Digital restoration of old animation

[idragosani]

I've had an interesting project drop into my lap... I have about 4 minutes of some old line art animation from the 70s that only exists on VHS that needs to be cleaned up and made pretty. The original animation was drawn with pencil on paper, but in the video it has a yellowish tinge to it... it has kind of a retro look and it might be kinda neat to keep it. But the line art itself needs needs to be made crisper and there are some artifacts in some frames from the digitization of the VHS (dropouts, etc). Can anyone recommend some techniques to help make this cleaner... I realize there will probably be some manual touch-ups to the line art as well (boy I am glad I got the new tablet!). Is there a tool in TVPaint that is analogous to the Paper Tool in Animator Toolbar for cleaning up scanned images? That might be a start....

[malcooning]

Is there a tool in TVPaint that is analogous to the Paper Tool in Animator Toolbar for cleaning up scanned images?

FX panel > color > Scan cleaner

[ZigOtto]

... Is there a tool in TVPaint that is analogous to the Paper Tool in Animator Toolbar for cleaning up scanned images? That might be a start....

yeap, its name is ScanCleaner and is now located in the FX-stack.
you will have to tweak the curve so you'll erase the paper background, but keep (as much as possible) the (faint) lines.
as it'll replace the paper by transparent area, you 'll have to set the Project BG to a white or so too.

without having seen a sample of your video, I can't give you any more advices,
but instead of using the ScanCleaner fx, you could try the new Healing drawing mode,
not used so much here, but it could be useful in your specific case .

[idragosani]

... Is there a tool in TVPaint that is analogous to the Paper Tool in Animator Toolbar for cleaning up scanned images? That might be a start....

yeap, its name is ScanCleaner and is now located in the FX-stack.
you will have to tweak the curve so you'll erase the paper background, but keep (as much as possible) the (faint) lines.
as it'll replace the paper by transparent area, you 'll have to set the Project BG to a white or so too.

without having seen a sample of your video, I can't give you any more advices,
but instead of using the ScanCleaner fx, you could try the new Healing drawing mode,
not used so much here, but it could be useful in your specific case .

Oh, cool, I will try those out. I will try a small sample and show it to everyone, before and after.

[Peter Wassink]

but be aware,
the default setting for this FX adjusts your lines because it is ment to convert an average value pencil drawing into a clear black lines.
if you want no loss, you first have to set the profile as a straight line from corner to corner (double click in the profile to get to the profile panel)

[Manuel]

To extract the lines : FX stack : color/scan cleaner
It will erase the background, then you will be able to work on the lines.

if you want to make the line thicker : work on double resolution and use one of these fx :
- Stylise / Add border size =0.5 to 1
- Stylise / Drop shadow with distance = 0 and smooth=1 to 2

To make the line thin :
- Blur / Median blur Dark halo radius= 1 to 5
- Erode (but only on very big area)

Delete dust/artifact
- Pantograph tool
- Healing tool (often fantastic results!)

Correction :
Copy your current picture on the Spare.
Apply your FX to the picture, Swap with the Spare to get the original back.
Use a drawing tool in Merge mode, to apply the modified area on the original picture.
ie : If you merge with a light Airbrush, you will be able to apply the correction with much control.

[slowtiger]

Don't expect too much from this. You will not get more than your usual VHS quality, and likely even less.

What's possible is: to get rid of a general colour tint (but you want to keep this), and to increase the contrast between pencil line and paper. I don't advise to try to sharpen the lines in any way, because often this destroys the image, but maybe your material profits from this.