How can I create a soft, low-contrast black-and-white look like some film restorations?

Question

I noticed two different black-and-white presentations of the same film: one looks softer and lower-contrast, while the other has deeper blacks and a harder contrast. The softer version seems to have lifted blacks and gentler midtones, which gives a mild glowing or hazy impression around subjects.

What kind of grading or processing creates this look? Is it mainly a tone-curve/gamma adjustment rather than a diffusion filter or HDR effect? If I want to recreate it in editing, what should I change in the blacks, midtones, and overall contrast?

user57929 · Accepted Answer

I think what is really making the difference here is a misinterpretation of a colour profile/icc. The darker version might be Rec709 being misinterpreted as sRGB - one is a video profile, the other stills. In colour these are similar, but the gamma curve is different. Misinterpreting will skew the darker end of the scale.

Dropping both of these into Photoshop, you can approximate a curve readjustment using Levels

^{Click for full size}
A very hasty Levels tweak of the darker image on the right, with the untouched lighter image on the left.
Lift the blacks, expand the mids by dropping the mid-point lower down the scale.
It's not perfect, but it's close.

It's never going to match perfectly because we're not truly inverting the curve that was misapplied, but as an approximation I think it's OK. If we were to be a little more finicky, the left [4k] image is not strictly black & white/greyscale, it has a little warmth added.

You can do this for stills or movies, FCP & DaVinci have very similar controls.

How can I create a soft, low-contrast black-and-white look like some film restorations?

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