Part 1: DTS Digital Images Leading the Charge
 

Part 2: SpeedGrade in the Lowry Pipeline
 

Part 3: Working Together to Make it Better

Part 4: The Story of John Lowry and DTS Digital Images
 

Making Magic with Film
The Story of John Lowry and DTS Digital Images

DTS Digital Images, formerly Lowry Digital Images is the world's leading feature film restoration and image enhancement facility. DTS Digital Images has already completed work on more than 100 full-length movies, with stunning results. Not surprisingly, the studios keep coming back for more.

Among the over 100 feature films restored at DTS Digital Images were the Bond movies. Color correction was done with SpeedGrade DI.

John Lowry first began developing this technology in the 1970's. In fact, an early iteration of his system was used to process the live image feeds from the moon during the Apollo 16 and 17 programs for NASA. Now Lowry Digital is in the midst of the most ambitious restoration project ever: the 20 James Bond titles, 9 of which are being restored directly from the original camera negatives in 4K resolution. If you ever have the good fortune to see the restored images from this project you will agree that after John Lowry's team has worked its magic, these decades-old features look better than many current films.

Click here to see the interactive flash graphic

How good is Lowry's image enhancement technology? Fine print that is unreadable in the original image is legible in the finished shot.


The company runs its proprietary image processing technology through an impressive bank of 600 Apple G5 computers to repair the images on film that have been compromised by the ravages of time, damage, and duplication. DTS Digital Images has found a way to extract visual data that was not immediately visible to the eye by combing through frames and combining the best information from each. Thus the facility is able to actually return the quality of the surviving elements of these classic films to the same level that the cinematographer and director saw in their dailies during original production: the scratches and dirt introduced by repeated use are gone; the softening and added grain from generations of optical duplication are removed; the faded and flickering look that results from aging is replaced by the pristine look of a brand new film. The results are breathtaking.

In addition to their ongoing feature film restoration work, the Lowry facility has also applied its unique proprietary image processing to Digital Intermediate projects, including 35 mm theatrical, and large format titles, again extracting and enhancing hidden detail to bring the very best quality to venues where quality is king. Just like the films they work on, for DTS Digital Images the future looks bright indeed.
 

John Lowry, the founder of DTS Digital Images, has long lead the industry in innovative technologies.