What this mode does
The measurement comes first. Each of red, green and blue is read for the darkest and lightest levels it still reaches, ignoring the extreme 0.4% at each end and every pixel the mask marked as damage. A faded dye layer shows up as a channel whose range has shrunk, and the stretch gives it back. Cyan dye is what darkens the red channel, so a print that lost its cyan shows a red channel whose shadows no longer reach black; stretching that channel on its own is what turns orange back towards its original balance.
The cast controls finish it: temperature along blue-amber and tint along green-magenta. Measure balances the scan’s near-grey mid-tones; Pick grey neutralises one thing you know was neutral.
When this is the wrong tool
- A black-and-white or toned print: the black-and-white route keeps colour out of it entirely.
- A dye layer faded to nothing cannot be stretched back. The result is honest weak colour, not invented colour.
- A colour negative needs inverting and its orange film base removed before any of this; that is not built yet.
- Strong local stains (water, tape) are a local problem. Paint them with Local light on the bench rather than correcting the whole print for them.
Questions about faded colour prints
Why have my old colour photos gone orange?
Colour prints hold their picture in three dye layers, cyan, magenta and yellow, and the dyes do not fade at the same rate. In many prints from the 1960s to the 1980s the cyan dye faded first, and a print with less cyan reads red and orange. The picture is still there in the other two layers; what has gone is the balance between them.
How does this page bring the colour back?
It measures each channel separately for where its data really begins and ends, with the damage excluded, and stretches each back to full range. That alone undoes most of a one-sided fade. The cast controls then balance what is left, either measured from the scan's own near-grey mid-tones or picked by clicking something that should be neutral, such as a white border or a grey coat.
What are the dye-fade starting points?
Three buttons that set visible numbers: one for a print gone orange or red, one for magenta, one for an even fade. They are where a typical print of that kind starts, not a filter. Every number they set stays on the sliders, and the recovery record lists what was applied.
Is the colour recovered or invented?
Recovered, in the sense that matters: the stretch and the balance work on dye that is still in the print. Where a dye layer has faded to nothing, there is nothing to stretch, and the honest result is a weak colour rather than a guessed one. This page never paints colour into a print.
Will it fix scratches and dust too?
Yes. It is the same bench: detection, an editable mask and the fill all run first, and the tone is measured afterwards with the damage excluded. Per-channel detection is worth turning on for a colour print, because damage often sits in one dye layer.
Related
- Restore an old photographOpens on fade correction, for a print that has gone pale and warm.
- Restore black and white photosLinked-channel tone so no colour is added; a sepia or selenium print keeps its tone unless you neutralise it.
- Scratches and dustOpens with detection turned up and the brush already out.
- Restored, now colourise itWhere density stops being recoverable and colour starts being invented.
