[Help Needed] $50 for a Method to Remove Purple Fringing in Old Videos

[bigOrange]

I'm restoring old films and TV series and keep running into a recurring image quality issue: strong edges often show a purple band or halo. The artifact appears consistently around candlelight in night scenes, as well as along high-contrast edges in daylight. Here are a few examples


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I'm not entirely sure of the correct term – it may be related to “purple flare” or chromatic aberration. It’s very distracting and seriously degrades the viewing experience.


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The same clips frequently suffer from a related dark edge problem. For example, candle flames often show a dark line on one side and a purple fringe on the other – extremely annoying.

I'm looking for an effective method/workflow that can remove these artifacts. I will provide a short test video; you only need to process the segments shown in the screenshots (no need to run the entire clip).

test video clip
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kmni1sN9k-MgslyiIPKpLyqF2k-zTaMK/view?usp=sharing

Key requirements:

Minimize luma (Y) channel processing as much as possible, and avoid noticeable detail loss. Ideally, the Y channel should be left mostly untouched, but limited processing is acceptable if it doesn’t degrade fine details significantly. This step serves as a pre-processing module before an AI model handles detail restoration, so preserving image information is critical.

Please note: the test source has been badly upscaled (not by me – I received it this way). You are free to downscale it if necessary.

If your solution meets my requirements, I'll pay $50 USD. Please provide a clear workflow (script, filter chain, or detailed steps) that I can apply.

[Selur]

see: https://forum.selur.net/thread-4393-post-29697.html

[VWestlife]

Are you sure that's not just the inherent streaking/comet-tailing effect of a tube image sensor? You can't "restore" out of a video what was baked into it straight out of the camera, even before it hit the VTR. It's like trying to remove the lens flare effect you get when panning across the sun.

I'd prefer to see the video as it was originally recorded, not digitally manipulated in an effort to make it look "more modern"... just my two cents, or I suppose rounded up to 5 cents these days, since they're not making pennies anymore.

[johnmeyer]

There definitely is a school of thought that says you shouldn't alter what was in the media when it was shot. However, that means we should not remove gate weave from film; we shouldn't color correct a video or photo that was taken outdoors using indoor color settings; we shouldn't get rid of air conditioner hum in audio, even if it overwhelms the dialog; etc.

Everyone has to draw their own line on what they want to change, but my criteria is simple: any change you make should make it more pleasant to watch.

Also, if the "fix" makes the result look unnatural in any way, then I won't do it. That is why I am so far not running to AI. Every AI manipulation I've seen so far, including those done for "Hollywood" films, results in images that are artificial and vaguely unsettling.