8mm and Super 8mm Film Reel Professional Preservation
Complete digital restoration of old family films – frame by frame.
What happens?
These celluloid films are some of the most treasured memories from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but over time the material becomes fragile, while the emulsion on the film can begin to peel or discolour. During the preservation process, I do not use the old traditional method, where the film is projected onto a wall with a projector and then recorded with a camera, as this would result in a flickering, blurry and dark image.
Instead, I use a modern, specialised film scanner that photographs each individual frame separately in high resolution. Throughout the process, I keep you informed and send short test videos from the material in progress so that you can see the condition before and after the restoration.
How do I restore old film reels?
After the raw scanning, I subject each film to thorough digital post-processing:
- Colour restoration: Over the decades, films often lose their original colours and develop reddish, brownish or bluish tones. I digitally restore the original colour depth and natural tones of the footage.
- Brightness and contrast correction: If the footage was underexposed (too dark) or overexposed (too bright) when originally recorded, I digitally correct it so that details become visible again.
- Image stabilisation and cleaning: After scanning, I digitally reduce distracting image shake and refine the footage so that scratches and dust particles are less noticeable.
- Adjusting playback speed: Old silent films were shot at different speeds than modern videos. I set the correct playback speed so that family members will not appear to move in a “sped-up” or “choppy” way on screen, but instead everything will look natural.
The result: A flicker-free digital video with vibrant colours that preserves the atmosphere of the past while being enjoyable at today's technical standards.
