New print color science with Filmbox 1.8

Filmbox, our film emulation plugin, is carefully designed to offer technically accurate emulation while also providing simple creative controls for users who want to tweak the details of their aesthetic.

We're excited to announce that Filmbox 1.8 launches today and includes new color science options to allow you to achieve new kinds of hybrid looks.

We've heard from some filmmakers that they want to be able to dial back particular characteristics of Filmbox's color processing to achieve a less stylized look that still reads as filmic. This is particularly useful in commercial work where it can be important to achieve neutral white tones and highly saturated colors, or for creating hybrid looks that sit somewhere between photochemical emulation and traditional digital display preparations. This is less accurate in an empirical sense, but it can be very useful in situations where you want to evoke film without being constrained by its exact technical details.

We've enhanced the Print module, enabling it to bypass certain aspects of the 2383 print characterization more effectively.

That module has always offered three styles:

• “Full” – the most faithful to our characterization of the contact print
• “Standard” – similar to “Full” with a slightly less aggressive curve that permits a bit more detail in the shadows
• “Extended” – inspired by the characteristics of the contact print but modified to more closely resemble digital display transforms

The "Full" and "Standard" styles have not changed and continue to provide an accurate representation of the print's photometric response.

However, we've modified the "Extended" style to function more like a telecine-style transform that mimics the tonal and color characteristics of popular digital cinema display transforms more closely. Compared to the previous version, it retains a neutral grey axis while exhibiting less warped hues, more neutral skin tones, less constrained gamut, and a has a black point that approaches zero. As always, these characteristics can be customized and blended using the “Custom” print parameters.

New grades will use the improved color science when the "Extended" style is selected. The previous color science can still be accessed by setting "Version" to "1.0" while using the "Extended" style. Existing grades created using the "Extended" style will use "1.0" by default and can be switched to "2.0" manually.

We hope this new color pipeline allows you to explore new looks and enable you to use Filmbox more flexibly and in more kinds of projects!

For more details about the color science of Filmbox, please visit the Filmbox product page or read more about Filmbox as a Format.