[PlayRaw] Dornbusch Lighthouse -- A Film Emulation Challenge

My editing style is entirely inspired by film. My favorites being Kodak Portra in varying speeds and the Fuji Pro film series. For that reason, I usually stay in the “Negative New” tab in the film emulation presets (thank you again, @patdavid) in G’MIC and various RAW editors where they are available. Custom curves, strength and intensity tailored to each particular image, are a big part of my work flow as are color layers set to a low opacity on soft light or what ever mode suits best.

For the more “artistic” edits, I nearly always stick to GIMP, while RT and DT are used for basic things such as, WB, CA correction, defringing, and exposure compensation where needed. If working in DT, I always apply the Fuji Film base curve to every image despite the fact I shoot with a NIKON D90.

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with darktable 2.60

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I found myself going through some of the older PlayRaw posts and found this gem. Sorry, no film emulation.

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What a great view! Thank you for sharing, nice to play with it even after more than two years :clap:
RT 5.7, using Agfa Vista 200 CLUT

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… and a second one using Kodak Portra 160:


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Really a great view and so detailed!

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My own LomoChrome Purple film Emulation

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My LomoChrome Purple Style

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Another try

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I like this treatment. On another forum, folks have been dredging up old railroad photos of historical significance, and some look a lot like this (well, put a train in place of the lighthouse… :smile: )

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Revisited - with a warmer touch (darktable 3.0)


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Little experiment to match the fuji superia reala 100 in darktable and gimp.

The first step was to export a neutral image and using the g’mic film emulation, the exposure was centered with middle gray at 18%

The second step was to match that image in darktable, first I’ve centered the middle gray at 18% again, the working space was set to PQ bt.2020,then I’ve used rgb curves and the HCL equalizer.

In gimp I’ve added a very small amount of grain and bloom effect in the highlights with a luminosity mask

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Lovely photograph!
My attempt in GIMP. I felt that the tree and the foreground should frame the lighthouse.
As to film emulation: a sort of Provia, by adjusting component colours.


Then second thoughts (I always have second thoughts!), as the lighthouse is a vertical feature, would a vertical format look better?

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I have only recently shot my first roll of film so I have limited experience. What I noticed that the Dinamic range is much lower than digital and the contrast is very high (difference between shadows and highlights are large and shadow details get lost)

I also noticed the shadows receive a slight blue shift. Based on this I made a generic Film Sim style.

For this challenge I also added some diffusion and negative clarity to reduce the overall sharpness of the image
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Gave the Portra 160 simulation a shot. I just used the tone curve, RGB curve, diffuse sharpen, and local contrast, plus a bit of softening.


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You guys managed to revamp an eight years old zombie… :sunglasses:

But I have to say, that’s a picture, absolutely to my liking. A painter couldn’t do better. So I couldn’t resist as well. Here is my interpretation
(even so the photographer was last seen here on december 2020).

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…or if one is prefering a less painterly look:


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This one playing with @kofa 's recent application of the AgX tonemapper that he is attempting to port or at least experiment with in DT…

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Processed using @arctic’s agx-emulsion using Fujifilm C200,

And here is a crop showing the grain since I wasn’t able to fit the full resolution image into 1MB,

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What a lovely shot and place!

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More than 5 years after my first attempt I still love this photo :+1:
Provia 100 Generic LUT


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Portrait crop added, same processing


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