Super8 film 2K scanned: workflow

Topaz Video AI General
1

I’m experimenting with workflows to enhance home movie filmed on Super8 film in 1979, and scanned at 4K by Lasergraphics ScanStation. Here are my observations and workflow so far. Looking for feedback.

  1. Add 4K video to Premiere Pro.
  2. Zoom to remove overscan.
  3. Add black bars via Adjustment Layer.
  4. Apply NeatVideo filter (25% seems correct each time).
  5. In color correction, click Auto, and then dial back the suggestion about halfway.
  6. Render to 2K ProRes MOV file at 24fps (from 18fps). (I downscaled to 2K because 4K was too much for my computer in the next steps.)
  7. Add new file to Selur Hybrid
  8. Apply Temporal Degrain, and Spotless
  9. Render file

At this stage it looks very nice. The Neat filter and Temporal Degrain have done a nice job.

(I experimented with TVAI Proteus and Artemis as the first steps, but I couldn’t achieve this level of denoise. I will experiment more. Maybe there is a way, but I seem to have read that the best practice is to denoise with Neat or QTGMC, and making progressive, before bringing into TVAI.)

Now that I have a cleaned up the 2K video, I wanted to see if TVAI can improve it. I ran it through different settings in Proteus and different settings in Artemis, but apart from some minor denoise, I didn’t see a noticeable improvement.

Then I tried Iris. Wow. This really worked. I tried with Low Quality Input and set to auto. The faces improve but without it being weird.

But here is the problem I’m having with Iris. Because this home video is shot in an unstable way and moves around people sitting at a table, a person’s face gets clearer for a second, because going back to normal. And the face if of the person sitting next to them is noticeably less clear if Iris hasn’t enhanced it, too.

Also, Iris does an amazing job of enhancing lawn chairs and a pool deck way off in the background, and part of the next building behind that, but not all the building. So, that draws attention to itself. Same for items on the table. Ketchup bottle is clear, but not salt shaker. And the face of the person in the same shot as the lawn chairs is not as clear as the lawn chairs. So, this is the opposite of the bokeh effect.

I wish there was an option to have Iris do three passes of the video, the first two to understand what everything is, and the final one to make smarter decisions about what to enhance. I would gladly accept rendering taking triple the time if it led to smarter results.

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sound really interesting & useful.
care sharing your Temporal Degrain settings you applied?
I assume you used Hybrid for this? as part of the QTGC.

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Yes, I use Selur Hybrid as my Vapoursynth filter app. I just left the defaults for temporal degrain because I have no idea what I’m doing and there’s no point messing with it. I assume Selur set those defaults for a reason.

Here are the settings for my degrain.

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As for de-spot, I’m not sure if these settings are correct, as I still see spots on the film, although maybe they are not as stark? Not sure. But the guy who restored his 8mm film here used a de-spot filter in his workflow, so I decided to give it a try.

I haven’t purchased TVAI yet and I’m trying to justify it. My Neat/Hybrid method gets me 90 percent of the way there. If that last 10 percent can improve the video without drawing attention to itself, I will get it, as I have a lot of videos to enhance. But as of my tests today, I’m still hesitating. But I would like to be convinced because if it can work the way I hope it can, then this will enhance my Super8 videos even more.

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