I want to start a topic for which I do not have any good answer.
Super-8 film which sometimes is 50 years or older might have experienced very strange storage conditions. For testing purposes, I purchased such an old film from ebay, and I found at least two interesting things with this material.
First, some parts of the movie have some fungous(?) patches. Here’s an example:
Most interestingly, other parts of the same reel are perfectly fine.
So here’s my question: Are there any ideas/approaches/suggestions how to clean film before scanning? What is your approach? Are you using post-processing to get rid of such stuff? I’d be interested to get some feedback from the community.
By the way, here’s another unexpected discovery from the same real:
Those white blotches look like mold. Not much you can do there except to use film restoration software to eliminate those blotches in your digital scans. There is an app called Neat Video that can do some restoration, but I only use it for removing noise from images. (I’ve observed that its dustbusting tools can introduce artifacts into the film that didn’t exist before.)
Another post-production tool that you might consider is HS-Art’s Dustbuster+. It’s a standalone Windows or Mac app that can do automatic/manual dustbusting and manual image repair. But watch for sticker shock. They will sell you a license and dongle for about $1500. They provide support for about 1 year. The tool is good if you have time and patience to clean up images yourself. (DustBuster+ is about the cheapest professional tool I could find for dustbusting film. The next cheapest tool is a few of the Phoenix/DVO tools from Digital Vision at about $10,000. And you need a beefy PC workstation to run them.
As for physically cleaning the film, you can use pads and cleaner. I’m on other forums that have discussed how to clean films from time to time. The top pros recommend an ultrasonic clean by a machine that uses sound waves to shake literally shake the dirt out and off of the film.
A more affordable way is to manually clean the film with chemicals. And here’s where nobody can agree with 100% certainty on what works best. Some people use a chemical called Film Renew. I use VitaFilm. There is a chemical called FilmGuard, which is said to fill in the scratches on a film’s emulsion so that you can transfer it without transferring the scratches. (I haven’t tried that yet personally, but it might work.)
One thing that I would NOT use is isopropyl alcohol. Isopropyl could really dry out a film print.
There are many film cleaners on the market. Those I mentioned above are just a few.
Good luck! -----Todd Ruel
PS: I agree with drcushing. Ya gotta keep the bug!
Bugs do love film. I usually find little spiders nest on the film I’ve rescued from sheds and garages.
Winding the film through a soft, lint-free cloth is a good place to start with a dusty film. Just use light pressure and move to clean surfaces of the cloth as it gets dirty.
If you want to spot clean the film the easiest thing to use is 99% Isopropyl Alcohol, it will not dry out the film. Make sure it’s the 99% (anything below about 91% contains too much water and will damage the emulsion) and it will be perfectly safe to use on any type of film. I use PEC Pad’s to do spot cleaning with some alcohol on them with light pressure so you don’t scratch the film. It will evaporate quickly but make sure you don’t wind the film onto itself while it’s still wet.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I will first try to see what Isopropyl Alcohol is able to achieve with this film. The film use adhesive pads and some of the adhesive has spilled out and attracted dust - it will be interesting to see what happens here. Hopefully, the alcohol does not desolve the adhesive?
As a side note: I do not know how old this film really is, but in the areas covered by the adhesive pads, the colors have changed towards a bluish tone. Have not seen this with other old film stock.
As I am quite familiar with image processing algorithms, I will see in a second step (if the first step, manual cleaning, did not solve the mold problem) to see what can be done in post production. The basic algorithm I know is to detect local image variations which occur only in a single frame, and fill in data from previous or following frames (normally after appropriately correcting the movements in the frames analyzed). However, I hope I can avoid such software development.
Finally, I found this nice overview (Conservation Treatment | NFSA) about various approaches to film cleaning. Might be of interest to someone.
Well, the adhesive pads were for splicing parts of the Super-8 film together. A quite usual approach in the old days. Technically, I think they are called “Super 8 Splice Tabs” or “uper 8 Splice Tape”. I own an old Würker film splicer which can work with the standard size, covering 4 consecutive frames, as well as a special type which only is applied to one frame before the cut and one frame after the cut. There were also special variants which left the stereo soundtrack uncovered. You can still get them today from a few manufacturers.
Here’s a side-by-side comparision of the color shift I mentioned above:
On the right half you see the frame immediately after the cut. This one is covered by one of the splicing tabs. On the left half, the frame immediately following the tabbed region is shown. Clearly, the colors change monentarily for the frames covered with the splicing tab, obtaining some blue tint. Nothing serious which can’t be corrected in the post, but interesting.
Just a short update. Cleaning with 99% Isopropyl Alcohol and a soft tissue did help with a lot of the issues of the example film described above.
However, as predicted by ToddRuel, the mold parts were not at all reduced or changed by my cleaning efforts with Isopropyl. Here’s a new image of this film (already cleaned with Isopropyl)
which shows that this material has taken quite some beating over time. The clearly visible white patches are the mold.
After some additional internet research I actually found out the following: it seems that in the beginning of the 80’s, Agfa Moviechrome, Perutz and other material was coated with something derived from bee wax - which is ideal for mold to develop.
Well, it turns out that the solution is very simple: just use a cloth and destilled water to wipe off the mold. Gets off easily. Just make sure to dry the film after application of the destilled water. Here’s the same part of the movie after the destilled water/cloth treatment, followed by a Isopropyl/cloth cleaning step:
Reviving this thread because I haven’t found anything about cleaning Super 8 with one or two sound tracks. Would isopropyl alcohol be okay with those as well, or do I need another type of liquid?
It seems there have been different soundtracks available, too. There are two films I had already run through the projector. One of them had two soundtracks that appered to still be in great (mechanical) condition, the other only a single one that had parts coming off during playback
With that in mind I’d first run the films through the projector to record the soundtrack, then clean them for scanning, as to not accidentally wipe off the tracks…
No don’t use isopropyl with sound film. You can use Film-Guard from Film-Tech. The best way to apply it is with a Neil Systems Film-O-Clean or you can modify a Kelmar cleaner, or otherwise of course just apply it using appropriate cloths between rewinds.
You could also look for somewhere that has the new Hydra film cleaner it supports dual-8 as it comes from the factory, so it’s suitable for labs/companies that specialise in only small-format film.
Phew. I guess I need to post pictures of my scanner sometime soon, so you guys can see the Frankenstein apparatus I’m working with . All the suggested systems are clearly beyond my reach.
I very much appreciate the info though. Looks like I’d have to import Film Guard from the US if I can’t find an alternative.
I’ve found this relic alongside the film reels. It looks like new, but doesn’t say what it’s made of. Does anyone know this product? Do these liquids tend to deteriorate over time? Google has nothing.
According to their website, they moved 2007 to Ireland and later, 2022, to Hongkong. Claim to be “proud to be a family company still”. While they do not offer film cleaning solutions any longer, maybe they still know what’s in that bottle?
Isopropyl is perfectly fine for film. It needs to be 99.5% alcohol or higher, but there is nothing wrong with using it. Lipsner-Smith and Prista made cleaners based on isopropyl, and Kodak used to have a chart on their web site that listed the various cleaning agents. Isopropanol is listed as “Good” – better than HFE, which was used in Kodak’s own film cleaner.
We have not had any issues with mag sound film if that mag was applied at the factory. Post-striped mag tape is a different story because it’s a strip of audio tape adhered with glue, and that can peel off. that glue is more susceptible to cleaning agents. Often it’s easy to spot because that process has already started.
Mag that was applied at the factory has way better adhesion and has never been an issue in our film cleaner.
Oh! That’s super interesting, because I remember my parents talking about glueing on the soundtrack but I’ve never witnessed it. How did you glue that on with such high precision? I thought it was just talk when I saw the films again.
Is there any way to tell whether the strips were factory applied other than “they’re not coming off yet”? I assume the extra thin second track couldn’t be glued on at home? The films in question are from the late 70s.
Hähnel’s (not too surprising) reply regarding the cleaner.
Good day verlakasalt,
Thank you for your email.
That is a long gone Item, I am not sure if it is still usable. I know mostly water and alcohol, the alcohol part should be long gone with the wind by now.
I am not sure if you still can use it.
Thanks a lot, have a nice day.
I’ve opened it and it hissed a bit (air coming in). There’s a very faint smell of alcohol and an even fainter smell of …soft plastic…? (Maybe from the cap of the bottle. The bottle itself is glass)? Either way I’m as wise as I was before .
Any hints on how to recognize how the mag strips were applied are much appreciated! My parents didn’t have a machine to do this at home, so I don’t know where the now-failing soundtrack is coming from.
Edit: I figured I’d check whether the mag stripe was cut at film cuts or running across. Turns out both films in question are post-striped. The reason one of them is failing might be that it had been professionally scanned and cleaned at some time around 2010 (to DVD…). So it has come in contact with some kind of cleaning agent/device.
You can always see the composition of the products in the safety data sheets. I have the impression that there are two categories of products, those based on alcohol and those based on hydrocarbons, I think less dangerous, but not sure that they will completely evaporate. Personally I use Shellsol D40 deflavored essence. A recipe from VideoFred mixing it with paraffin which could reduce scratches? No paper or fabrics, the best are microfiber fabrics like those used for glasses. To clean pass the film to the viewer, you can also build a film cleaner just outside the projector reel.
Several companies made sound striping machines. Some were more manual than others. One way to know for sure that it’s a home job is if there’s no balance stripe. The factory applied mag had a balance stripe added on the perf side of the film as well. This keeps the film in focus when projecting - without the balance stripe, the thickness of the main stripe causes that side of the film to sit farther away from the projector gate than the non-striped side. So the balance stripe was added in order to make sure the film is parallel to the gate.
That said, I think some of the post-stripe machines also added balance stripes but those may have been more at the professional level, like something a lab would offer as a service.
The tracks look different too. I’m not really sure how to describe it, but the factory applied tracks just look more “integrated” in to the film, I guess.
. All the suggested systems are clearly beyond my reach.
.