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11/16/201 FilmPack 3.1 Update

• Adds 25 new creative renderings
• Full screen mode
• Import Preset function

Looking at the different film renderings can inspire you for your own work. For us it is not so much about being truthful to films but learning what can be useful for your own style.

Original Article

The DxO Optics Pro raw converter has gained a good reputation over the years and they sold a FilmPack for a while. But Film Pack 3 is different in many aspects:

• Previous FilmPacks were limited to be used in DxO Optics Pro
• New Functionality
• Improved UI
• More film types supported
• Stand-alone application
• Plugin for Lightroom
• Plugin for Aperture
• Plugin for Photoshop (initially for 32 bit only. A 64 bit version should follow in the near future).

Over the years we have seen many film emulation tools and plugins. DxO is a company with a strong science background for imaging. This is also the way they approached the different film simulations. All the conversions are based on analyzing real film stock.

We had the chance to use a beta version of DxO FilmPack 3.

User Interface in split image mode

FilmPack 3 supports over 60 different film types (color positive, color negative, B&W, Cross Processing and user defined).

It is quite amazing how different film types render the same image. For us it is more a tool create create a certain look and not so much to do truthful simulations. We use it from Lightroom 3.x with the LR plugin:

Using "Edit in -> DxO FilmPack 3" from Lightroom

We may use the the B&W film simulations more than the color variants. Naturally we started with a simulation of Tri-X 400 because this was our favorite B&W film in our darkroom period.

The FilmPack 3 gives the user plenty of control over the resulting images. All settings can be stored as presets so that you can even create your own film style.

For B&W you can control:

• Tonality: Film Type and Intensity (more effective for color film)
• Filter: as if shot with color filters
• Toning

The toning is based on classic darkroom toning processes and can be controlled via intensity.

Toning Options

Mild Sepia toning

Maybe DxO could add some flexible split toning in the future.

• Basic

The basic controls are really very basic: Exposure, Contrast and Saturation. We could envision some more control over:

- Black Point
- White Point
- Gamma
- Local contrast
- Shadow/Highlight

I most cases we would need to control the final tonality in Lightroom or Photoshop.

• Channel Mixer

The Channel Mixer gives you ultimate fine control but makes the process also more complex.

• Noise removal

You can remove noise here but likely removing the noise in Lightroom is a better way to deal with noise. You have to understand that noise and grain is not the same.

• Grain

The film grain is simulated based on real film samples.

Film Grain

We are no grain experts but we liked the look of the grain. Can hide a certain digital look to images. The intensity of the grain can be very well controlled (we like it subtle).

You can actually use the grain patterns from other film types here.

• Creative Vignetting: Does what it says.

Some sharpening control could be also helpful because the right sharpening also depends on the conversion you use. For final sharpening we use our Optimal Sharp script in Photoshop.

Conclusion

We think the DxO FilmPack is a nice tool at a fair price (pricing see at the DxO site). The user interface is easy to use and features a lot of control. As always we find a good preset system very important and this one implemented in FilmPack 3 works just fine. We may use it for some of our B&W work.

We would like to see some of the basic editing controls improved.

More info can be found at the DxO site.

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