Professional Dust Busting for your 8mm, Super 8, 16mm and 35mm Film

Pro Hollywood Restoration Lower Merion

We offer 3 restoration options. Color Correction, Grain Elimination and Stabilization Technology.

About 90% of our Lower Merion customers want the color correction and about 75% do the grain elimination. We do also offer image stabilization. It adds a nice touch to those old home movies.

Color correction is very important for amateur film because we will be able to recover more footage that was shot too dark or has darkened as part of the aging process. The scanner monitors the light and color balance and will change it based on pre-determined algorithms. This means it will pump more light through film that is dark and it will back off on film that is too bright. This will allow us to recover footage that would normally be too dark or too light. In addition, after the scan, an editor will go through the footage looking at skin tone and things like the color of the sky to order to make sure it looks correct. You can see in the examples below how much better the images look with our 2 pass color correction.

Grain is on all film. Look at the "Before" picture below compared to the "After" picture. These little dots muddy up the image and take away from the content you care most about. Now, look at the After picture on the right. This is what you really want to see. We do recommend Grain Elimination on all film for our Lower Merion customers.

Most amateur films have some stabilization issues just because of the way the film was shot. But, most people are used to seeing this on old movie film (See example video clip below). So, we see stabilization as a nice to have but not required. If you can afford to do it then we would recommend it. If it pushes you outside your budget then we would just recommend the Grain Elimination technology.

Super 8 Film Examples Lower Merion

Advanced Grain Elimination Technology It is easy to find the film grain by looking at the wall (on the Before picture) but film grain is on everything throughout the frame. All film will look like this. This is a full resolution image we have cropped to the upper right corner to fit this table (this is 1/6th of the original frame). This is the level of detail you will see on your HDTV. This advanced technology is very compute intensive and it increases our processing time by 7 times. We have to charge extra for it and have decided to make this technology optional on the order form.
Before	After
Advanced Stabilization Technology Most amateur films have some stabilization issues just because it was not shot using a tripod. This technology is intended to smooth out the motion for small to medium movement but not for large movements. The reason is because the larger the movement the more the surrounding video has to be cropped to keep things smooth. This technology is very compute intensive and it increases our processing time by 6 times. We have to charge extra for it and have decided to make this technology optional on the order form.

Color & Exposure Correction Color shifting and darkening of the film are very typical for any type of old movie film. Usually we are able to fix both color and exposure issues to get the film to look like it did when it was first taken.
Before	After

16mm Film Examples

Advanced Grain Elimination Technology It is easy to find the film grain by looking at the wall (on the Before picture) but film grain is on everything throughout the frame. All film will look like this. This is a full resolution image we have cropped to the upper right corner to fit this table (this is 1/6th of the original frame). This is the level of detail you will see on your HDTV.
Before	After
Advanced Stabilization Technology Most amateur films have some stabilization issues just because of the way the film was shot. It was shot with a handheld camera that was moving almost all the time as opposed to sitting on a tripod. You would be surprised to see how unstable most film is. This technology is very compute intensive and it increases our processing time by 6 times. We have to charge extra for it and have decided to make this technology optional on the order form.

Color & Exposure Correction Color shifting and darkening of the film are very typical for any type of old movie film. There are some severe cases where we can't completely fix the color shift from aging or original filming problem. For example, if the camera was shooting people on a coach with a window behind them and the faces are dark there may not be a lot we can do in this case.
16mm Before	16mm After

Lower Merion Fun Facts: In 1713, Lower Merion was established as an independent Township with about 52 landholders and tenants. In 1900, the Township was incorporated as a Township of the First Class. The Township is committed to preserving the beauty and character of Lower Merion's natural and man-made resources. Lower Merion boasts a comprehensive array of playgrounds, swimming pools, picnic areas, and nature parks on over 25 facilities which encompass more than 665 acres.

Pennsylvania Fun Facts: One of the original 13 colonies, Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn as a haven for his fellow Quakers. Pennsylvania’s capital, Philadelphia, was the site of the first and second Continental Congresses in 1774 and 1775, the latter of which produced the Declaration of Independence, sparking the American Revolution. After the war, Pennsylvania became the second state, after Delaware, to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

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