Solved Transferring 8mm movies to computer

Hi again George: I came into professional photography back in 1971. The commercial photography studio that employed me wanted me to specialize as a Photographic technician. I learned colour film development of transparency and colour negative films. Of course it was expected that I would be able to print colour prints also. We used a Chromega Colour Head enlarger with a colour analyzer. It was not easy but I learned colour theory after some time. This has turned out a good skill to use working with Sony Vegas and colour correction.

Vegas was not my first editing program - I started with Ulead's MSpro which did not have colour wheels or scopes as we have in Vegas.
Back in the old days of printing colour negatives we used a Gray card. I no longer do this. When I have a section of images on screen that needs correction, I look for items that I know should be white, grey and to a lesser extent black. Most areas that need correction tend to be in the mid-tones. eg. its great if the scene includes a neutral grey area - get this right and usually you are half way there. A typical example is a concrete path - most are grey.
I must confess that sometimes its very difficult to judge what colour cast is on a film and this is when colour scopes can rescue the day!
I have been using video scopes since using Vegas Pro 8. I only changed over to Pro 13 because I wanted to start using window 7, 64 bit so I could go to HD Video.

I have seen a number of Film-Digital video jobs with average to poor quality results. These "jobs" have given customers a bad impression of quality they think they can expect when they get their films done. It appears to put people off. I must stress however that to a certain extent the final quality depends to an extent on the original films and how well they were taken.
By the way, there are a couple of "tricks" using colour wheels and scopes together making the job faster and easier. If you are keen to find out how, I am happy to explain these to you.......

Regards, Hans Gelton.

Hi Hans,

Seems we both came from the old school, I started in the early 60's. That certainly dates myself!

kiwihans wrote: I must stress however that to a certain extent the final quality depends to an extent on the original films and how well they were taken.

Agree....."garbage in--garbage out", the better we perform in the camera, the less we have to correct in post. In your business, that would be the better the original, and the better your capture, the less you have to fuss with in for the final. Knowing, that you have no control over the original and the age on film has no mercy, your job to produce a race horse from an old nag, is quite demanding at times.

kiwihans wrote: By the way, there are a couple of "tricks" using colour wheels and scopes together making the job faster and easier. If you are keen to find out how, I am happy to explain these to you.......

I might already be using your tricks, on the other hand maybe not, I'm always up for learning. May I suggest, perhaps starting a new thread something like, "How I Color Correct Film Transfers". This subject I'm sure would be interesting to others as well, and be easier for them to find your techniques.

I have done as you suggested. Its in the Sony Vegas Forum.....

Regards, Hans