Film Looks Library

The Film Look menu open, showing the grouped list from No Preset through the named looks

A Film Look is a recipe. Pick one from the Camera tab’s Film Look menu and it sets every control the recipe owns at once: the Negative and Print stocks, the Lab tab’s Process, the Adjustments the look needs, and its halation and grain. The Overview covers the mechanics. This page covers the 29 looks themselves.

What a look sets, and what it leaves alone

A recipe owns the stocks, the Lab Process, most of Adjustments, and the Halation and Grain tabs. Switching looks changes all of that together. A Super 8 look and a modern 35mm look arrive with different grain and halation before you touch a slider, because that texture belongs to the recipe rather than sitting on top of it.

A look does not own Color Management, Quality, Effect Strength, or the per-stage Opacity sliders on Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain. Those stay as you left them, so your input setup and your render-quality choice survive a change of look. The Halation tab’s Simple/Advanced mode isn’t stored either, though the plugin switches a look onto Advanced when the Simple sliders can’t express what the recipe needs.

A few looks also carry adjustments that have no slider on any tab: a low pre-flash that lifts the shadows, a split tone, per-hue saturation trims, or a neutral monochrome halation. Combat Silver’s shadow lift is one of these. They travel with the recipe, so you can see their effect but not edit them directly. Switching Enable off on the Lab tab neutralizes the pre-flash, split tone, and per-hue trims along with the rest of the Lab settings. The Lab guide has the note on flashing.

Pick No Preset and the owned controls return to the plugin’s own defaults, the same starting point you’d get on a fresh install: neutral stocks, no Lab process, contrast and saturation untouched, halation and grain at their defaults. It is a real recipe like any other, just the neutral one.

Edit any control a look owns, on any tab, and the menu switches to Custom. Nothing is lost and nothing resets. The label just stops describing what’s on the node. Pick a different look afterward and it overwrites your edit along with everything else the recipe owns.

Browsing the library

The menu groups the 29 looks into three sets, in this order: nine generic looks, two utility looks that switch whole stages off, and eighteen character looks with names of their own. The generic set mixes format looks, monochrome looks, and process looks. Open each tab after picking a look to see what it set. That is the fastest way to learn what a control does.

Effect Strength is the master fader next to the menu. At 100 a look runs as written. Pull it down and the film stages ease off together, while your scene Adjustments stay applied. See Effect Strength for how it scales each stage.

A grid of four frames, the same shot under four different Film Looks, side by side

The generic looks

These nine are built around a format, a process, or a monochrome stock rather than a specific mood, and most leave the Lab Process off. They are a fast way to land on a period and format before you shape a character on top.

Modern 35mm is the closest thing here to a neutral contemporary print: no Lab process, restrained grain, contrast held close to normal. It is a reasonable default when you just want the sense of film without a strong opinion about it.

Vintage 35mm pairs an older Kodak Eastman EXR negative with Kodak 2393 print, running warmer and with fuller halation than Modern 35mm. It carries no Lab process, so its period character comes from that stock pairing rather than a treatment.

Indie 35mm sits close to Modern 35mm but a shade punchier, with grain built for a smaller-budget color negative look rather than a glossy studio one.

Indie 16mm carries the Indie sensibility onto a 16mm negative, which shows up mainly as heavier grain and stronger halation, the two stages a smaller gauge changes the most.

Super 8 Home Movie pushes grain and halation further still, on top of a warmer tungsten negative. It is built to read as amateur-format footage rather than a professional print.

35mm B&W and 16mm B&W Newsreel are both true monochrome on Kodak Double-X. Saturation is removed at the source rather than pulled down after the fact, and both run Silver Halide Mode for a monochrome grain structure. The 16mm version carries the heavier grain and reads more archival.

Bleach Bypass runs a moderate ENR (Silver Redev) print treatment, so it desaturates and adds contrast the way a redevelopment pass does, with Silver Halide Mode on to match the silver left in the print.

Cross Process runs the Lab tab’s Cross-process (C41) treatment. That is a contrast curve rather than a silver treatment, so it stays a dye look with no Silver Halide Mode. Expect the shadow-to-highlight color drift the Lab guide describes for that Process option.

The utility looks

The Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain tabs side by side, each showing its Enable switch, for Clean Slate versus Halation + Grain Only

Clean Slate switches Negative, Print, Halation, and Grain off at once. It is the starting point for building a look one stage at a time instead of starting from a preset’s opinion.

Halation + Grain Only switches Negative and Print off but leaves Halation and Grain running, at a moderate setting. Use it when you want film texture over a color pipeline you have already built yourself, the setup the Grain guide walks through.

The character looks

These eighteen each commit to a mood. Every one pairs a Negative Stock with a Print Stock. Half of them add a Lab Process. The others build their character from the stock pairing, the printer timing, Adjustments, halation, and grain.

Bleach Rain runs a moderate CCE (Bleach Starve) print treatment for punchier contrast and reduced saturation, with Silver Halide Mode on and moderate halation and grain.

Basement Teal pushes CCE to a heavy setting on a tungsten negative, with a slight green shift in the shadows set against the added contrast.

Combat Silver takes the opposite silver-retention route, a heavy ENR (Silver Redev) pass, paired with a softer Adjustments contrast so the look reads flatter rather than harder, while the retained silver still matches the grain.

Cold Chrome runs a heavy ACE (Mid-Preserve Redev) treatment, the process the Lab guide notes concentrates its darkening in the deepest shadows while leaving the mids closer to normal.

Hollow Mist takes a light CCE pass on a tungsten negative, with restrained grain and cool printer timing.

Emerald Cast carries no Lab process. Its green cast comes from a green shadow tint and green printer timing, with contrast pushed above neutral and moderate halation.

Desert Blowout pairs Kodak Ektachrome 100D 5294, a daylight reversal stock, with a Cross-process (C41) treatment and strong halation, for a bright, blown-out desert feel.

Ring Grain carries no Lab process. It leans on a grain structure with higher color independence between the dye layers, rather than a treated print, for its texture.

Deep Field is untreated and restrained, with light grain and contrast a shade above neutral, closer to a straight print than most of this group.

Clinical Desat runs a light ENR pass on a Kodak Vision3 500T tungsten negative, with grain and halation held down, punchier in contrast but deliberately quiet everywhere else.

Monochrome Archive is true black and white on Kodak Double-X, saturation removed at the source, with a punchier contrast curve and Silver Halide Mode on for the grain structure.

Golden Green carries no Lab process. Its green-and-gold storybook cast comes from the Fuji Reala negative and boosted saturation, with strong halation and moderate grain.

Dust Bowl is untreated, desaturated, and moderately punchier, with strong halation, built for a bleached-out daylight feel.

Amber Vault carries no Lab process. Its warm amber character comes from the printer timing rather than a treated print, with strong halation and moderate grain.

Neon Rain is the first look in this group built on Kodak 2393 rather than 2383. It carries no Lab process, with an amber highlight glow and strong halation.

Arena Dust runs a moderate ENR pass on the same 2393 print pairing, desaturated and punchier, with teal shadows and an amber-neon highlight, and moderate halation and grain.

Cold Clinic runs a moderate CCE pass on 2393, punchier and desaturated like Arena Dust, with a magenta shadow and an amber highlight.

Feather Grain is built on Fuji stock throughout, negative and print both, with no Lab process and the heaviest grain of the eighteen.

Choosing a starting point

Reach for one of the generic looks when a client wants “film” without a stronger opinion attached. Modern 35mm or Indie 35mm cover that without committing to a mood.

Reach for Halation + Grain Only to put the plugin’s texture over a grade you have already built. Start from Clean Slate when you want every processing stage off and you are building a look one tab at a time.

Reach for one of the two B&W looks, 35mm B&W or 16mm B&W Newsreel, when a shot needs to read as archival rather than desaturated. True monochrome carries a different grain structure than a color image with saturation pulled down, and it shows.

Reach for Cold Chrome or Combat Silver when a scene needs weight in the shadows. ACE and ENR put that weight in different places, so compare the two on the shot, especially where the mids meet the shadows, the same test the Lab guide recommends for judging Process on its own.

Next: Grading with Film/Emulsion™ covers node placement, matching shots, and easing a look.