Detail & Halation The physics of emulsion enables film to render detail in ways that are notoriously difficult to faithfully reproduce. "Halation", "Acutance", and "Aura" are loose terms for pieces of a phenomenon far more complex than a glow. Filmbox uses advanced processing to achieve an indistinguishable match to a negative’s soft yet detailed character across its latitude and color response.
Color & Tone Dense datasets are used to transform spectral radiance values from the digital image to match the film negative’s complex response to those same light values across its latitude, along with its intricate interaction with print film — faithfully reproducing the combined response of a projected contact print on your display.
Grain & Texture Filmbox reproduces the tonal distribution of grain across the density of each channel of the negative emulsion as well as the structural and temporal qualities and even subtle large-scale effects of the development process as sampled from real scans.
Gate Weave & Dust Film transport mechanisms are not perfectly stable, and labs are not perfectly clean.
If desired, Filmbox can model the subtle instability of real 35mm and 16mm cameras, and procedurally place samples of real dust.
Print Style Each negative can be emulated as a print, or as a telecine-style negative transfer, or anything in between for dramatically different vibes.
Gauge The smaller the film, the stronger the textural characteristics. Choose between 16mm, 35mm, and VistaVision or configure your own.
Acutance Adjust local tonality and micro-contrast, analogous to lab techniques that influence fine texture and broader tonal separation.
Push/pull Simulates over- or underexposing a negative to produce different tonal and textural responses.
Color density Raise or lower the “brightness” of saturated colors.
Vibrance Increase or decrease the richness of color in a filmic way that prevents harsh colors and imbalanced skin tones.
Contrast A refined function that behaves like changing the gamma of the negative and avoids destroying shadows and highlights.
Split tone Push shadows and highlights toward opposing hues, as can occur when emulsion layers develop with unequal contrast.
Printer Lights Adjust the color balance of the image with controls that behave like analog printer lights.
True Exposure Exposure and color balance controls that behave like their on-set counterparts.
Print StyleCustom
Independently tune the color response, grayscale neutrality, and tone curve characteristics between those of a photochemical contact print or a telecine-style scan transform of the negative.
HalationSpatial
Adjust the relative size and opacity of halation, and control how much it softens fine details.
HalationColor
Change the RGB balance and saturation of halation’s colored fringe.
HalationAura
Adjust the size, strength, and amber-ness of the extra-large-scale halation characteristic of negatives that lack anti-halation backing, and add this characteristic to any negative.
Acutance
Sculpt detail rendering at various scales, controlling how adjustments influence high-contrast edges — either creating Mackie lines or focusing on subtle tonal variations.
GrainGlobal
Adjust grain intensity, dye cloud colorfulness, and mix and match characteristics of different film stocks and gauges.
GrainSpatial
Control grain structure itself, from tight and restrained to gritty and expressive, by adjusting softness/size, mid-frequency variation, streakiness, and even emulate anamorphic desqueeze.
GrainTonal Distribution
Adjust grain intensity across the tonal range using shadow/mid/highlight controls or a 9-zone tonal distribution fader, complete with false-color feedback for targeted adjustments.
GrainGranules
Change the brightness of light and dark granules to make the pattern more spicy or more restrained, especially useful when combined with spatial adjustments.
Dust
Select from profiles with varying frequency and sizes of dust particles, and adjust their intensity.
Gate Weave
Simulate the movement patterns of different cinema cameras and gauges, with manual control over displacement intensity.
Special
Neutralize grayscale imbalances inherent in some negatives and reduce the shadow fog characteristic of expired stocks.
Bring your own color Bypass Filmbox color and use grain, halation, acutance and more with your own color processing.
ACES & RCM Fully compatible with ACES 1.3/2.0 and Resolve Color Management without compromising accuracy.
Multi-node grading Split into ‘negative-only’ and ‘print-only’ nodes and grade between them, like a film scan DI.
HDR Consistent across SDR/HDR; simple control unrolls highlight latitude up to 1000 nits with filmic character.
Performance Optimized Real-time 4K grading on a MacBook Pro. Multi-GPU support for blazing render speeds.
Input spaces Supports every major camera and intermediate space; accepts generic Rec.709 or P3 for approximate emulation.
Display spaces Supports all major mastering standards and color-managed outputs, including white-point simulation.
LUT export with metadata Exports 33×/65× LUTs of the active setup, embedding all Filmbox settings as metadata.
Platforms Runs on DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Baselight across all operating systems.
Live on-set preview Supports Resolve Live to processes log camera feeds for realtime on-set preview.
Supports DaVinci Resolve and Baselight. macOS 10.15+ Intel & Apple Silicon. Windows & Linux require an NVIDIA GPU.
