Blend mode like polarizing filter?

[plasma_video]

You guys who have had more experience than me with the blend modes might know how best to accomplish this.

I'm restoring some home video originally shot on 8MM film. Due to the age of the originals (going back to the 1930s to the 1960s) and the way they were transferred, they have an appearance of looking through haze - something that a good polarizing filter on a camera could take care of.

I'm wondering if some type of blend mode would help. I've tried using S-Curves in the luminance, adding some sharpness, and various other tricks, but nothing has helped a lot. The best results so far were obtained by sharpening a second layer of the video and doing an overlay blend with the original and adjusting the level of the second layer. That has helped the best of the bunch, so I'm hoping a little play might get me a better result.

Anyone else tried something similar?

Thanks.

Tom

[Bluetongue]

Tom
I have done quite a lot of this for myself and friends.
The fact you quote it is like looking through a haze, a white sheet, seems to me the problem started at the beginning when you transcoded to video and there was too much ambient light probably by projecting too large an image.
This is the technique I use
I use an HDV camera set to record in SD 4:3
The image from the 8mm projector is set to around 18 to 24 inches across at the top on a white melamine cupboard, the smaller the better. This gives the brightest image and any reflection from the screen is insignificant.
Zoom the camera to record just inside the projected image.
Set Manual white balance for the screen with no film, White balances the globe in the projector.
Set the camera to shutter priority and adjust to eliminate or minimise flicker.
Take each roll of film, in every case the video has been rich in colour and only has needed a little adjustment for colour correction and brightness and contrast using the Colour correction filter only.
Using any sharpening only brings the grain into focus and looks terrible
Hope this is of use
Regards Barry

[Bart]

Nice solution but compared to the price for a professional filmscan with better results, I would prefer to pay for a scan. If you take the time you spend to setup and film, you'll better off with a scan. You'll also have less things to correct afterwards. (anyway that's in Belgium & Netherlands)