Restore old faded photos-Remember Digital ROC?

[Dave Gurtcheff]

An old friend posted an image on Facebook of himself with siblings and Dad and uncle. He is about 12 in the photo.  I graduated from high school 69 years ago and have not seen him since. The image was color but has faded badly and the color is screwed up (different color layers I assume fade faster that others). I would like to surprise him with a restored image. In the past, I purchased and used a wonderful program many years ago called "Digital ROC'" made by "Applied Science Fiction". A wonderful Gentleman in Germany that I purchased his own design and 3D printed Film Holders for my Nikon 8000  medium format film scanner, published a download for Digital Roc Plug in. I successfully down loaded it and also the Release Notes for it. The latest version of Photoshop it is listed to run with is CS3. I have original disks of Photoshop going back to version 3. I have 3.0, 3.04, 3.05 (for Windows 95), 5.0, 6.0 Upgrade, 7.0, CS, CS5 and CS6. I downloaded and installed ROC Plugin , but it does not show up in the "FILTERS" menu or CS3.  I could try installing an old version of Photoshop (probably CS) and then downloading and installing ROC again. My fear is that Photoshop CS may not install on Windows 10.

As a corollary, with all the hoopla about AI I would have thought someone would come up with an AI based photo restoration program. I do not want to individually color each person and object, I want something like ROC: One click and done. Any suggestions or warnings about installing a very old version of Photoshop, then installing a legacy program like ROC on it as a Plug In?

Or any suggestions for a modern program for restoring faded color photos, similar to ROC?

I am also going to post this on The Medium Format Forum...lots of very sharp folks over there.

Thanks

Dave Gurtcheff

Beach Haven, NJ

[Dave Gurtcheff]

At age 87 I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a yearly subscription to Photoshop, as all this AI hoopla interested me. I do often mask out foregrounds of my seascapes and put in another sky . I have a big collection of many different skies to call on. Masking foregrounds is tedious, and supposedly the new PS makes this very easy. This fact plus the Neural Filters to restore old photos with one click interested me. It is always a little scary for me whenever I "upgrade" my PC, either the operating system or big fat programs like Photoshop. So I downloaded Photoshop 2024. The first error message I got was: "CORTANA IN WINDOWS AS A STANDALONE APP IS DEPRECATED". What the F? No clue what that even means. But the second error message was more disturbing: "YOUR GRAPHICS PROCESSOR IS INCOMPATIBLE", DIRECT x UNAVAILABLE, AND INSUFFICIENT VRAM  (O MB OF 1500 MB REQUIRED). I recently upgraded my PC with SSDs and 32MB RAM, was not looking to change the graphics card (I don't do it, I have a PC Guru that does it for me). Any advice? If I don't upgrade the Graphics card will the new PS features work? Maybe I bit off more than I can chew this time.

Thanks all for the help

Dave

[fdisilvestro]

You will likely need to upgrade your graphics card. There has been a lot of evolution in GPUs in the last few years.

A huge portion of those AI functions run on GPUs and Photoshop relies more on them. Not to mention that the performance will be directly affected by the GPU choice.

Your PC Guru friend should be able to recommend a reasonable option. Check this link for info on requirements:

https://helpx.adobe.com/au/photoshop/system-requirements.html

Regards

[Dave Gurtcheff]

First: Thanks all for your help. Here is where I am. I now have subscription Photoshop 2024, as much as that irks me as CS6 is like a comfortable old shoe, and I own it outright. I still have it on my PC along with CS5, all with legacy plug-ins. I realize PS 2024 can probably duplicate the plug-ins, but I am familiar with the old stuff.  My PC repair guy will put in a new graphics card, supposedly a good compromise between speed and affordability. It is an Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti. PS 2024 does indeed have a one click solution to restore old photos. Here is the 70 year old photo from Facebook of a boyhood friend and his  family. I have not seen him since high school. The restoration could be better if I wanted to spend a lot of time tweaking it, but he was thrilled with the restoration as presented. Damn, that makes me feel good!

Dave

[fdisilvestro]

That picture looks great! And the RTX3060Ti is a good choice.

[francois]

Good work on restoration!
Bravo

[Dave Gurtcheff]

I posted here a few weeks ago looking for help to restore an old faded color photograph. I used to use "Digital ROC", which is out of existence. I eventually signed up for Photoshop 2024, even though I have installed CS5 and CS6. I had my PC custom built by Puget Systems in May 2011. Attached is the Spec Sheet. Over the years, I upgraded the RAM from 16 to 32GB, replaced the two hard drives with 1/2TB and 2TB SSD drives and upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. After purchasing and installing Photoshop 2024, I got a warning from the new Photoshop that my Graphics Card was not supported. "Pull Your Hair Out Time!" Thursday I had a local PC Tech make a house call to help install my new Graphics Card I bought on line after it being recommended my an on-line chat with an old timer. It is a RX-665X8D 8GB RAM. My PC with the new Photoshop is amazing. The Video Card works flawlessly (so far). See attached spec sheet for a good laugh. My next hurdle is that Microsoft will stop supporting Windows 10 shortly, and I have been told taht my PC WILL NOT accept Windows 11. Rats. I am 86, so I do not need my PC to last ANOTHER 13 years, but 5 more would be nice. Spec Sheet attached. This is a great group! Everyone is helpful and non-competitive.

Dave

Beach Haven NJ

[degrub]

You will be able to get extended security support by purchase for up to 3 years after october 2024. First year is 99 $. Doubles every year after.
You can also subscribe to 0patch for equivalent live patches. i use them for Win 7 without issue.