I’ve been looking at some photobooks taken on color film and I really like the color space and look of the images. How could you go about recreating the look of color film photography with raws in darktable?
@s7habo has some videos on achieving film looks.
1 Like
One option is using a LUT. I have several LUT that come close to the classic film look. What color film do you want to mimic?
Nothing in particular, I’d be interested in taking a look at anything you have to show.
This is quite nice.
2 Likes
In macos where can you place the .dtstyle file to have it appear in your styles menu?
I think the installation guide should also work under macos.
1 Like
Had you seen this??
1 Like
Check site like (for Kodak LUTs):
https://uppbeat.io/luts/asset/cinematic-kodak-lut-pack-4934
Which film look are you after?
Remember with LUTs it is very important that you have processed the photo correctly first. Correct white balance, correct colours, correct exposure.
Example for the Kodak Elite Color 400 film:
Without LUT:
With Lut:
1 Like
You have to import it using the styles module.
Getting a film-look usually revolves around changes in the following areas:
Color Shifting
This is a technique that is used to move individual colors closer to their film stock counterparts. Generally, this is accomplished in the Color Equalizer module. Some examples: In the Hue Tab, shift blue towards cyan, green towards yellow (most daylight balanced film stocks are shifted in this direction just a little) or toward cyan (another common color shift), red toward orange, etc.
Color “Space” Compression
This is more of a broad-spectrum adjustment, and I have found that this can be achieved in the Primaries RGB module. Generally… shifting red towards orange, green toward yellow, and blue towards cyan, will cause all the resulting colors to “compress” towards a complementary hue distribution. This can be seen quite nicely with the help of the vector display up at the top right (it is one of the options, along with the regular histogram). This is not as drastic of a change as using the Color Equalizer module to do individual hue shifts, but can be more natural
Tone Mapping
Tone mapping is a process of taking all of the image data available during the editing process and squishing it into the proper format for the target display (print, digital, generic, etc.). This often requires specifically compressing or just truncating the portions of the image that are too dark or too bright, so that it can fit within the ouput media.
In darktable, the tone mapping is exposed to the user. We have various options for this, but the most recent addition, the AgX module, does the film look very well. The fastest way to use this module to get a film like shadow and highlight behavior is to bring up the target black to 0.25-0.75 to give it the faded blacks look that film has, and then to bring down the target white to 99-95 to give the softened look to the ultra bright areas. You can also reduce shoulder power and increase toe power to emulate the characteristic curves of film.
Grain
Use the Grain module. It is fairly simple, but don’t go too crazy 
Highlight Bloom
Use the Diffuse & Sharpen module with the bloom preset (found under artistic effect/bloom), and then dial in the uniform mask to modify the strength of the affect.
Contrast/Softness
Open up the Contrast Equalizer module. Reduce the middle points of the eq ever so slightly. Use the mix slider to make this dial in the affect.
Etc.
There are other areas that can be modified to help get something to look like film, but these are the main methods I use. I know a lot of people use luts, which is cool, but I haven’t ever used them. I also just enjoy having extra freedom to move the colors around myself 
Have a good time editing!
1 Like