Resolve Quick Start

Five minutes from a fresh timeline to a graded film look. Two settings matter before you pick a look: one in Project Settings, one on the plugin’s Camera tab. This page sets both, then picks a look.

It assumes the plugin is installed. If not, start with Install & Activate.

1. Set up color management

DaVinci Wide Gamut / DaVinci Intermediate is the plugin’s default input. Every stock, print, and preset assumes that input unless you tell the plugin otherwise, so it is the space to start in.

Open Project Settings → Color Management and set:

• Color science: DaVinci YRGB Color Managed
• Automatic color management: on

With automatic color management on, Resolve reads each clip’s camera metadata, converts it into DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate for the timeline, and converts out to your display at the end. Your nodes, including the one carrying Film/Emulsion™, sit in the middle of that.

If you would rather set the space by hand, turn automatic color management off, set Timeline color space to DaVinci Wide Gamut / Intermediate, then set each clip’s Input Color Space to match its camera. The result at the node is the same.

Already working in another space?

That still works. Resolve Color Managed with an ACES timeline, a Rec.709 project, or a log clip with no management at all can all feed the plugin. You tell it what it is receiving in step 3 and it converts internally. The one thing to avoid is feeding it display-referred video with a look already baked in. Film was exposed by scene light, and the model wants scene-referred input for the same reason. Color Management covers the non-DWG workflows.

2. Add Film/Emulsion™ to a node

On the Color page, open the OpenFX panel and find Film Emulsion under PixelTools. Drag it onto an empty serial node. The plugin’s tabs appear in the inspector on the right.

Where in the node tree

After your balance and primary corrections, before any output transform or creative LUT. Everything before the node is the light that reached the camera; the node is the film. Exposure fixes, white balance, and shot matching go upstream, where you decide what the negative sees. Windows, keys, and polish go downstream, on the print.

• Match your shots before the plugin, not after. Film responds to exposure nonlinearly, so shots that go in at different exposures come out differing in contrast and color as well as brightness. Balance first and the stock treats every shot the same way.
• Keep it on its own node. The plugin acts on the whole image. Stack a primary on the same node and you cannot tell which control did what.

3. Confirm the input signal

Open the plugin’s Camera tab. The Color Management group at the top has the two controls that matter here:

• Transfer Function tells the plugin the encoding of the signal reaching the node. It defaults to DaVinci Intermediate. If you set up the managed project in step 1, you are done with this group.
• Automatically set gamut is on by default, so the Gamut menu follows the transfer function. DaVinci Intermediate pairs with DaVinci Wide Gamut, ARRI LogC3 with ARRI Wide Gamut 3, and so on. Leave it on unless you have a deliberate mismatch to solve.

If your node is not receiving DaVinci Intermediate, say an ARRI LogC3 clip in an unmanaged project, set Transfer Function to match the camera encoding and the gamut follows. The node returns the image in the same space it received, so the rest of your tree does not change.

If the image looks wrong

Check Transfer Function before any other control. Crushed, over-steep contrast usually means the plugin was told the signal is log and it is not. Milky, flat contrast is the reverse. Color Management has the detail.

4. Pick a film look

Still on the Camera tab, open the Film Look menu. It holds 29 looks plus No Preset. A look sets the whole film chain at once: negative stock, lab, adjustments, print stock, halation, and grain. Color Management, Quality, and the per-stage Opacity sliders are yours and stay as you set them.

The menu opens at No Preset, the plugin’s default recipe. Everything is on and running (a Kodak Vision3 stock, a Kodak 2383 print, halation and grain at their defaults) but nothing has been pushed in a stylistic direction.

First picks, depending on what you are grading:

• Modern 35mm. A current-era color negative printed cleanly, so the film carries no period flavor. Start here.
• Vintage 35mm. An older Eastman negative printed on Kodak 2393, with a vintage dye anti-halation backing. Warmer than Modern 35mm, with more halation around practicals.
• Indie 35mm. Between Modern and Vintage: the same negative as Modern 35mm with a vintage dye backing and noticeably more grain. Documentary and indie drama that should feel like film without feeling old.
• Indie 16mm. The same negative on a Super 16 gauge, so the grain is visibly heavier and more halation comes through. Good on handheld documentary work.
• Super 8 Home Movie. Kodak Vision 800T on the Super 8 gauge with a vintage dye backing. Heavy grain, soft halos, and a warm print, for footage that is meant to look nostalgic.
• 35mm B&W. Kodak Double-X, with halation pushed so highlights halo freely. The grain changes with it, not only the color.
• Clean Slate. Every processing stage switched off, so the image passes through untouched. In the demo the watermark still applies. The starting point for building a look one stage at a time.
• Halation + Grain Only. Bypasses the negative and print stages and leaves you the texture. For when you already have a look you like and want film artifacts on top.

Every preset is calibrated at full strength, so each one has a point of view. The Film Looks Library guide will describe all 29.

5. Dial in the strength

Effect Strength (0 to 100, default 100) sits under the Film Look menu and scales the film chain. It works on the Opacity of the Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain stages together, so the four fade toward their input in step. Adjustments are not part of that fade. If a preset feels strong at 100, bring Effect Strength down before you touch any individual slider. You keep the look’s internal balance that way, and you learn faster what each preset does.

When Effect Strength alone is not it, the next place to go is usually Print Intensity on the Print tab, then Amount on the Halation tab. Leave the negative stock alone until you have read the Film guide.

Custom appears in the Film Look menu the moment you edit any control the preset owns. Nothing is lost; you have left the preset and are driving the stages yourself. Pick the preset again to go back.

That is a working film grade. Play the clip.

The plugin’s layout

Six tabs: Camera for setup and the master controls, then Negative, Print, Halation, Grain, and Lab for the stage controls. Tab order is not render order. The image runs Adjustments, Negative, Print, Halation, Grain, and Lab folds into Negative and Print rather than adding a stage of its own.

Every stage has an Enable switch. Turn Halation off, play the clip, and turn it back on. Do that once with every stage. It is the fastest way to learn what each one contributes. The Overview has the full tab-by-tab table and the two exceptions to Enable.

Quality and playback

The Quality menu on the Grain tab has three settings: Extreme, High, and Performance. Extreme is the default and the heaviest. With several film nodes stacked in a group, or on a modest system, it may not play in real time. Drop to Performance while you build the grade and go back to Extreme before you render. The color chain, from Adjustments through Print, is identical at all three, so color decisions carry over. Halation and grain differ between the settings, so check the texture at Extreme before you deliver.

It is heavier than a LUT

Film/Emulsion™ does a lot on one node, and it costs more than a LUT or a curve, most of all at Extreme. Render cache the node, or leave Quality on Performance for the session and switch it back before delivery.

Running the demo? Everything on this page works the same way, with the watermark on the output. From Demo to Licensed covers what changes when you activate.

Next: From Demo to Licensed covers the watermark, activation, and the file operations a license turns on.