Digieffects Aged Film is possibly the best value in ‘film quality/projection inconsistency’ effects available. The look of old film is more than a trend. It helps the viewer date the scene of the shot, and helps viewers believe a story set in the past.

Aged Film is one of the most flexible and powerful plug-ins to achieve this type of effect available on the market. It creates an aged “old movie look” with grain, dust, scratches, hair, frame jitter, luminance distortion, colorisation — in short, all those little details that tell the viewer that they’re looking at historical footage.

All Aged Film effects can be animated over time in After Effects.

Parameter Groups
This plug-in has five parameter groups in its interface from top to bottom:
Reset, Options, About (next to DE_Aged Film)
Digieffects, Source Blend, Random Seed, and Deinterlace Controls
Color Control parameters
Dust Control parameters
Vertical LineScratch parameters
Frame Jitter parameters

We will cover these in order of appearance.

Reset
Changes the properties in Aged Film back to their default state.

Option Is the link to register your copy of Digieffects Aged Film if no valid registration information is found on your system. Otherwise, it will function just like “About”.

About
Clicking on ‘About’ displays the version of Aged Film you are running.

Source Blend
Controls how much of the original, unaltered image is blended in the final image. A value of zero shows no original image, a high value of near 100 –90 for example– will leave very little effect visible and a value of 100 will show only the original image and no effect, but the rendering will be zippy.

Random Seed
The Random Seed randomizes the implementation of the effect. Given the same settings, each iteration of the effect will be unique if it has a unique random seed. Adjust this setting when looking for a different set of random features that use the same overall parameters.

Note that this value can be used in multiple cases with the same value and the results will be predictable and similar in cases where consistent use of the effect is required in several instances. If the results you get start looking too predictable, simply change the Random Seed.

Deinterlace
Deinterlace control offers a simple method for eliminating fields by interpolating one of the two fields (or both) to create a non-interlaced, progressive output. This is useful, for example, when the source or the input to the effect is interlaced, and the fast motion of objects causes jagged edges to appear and undesirable artifacts. The following modes are available:

None: Does not deinterlace the effect input.
Lower/Upper Only: Only uses either field (i.e. half a frame worth of information) to create a whole, progressive frame.
Merge: Create a progressive frame for each field, then combine the both. This is most useful for introducing a filmic look to an interlaced composition containing slowly moving objects.

Note: Various host applications offer built-in deinterlacers, often on a per clip basis. For example, After Effects’ “Interpret Footage” allows fields to be separated, if selected. There are a number of reasons why this should or should not be selected. If the host’s deinterlacer is engaged and/or the effect’s input is no longer interlaced, select “None” in this section.

The Color Control Group

Color Control

  • Gamma Response - Raises (or lowers) the midtone values, per channel. There are three separate values for adjusting the Gamma Response before the effect is applied, one each for the red, green and blue channels.
  • Flicker Amount - Controls the amount of flicker. Really crank it up for that authentic slightly out-of-sync projector with the cycling image brightness oscillation.
  • Flicker Frequency - Controls the speed/duration of the flicker. Frequency values are in Hertz, or the number of times per second.
  • Flicker Phase - The phase parameter controls the cycling of the flicker in relationship to the sine wave generated by the combination of the frequency and amount parameters.
  • Flicker Erratic Amount - The erratic amount is how unpredictable the cycling of the flicker is…values range from 0 (extremely predictable) to 100 (goat in a curio shop with his tail on fire).
  • Flicker Erratic Probability - Control the likelihood of the unpredictability…higher values make the unpredictable more probable.
  • Channel Noise (R), (G), (B) - There are three separate values for adjusting the amount of noise (creates an aesthetic similar to grain), one each for the red, green and blue channels.
  • Monochrome - Mono means one, chrome means color —that’s all you need to know.
  • Monochrome Tint - Use this color swatch to determine which color the monochrome parameter tints the image with.
  • Edge Gradient
    • - Recreates the soft edges associated with printed film, allows you to adjust their width/softness.
  • Gradient Curve (H), (V) - Control the edge gradient size for horizontal and vertical edges individually. Higher values mean more of the center area is exposed, while lower values let narrower area in the center show through.

Dust Control
There are four discrete dust generators with different particle models (numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4) included in Aged Film. While you can set all dust generators the way you want, Dust1 and Dust2 simulate smaller defects with sharp edges (1 pixel wide lines) typical of film scratches caused by sand, dust speck (Dust1), blunt objects (Dust2), etc. Dust3 and Dust4 tend to be thicker defects typical of mold and mildew, etc.

  • Color - Use this swatch and eyedropper to define the color of the dust generated by each dust generator.
  • Size - Each dust generator can have a separate size setting…higher values make larger dust particles.
  • Amount - Each dust generator can have an individual amount value. Higher values add more dust.

Vertical Line Scratch
Add vertical scratches to your image to not only give your footage the aesthetic that you shot film, but along with some dust, demonstrates how careless you were in storing it.

  • Number of Scratches - You can push this value all the way to 200.
  • Scratch Maximum Velocity - Control how active the movement of the scratches is with this value. Less is more here. Really high settings might be appropriate for some applications, but it ceases to look authentic at a point.
  • Scratch Lifetime - Control how long the scratches last —higher values mean longer durations.
  • Scratch Opacity - Another less is more parameter. Fully opaque scratches don’t really come off as convincing. Experiment and see how subtle a scratch can be and really sell the effect.
  • Scratch Opacity Variance - Scratches evolve and change, the higher this value is, the more the scratch opacity will vary over time.

Note: Vertical line scratches become slightly thinner during “Draft/Preview” mode of operation in After Effects and Combustion.

Frame Jitter
Control Frame jitter on both vertical and horizontal axes.

  • Max Amount (V), (H) - Higher values increase frame jitter for vertical and horizontal axes individually.
  • Probability (V), (H) - Control how likely the occurrence of frame jitter is for vertical and horizontal axes separately.

The effects & their results

The original footage used looked like this:

The first effect applied is gamma control:

The second effect is the Flicker effect. The movie will cycle through what you see in the screenshot and the normal movie “looks”, creating in effect a very credible flicker:

The third effect is Channel Noise:

Here is what colored dust may look like:

Vertical line scratch exaggerated:

Frame jitter, when exaggerated will make your movie move from one corner to another in a random fashion:

 

 

Founded in 1996, Digieffects is a developer of visual effects plugins for Adobe After Effects, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Autodesk Combustion, Boris RED and Grass Valley Edius.

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