Install & Activate

The PixelTools Installer, OFX Plug-ins tab, with Film Emulsion ready to install

Getting Film/Emulsion™ running takes two steps: download the PixelTools Installer, then install the plugin. The installer activates your license as part of the install. The installer places the plugin in the system OFX folder and writes your license to disk, so there is nothing to drag into a hidden directory and no serial number to type.

Before you start

DaVinci Resolve 20 or later. Resolve 21 is the version we recommend and the one we test against most. Resolve Free and Resolve Studio both load OpenFX plugins, so either edition works.
macOS 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia, or 26 Tahoe. We support the current macOS release and the two before it, on Apple silicon and Intel.
Windows 10 or 11, x64. 32-bit hosts are not supported.
A GPU. Film/Emulsion™ renders on Metal on Apple silicon and Intel Macs, and on CUDA on supported NVIDIA cards on Windows. On Linux it renders on OpenCL. When no supported GPU path is available it falls back to the CPU. On Windows the CPU is the fallback today, because the OpenCL path there is opt-in and, while parity-tested on NVIDIA CI, is not yet validated on AMD hardware. The CPU path is parity-tested against the Metal path to fixed tolerances and is meant to match it visually.
Admin rights. The plugin installs into a system-wide OFX folder, so expect a permission prompt on both macOS and Windows.
Quit Resolve to install. Quit Resolve before you install or update the plugin, then launch it again afterward so it picks up the new version. Activating a license is different: if Resolve is already open when you activate, it picks up the license within a few seconds, with no restart.

1. Download the installer

The PixelTools Installer is a small desktop app that installs, updates, and activates every PixelTools plugin you own from one window. You download it once and keep it; it is also how you get updates.

macOS: PixelTools Installer (.dmg)
Windows: PixelTools Installer (.exe)

On macOS, open the disk image and drag the app to Applications. On Windows, run the installer. It installs per-user, and Windows asks for permission later, when the plugin is copied into the shared OFX folder.

The first time you open the app it asks you to sign in. Enter the email address you used at checkout and the installer sends a short code to that address. Type the code and you are in. There is no password to create. The plugin itself never asks for credentials; only the installer signs in.

Sign-in screen: email address, then the emailed code

2. Install the plugin

The OFX Plug-ins tab lists every PixelTools OFX plugin on your account. Find Film Emulsion and click Install.

The installer writes the plugin bundle to the standard OpenFX location, the one Resolve reads from:

macOS: /Library/OFX/Plugins/PixelToolsFilmEmulsion.ofx.bundle
Windows: C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins\PixelToolsFilmEmulsion.ofx.bundle

You do not copy anything by hand, and you do not need to know those paths unless you are troubleshooting. They are here so you can find the bundle later if support asks for it.

Any other PixelTools OFX plugin you own installs into the same folder.

3. Activate your license

A successful install activates the license on its own, so most people never click anything here. Whenever the installed copy is not currently licensed (install-time activation could not complete, or a later expiry or deactivation left it unlicensed), the Film Emulsion card on the OFX Plug-ins tab shows an Activate button to retry. Either way the installer writes a license file to your user account and the plugin picks it up on its own:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/PixelTools/license.dat
Windows: %APPDATA%\PixelTools\license.dat

There is no key to paste into Resolve. The plugin re-reads that file while it renders, at most every few seconds, so if Resolve is already open with a demo instance on a node, the watermark clears within a few seconds of the installer writing it. You do not have to restart Resolve or re-add the node.

OFX Plug-ins tab after activation: Film Emulsion showing Licensed

Machines and seats

By default, your account’s pooled Machine capacity is three machines at once, shared across your PixelTools products (subject to account overrides or add-ons). Each distinct machine claims one slot. Re-activating a machine you have already registered does not use another. When you retire a workstation or move to a new laptop, open Settings → Machines in the installer and Deactivate that machine to free its slot right away. This works for the machine you are on as well as any other machine on the account; deactivating the machine you are currently on also removes the PixelTools plugins and their licenses from it, so reach for it there only when you mean to clear that machine. Signing out while online frees the current machine’s slot too.

Lost the old machine? Deactivate it from Settings → Machines on any machine where you are signed in. If that is not possible, write to support with the email on the account.

Working offline

On individual and Pro licenses, activation needs an internet connection. After that, the plugin does not. A licensed machine keeps grading with no network for about 60 days; past that, the watermark returns until the installer refreshes the license. Open the installer on a connected network so it can refresh the license, and the clock resets. Finishing suites that are normally offline are fine as long as the machine sees the network once in a while.

4. Confirm it loaded

Launch Resolve and open a project. On the Color page, open the OpenFX panel on the right side of the screen. Under the PixelTools group you should see Film Emulsion. Drag it onto a node and the plugin’s tabs appear in the inspector.

You can also confirm the load from DaVinci Resolve → Preferences → System → Plugins on macOS, or Preferences → System → Plugins on Windows, where Resolve lists every OpenFX plugin it found and whether it loaded cleanly.

If it is not there

If the plugin is missing, check these first:

Resolve was open during the install. Quit Resolve fully and relaunch. Resolve does not pick up a new plugin until it relaunches.
macOS blocked the install. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom, and allow the PixelTools Installer if it is listed there. Run the install again.
Windows blocked the plugin folder. Run the installer again and accept the Windows permission (UAC) prompt when it appears. That prompt is what lets it copy the plugin into the shared OFX folder.
The plugin is listed but greyed out in Preferences. Send us a diagnostic bundle (see below) and we will tell you why.

Updating

Open the installer and look at the OFX Plug-ins tab. Any product with a newer version shows an Update button. Quit Resolve, click Update, relaunch. Your license and existing node settings carry over. There is no need to uninstall first.

Demo vs Pro

The demo and Pro are the same plugin with every control, every stock, and every preset available. The difference is in what comes out:

Demo: a watermark is composited onto every rendered frame. It is a grid of dots, two faint corner-to-corner diagonals, the PixelTools mark along the sides, and a small frosted region in the center. It is light enough that you can judge the look through it and heavy enough that you cannot deliver a frame with it on.
Pro: clean output, plus three file operations in the Presets group on the Camera tab: Export LUT (.cube)… for handing a baked look to a system that cannot run the plugin, and Export Preset… and Import Preset… for moving a look between suites as a .filmemulsion file.

Because the plugin is identical, everything you set up in the demo survives activation. Activate, and the watermark clears on the nodes you already built. From Demo to Pro walks through what changes, and the product page carries current pricing.

Getting help

If something is wrong, the fastest route is a diagnostic bundle. In the installer, open Settings → Diagnostics and, under Save diagnostic bundle, click Save bundle to Desktop. It collects the installer and helper logs, crash history, system info, a redacted install ledger and license state, and the plugin’s own log into one archive with no project media in it. Attach that to your support email along with which Resolve version you are running and what you expected to see.

What the installer cannot do yet

The installer handles macOS and Windows. A Linux build is in beta, built for the DaVinci Resolve on Rocky Linux 8.6 reference environment, with compile and CPU/OpenCL validation done and customer-GPU and Resolve runtime validation still in progress. If you are on a Linux Resolve system, write to support for a build.

The installer also cannot activate a machine that has never been online. On individual and Pro licenses, every activation needs one connection, even if the machine goes dark afterward. Fully air-gapped activation is a Studio-tier capability. Studio customers, write to support for your air-gapped setup.

Next: Resolve Quick Start takes you from a fresh timeline to a graded film look in about five minutes.