Film Emulation

Film Look

Color Finale 2.15 introduces eight emulations of real photochemical print stocks. The control sits in the ACES Color Management panel as the Film Look popup — see the brief overview in Color Management → Film Look.

These are print stock emulations: they recreate the color and tonal character of the positive print that would be struck from a graded negative and projected in a theater — the look audiences associate with “film.” Each stock is applied in the ACES working space before the RRT and ODT, and ships at a fixed strength chosen to sit naturally on top of an ACES grade.

Color Print Stocks

• Kodak 2383 — the classic Hollywood release-print stock from the early 2000s onward. Warm, well-saturated, with the dense blacks and golden highlights that defined the cinematic look of that era. A good default when you want “film” without thinking too hard.
• Kodak 2393 — a higher-contrast Vision Premier print. Punchier than 2383, with crisper highlight rolloff. Useful for action or anything that benefits from a bit more snap.
• Fuji 3510 — a low-contrast Eterna-CP print. Softer rolloff, gentler color separation. Flattering for skin tones and dialogue scenes; a quieter alternative to the Kodak look.
• Fuji 3513 — the standard Eterna-CP print. Slightly more contrast than 3510, with Fuji’s characteristic green-leaning neutrals and clean blues. A natural “documentary film” feel.
• Fuji 3519 — a higher-contrast Fuji print. The Fuji palette with more bite — useful when you want the cooler Fuji color but need shadow density.
• Fuji 3521 — a modern Fuji print stock with cleaner highlights and tighter color separation than the 3510/3513 family.
• Agfa CP30 — an Agfa color print. Distinct from both Kodak and Fuji palettes — slightly cooler magentas and greens that read as European arthouse to many viewers.

Black & White Print Stock

• Kodak 2302 B&W — a black-and-white print stock. Use this instead of desaturating with a Saturation slider: 2302 carries the tonal contrast and rolloff of a real B&W print, including the way it renders skin and skies, which a flat desaturate cannot.

Tips

• Apply Film Look as the final step of an ACES grade. It sits before the ODT but is conceptually the photochemical “print” stage.
• Pair with Film Grain for a complete celluloid emulation.
• The eight stocks differ most clearly in skin tones, sky color, and shadow density. Audition them on a representative clip to find the one that suits your project.

Subtractive Grading

Subtractive grading is a color grading technique that’s about controlling colors in an image by removing or reducing color components. The basic idea is that by taking away one or more of the primary color components (red, green, or blue), you can bring out complementary colors.

For example, reducing red makes the image look more cyan because cyan is the opposite of red on the color wheel.

In the subtractive grading tool, we use subtractive primaries: cyan, magenta, and yellow instead of RGB. So when you increase or decrease these colours, you’re effectively ‘subtracting’ their corresponding additive primaries.

Density comes in two modes. In Set 1, the slider suppresses color, while in Set 2, it multiplies the density, making the colors brighter.

Halation

In physical film, halation occurs when light passes through the light-sensitive layer, reflects off of the film base, and re-exposes the emulsion from the back, creating a glowing halo around bright objects, especially at high-contrast edges. This effect remains popular in the digital world, and many modern films replicate it in post-production.

Scatter controls the size of the effect, simulating the spread of light rays reflected from bright areas.

Dye Transmission mimics dye penetration into the film, turning the image orange at maximum value due to the mixing of red and green.

Boost enhances the saturation of the halation effect.

Bloom

Film bloom is a visual effect that occurs when light scatters beyond its natural boundaries, creating a soft glow around bright areas. It’s a common feature in older film stocks and is often used to give digital footage a dreamy, vintage feel.

Sensitivity controls how sensitive the bloom effect is to the brightness of your image. Lowering the sensitivity will restrict bloom to only the brightest areas, while increasing it allows the bloom to affect more of the image, including midtones and softer highlights.

Diffusion affects the spread of the bloom from its source. A higher diffusion value will create a larger, more ethereal glow, softening the overall look of your footage. Lower diffusion keeps the bloom more contained and subtle.

Intensity adjusts the strength of the bloom effect. A higher intensity amplifies the bloom, making it more pronounced, while a lower intensity keeps the glow soft and understated. This control is useful for balancing the amount of bloom with the mood of the scene.

Vignette

Intensity darkens or lightens the vignette as needed.

Radius controls how strongly the effect is applied.

Falloff blurs the edges of the vignette effect.

Film Grain

A sophisticated and fast film grain synthesizer.

Film emulation is used to apply and adjust film grain. These are not color adjustments intended to mimic the look of a particular film stock. Start by checking the Grain Enabled box to add grain.

Grain Amount

Grain Amount increases the amount of added grain, starting with a value of 0 for no grain.

Grain Size

Grain Size controls the size of grain elements within the image. For example, if you are emulating 35mm film grain, then this would use a small size. 8mm grain would use a larger size.

Film Response

Film Response defines whether grain is added into the shadows or into the highlights, which emulates the look of grain in scanned positive or negative film. When the Film Response slider is set fully left (-100), grain is predominately visible in the shadows. With the slider set to the right (+100), grain is in the highlights and the shadow area is clean.

Color Variation

Color Variation controls whether the emulated grain is monochrome, has chroma value, or is a mixture of both. With the slider at 0 (left), the added grain is only black-and-white. At 100 (right) the grain is made up completely of RGB pixels. Slider values in between 0 and 100 are a mix of both monochrome and RGB pixels.

The grain structure of actual film is a texture with a random pattern that changes from one frame to the next. The Grain Rate slider sets the speed at which the grain pattern is updated. When set to a value of 1 (left), the grain texture is changed with each consecutive frame. With the slider set to a maximum value of 5 (right), the texture holds for five frames before changing and then holds again for the next five frames, and so on. Holding grain frames is specifically effective on high frame rate material, e.g. 60fps content. Otherwise, human persistence of vision integrates out frequently changing grain and often completely removes the desired effect.

Grain Presets

Grain settings can be saved as Grain Presets. Before a preset has been created, the only option from the pulldown menu will be None. Once presets have been created and stored, other selections will appear. The contextual menu can be used to add, rename, and delete Grain Presets.