footage to see what was possible.
A lot times, I create these demos to decide what is the best workflow for cleaning up certain films. Also, I'll sometimes do things that I normally wouldn't do, just see what the result looks like, which I did in this case.
As you'll see in the video, it has a lot of scratches, especially small randomly placed scratches. My typical method of cleaning is good for the big single frame damage and the small specks, etc. But smaller scratches are interpreted as noise rather than damage by filters. The best way to remove about 98% of the damage involves removing the grain, which I normally don't do. The part of the video labeled "final version" is the result of that process.
Film grain can be added back (which I did here), but never looks as good as the natural grain.
What you all think? What looks best in the above video?
