Resolve Quick Start

Film/Emulsion™ models the negative-to-print color chain and its texture on one node: the negative the camera exposed, the lab that developed it, the print stock it went onto, and the halation and grain that came along for the ride. It does its best work when it knows exactly what signal it is receiving, and that comes down to one project setting and one plugin tab. After that you are picking a look. Here is the five-minute path from a fresh timeline to graded film.

This page assumes the plugin is installed and activated. If not, start with Install & Activate.

1. Set up color management

DaVinci Wide Gamut / DaVinci Intermediate is the plugin’s default working space. 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 and see DWG/Intermediate, which is what the plugin expects by default.

If you would rather set the space by hand, turn automatic color management off and set Timeline color space to DaVinci WG/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 the plugin what it is receiving in step 3, and it converts internally. The one thing to avoid is feeding it display-referred video that has already had a look baked in. Film stock was exposed by scene light, and the model is built for scene-referred input for the same reason. Color Management will cover the non-DWG workflows in detail (coming later).

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

The recommended spot is after your balance and primary corrections and before any output transform or creative LUT. A useful way to think about it: everything before the node is the light that reached the camera, and the node is the film. Exposure fixes, white balance, and shot matching belong upstream, where you are deciding what the negative sees. Windows, keys, and any final polish belong downstream, where you are working on the print.

Two practical consequences:

• Match your shots before the plugin, not after. Film responds to exposure non-linearly, so shots that go in at different exposures can come out differing in contrast and color, not just 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, so stacking a primary correction on the same node makes it hard to tell which control did what. Give the plugin its own node and the comparison stays clean.

There will be more on node order and on using the plugin at the timeline or group level in Grading with Film/Emulsion™ (coming later).

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 you chose. DaVinci Intermediate pairs with DaVinci Wide Gamut, LogC3 pairs 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 DWG/Intermediate, say a LogC3 clip in an unmanaged project, set Transfer Function to match the camera encoding and the gamut follows. The output of the node stays in the same space as the input, so the rest of your node tree does not change.

If the image looks wrong

A mismatched transfer function is a common reason a first render looks off. Contrast that is far too steep with crushed blacks can indicate the plugin was told the signal is log when it is not. Washed-out, milky contrast can indicate the reverse. These are pointers, not proof, but the transfer function is worth checking before you reach for any other control.

4. Pick a film look

Still on the Camera tab, open the Film Look menu. It holds 29 looks plus No Preset, and each one sets the film chain’s recipe controls at once: negative stock, lab processing, adjustments, print stock, halation, and grain. Color Management and Quality are not part of a preset, and neither are the per-stage Opacity sliders or the Halation tab’s Simple/Advanced mode. Those stay as you set them. A preset is a complete film chain, not a color adjustment layered on top.

The menu opens at No Preset, the plugin’s default unstyled 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. Pick a preset and every preset-owned control updates together.

First picks, depending on what you are grading:

• Modern 35mm. Current-era color negative printed cleanly. If you want film without a 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. Sits between Modern and Vintage: the same negative as Modern 35mm with a vintage dye backing and noticeably more grain. The pick for documentary and indie drama that should feel shot on film without feeling old.
• Indie 16mm. The same negative on a Super 16 gauge, so the grain is visibly heavier again, 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. Nostalgia on purpose.
• 35mm B&W. Kodak Double-X, the classic black-and-white negative, with no anti-halation backing, so highlights halo freely. The grain changes with it, not just 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 if you plan to build a look by turning stages on one at a time.
• Halation + Grain Only. Bypasses the negative and print stages entirely and leaves you the texture. Useful when you already have a look you like and want film artifacts on top of it.

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

5. Dial in the strength

Effect Strength (0 to 100, default 100) sits directly under the Film Look menu and scales the film chain’s intensity. It works on each of the Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain stages’ Opacity together, so those four stages blend back toward their inputs in proportion as you lower it. Adjustments (Exposure, Contrast, Pivot, Saturation, Temperature, Tint, Shadow Tint, and Black Level) are not part of that scaling and stay fully applied. Halation and grain become less visible and the print blends toward the image that fed it. If a preset feels strong at 100, try it between 60 and 85 before you pull any individual slider.

Custom appears in the Film Look menu the moment you edit any preset-controlled parameter. Nothing is lost. You have left the preset and are now driving the stages yourself. Pick the preset again to go back.

That is a working film grade. Play the clip.

The plugin’s layout

The plugin has six tabs. Camera holds the setup and master controls. The other five hold the stage controls: the two stock pickers first, then the two texture stages, then the Lab. Four of them map to a render stage; the Lab tab does not add a stage of its own.

The tab order is not the render order. The five render stages run Adjustments, then Negative, then Print, then Halation, then Grain. The Lab tab does not add a stage: its Push/Pull (stops), Super-White Rolloff, and Layer Color Coupling controls act inside the Negative stage, and its Process control (bleach-bypass and cross-process) acts inside Print, after the print stock.

Negative, Print, Halation, Grain, and Lab each have an Enable checkbox at the top, and the Adjustments group on the Camera tab has one too. Turning a stage off removes it from the chain, which is the quickest way to see what any single stage is contributing, with two exceptions. Lab is not a stage, so its Enable neutralizes Lab’s contributions inside Negative and Print rather than removing anything of its own. And Print’s Enable deliberately leaves Adjustments’ Black Level active even with Print off. Turn Halation off, play the clip, turn it back on. That is worth doing once with every stage.

The Overview walks the chain stage by stage. Each tab will also get its own guide page (coming later).

Quality and playback

The Quality menu on the Grain tab has three settings: Extreme, High, and Performance. Extreme is the default. High and Performance trade halation and grain fidelity for speed.

Extreme is built for the final render and is the heaviest setting. With several film nodes stacked in a group, or on a modest system, it may not play back in real time. Drop to Performance while you are building the grade and go back to Extreme before you render. The color chain, from Adjustments through Print, is identical at all three, so color grading decisions carry over. The halation and grain differ between the settings (how the halo is sampled and the grain is generated), 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.

If the look feels heavy

The presets are calibrated at full strength. If your first pick feels strong on your footage, reach for Effect Strength before you pull individual sliders. You keep the look’s internal balance that way, and you will learn faster what each preset actually does. When Effect Strength at 70 still is not it, the next place to go is usually Print Intensity on the Print tab, then Opacity on the Halation tab. Leave the negative stock alone until you have read Film (coming later).

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

Next: Color Management will go deeper on transfer functions, gamut, and non-DWG workflows (coming later).