Film emulation

Film emulation is grading a digital image to reproduce the look of photochemical film. Real film is a two-stage system — a camera negative stock exposed on set, then a print stock the negative is printed onto — and the emulation recreates how those two interact, together with the artifacts that sell it: halation and grain. Approached properly it is a chain of understandable steps, not a single magic LUT, which is why you can build and adjust each part rather than accepting whatever a preset does.

First used in: 2.10 · Look development II — film emulation