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Don’t use film presets to get that film look

  
 
Desmolicious
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p.1 #1 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look







Jul 14, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Mitch Alland
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p.1 #2 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


Huss - You're kidding, right? 17 minutes to listen to what could have been written in one — OK, two —short paragraphs. And, of course one needs an M11 for this film look, as a lowly M10 couldn't handle it. Gimme a break! Apart from this, listening to this guy's pronunciation of the Japanese word "bokeh" makes me think of the American (correct) pronunciation of "Boca Raton", with the "Bow" pronounced like "bow and arrow", not "bow" as in "taking a bow." Now that I got that off my chest, I can go on my Cobalt-Image film emulation profiles for Portra 800.


Jul 14, 2025 at 02:16 PM
RoamingScott
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p.1 #3 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


Cam is so far up his own ass it's laughable. If you dare make any sort of contrarian point in his comments, his defensiveness is hilarious.

The most I'll go on this is the title, and to that end, he's right! It's basically impossible to accurately replicate film digitally. The best we can do is "vibe-matching".



Jul 14, 2025 at 02:31 PM
retrofocus
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p.1 #4 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


"Don’t use film presets to get that film look" - I never do. If I want a film look, I shoot film. Very simple. I never even once had the need to make any of my digital photos look like film.


Jul 15, 2025 at 06:53 AM
Sonnar-7
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p.1 #5 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


I don’t think it’s cheap to try to recreate the film look. It’s often seen as gimmicky and amateurish but the fact is that the science of colors that went into film was no joke and the process of it is still a good tech.
Digital is more futuristic but not perfect either, the film look is also a good result, since digital always needs quite a lot of editing compared to a simple film scan, why not try to achieve something that is a good result, film sets some good examples of that.



Jul 15, 2025 at 07:15 AM
Fred Miranda
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p.1 #6 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


"Don’t use film presets to get that film look."

Yeah… and don't eat veggie burgers if you're not a vegetarian, right?

Shooting film isn't just about the look...it's the whole messy, magical experience. Loading the roll, metering by feel… even developing it yourself. But now that you've brought it up, I might just start using film presets specifically to get that film look. Out of spite. Just to cause chaos.



Jul 15, 2025 at 10:13 AM
airfrogusmc
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p.1 #7 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


My advice if you want your images to look like film shoot film. Always play to the strength of you tools.


Jul 15, 2025 at 10:20 AM
 


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highdesertmesa
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p.1 #8 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


No one younger than Gen X probably experienced what color film processed and printed on high-end photo paper at a pro lab (with fresh chemicals) looks like anyway. In recent years, I've had color film processed at several different national "labs" only to look like expired slide film colors. Probably the closest we can get for color film is home souping and digitizing the negatives with a DSLR. Even then, once the person digitizing the negs takes them in to edit, they may have no idea what the reference point for the final color edit should be.


Jul 15, 2025 at 10:24 AM
highdesertmesa
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p.1 #9 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


Desmolicious wrote:



Just watched this. Reminds me of the kind of response you'd get by asking the average person to explain quantum mechanics. Only thing he said that made sense to me was at the end (paraphrasing here), "You need to brainwash yourself with film by shooting film... then you can learn/understand the film look."



Jul 15, 2025 at 10:44 AM
olegkin
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p.1 #10 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


highdesertmesa wrote:
No one younger than Gen X probably experienced what color film processed and printed on high-end photo paper at a pro lab (with fresh chemicals) looks like anyway. In recent years, I've had color film processed at several different national "labs" only to look like expired slide film colors. Probably the closest we can get for color film is home souping and digitizing the negatives with a DSLR. Even then, once the person digitizing the negs takes them in to edit, they may have no idea what the reference point for the final color edit should be.


When I was shooting film, I made friends with a decent one-hour lab in the area. They let me see the process and make some adjustments to my prints. At one point, they got a new machine (Noritsu?) that scanned the film and printed digitally. The quality dropped, so I switched to a "high-end" lab in NYC. It turned out they were using the same machine and had the same quality of output.
That was over 20 years ago. I imagine a fully analog process now only exists on the fringes.
Those machines were able to correct/shift colors a lot. Same with the current labs like GelatinLabs. They offer you scans and prints of your film with a flat, neutral, warm profiles, and they all are dramatically different.
So what does film color even mean?



Jul 15, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Desmolicious
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p.1 #11 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


Hey don’t shoot the messenger!

Unless it is with a film camera…

Fyi I did ask him in the comments section if I used a sharp modern lens on a film camera, would I still get that film look?



Jul 15, 2025 at 10:13 PM
highdesertmesa
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p.1 #12 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


Desmolicious wrote:
...if I used a sharp modern lens on a film camera, would I still get that film look?





Jul 15, 2025 at 10:16 PM
zalmyb
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p.1 #13 · Don’t use film presets to get that film look


That’s why I use lightroom profiles instead.


Jul 17, 2025 at 12:40 PM







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