DxO Film Pack - A Creative Review
A creative review by Andrew Woodhouse
(We'd like to give a big thanks to Andrew Woodhouse for contributing this review!)
Introduction and Features:
DxO Film Pack is a film simulation software available as either a standalone product or plug-in for Adobe
Photoshop® or Photoshop Elements® or similar, plug-in enabled software. Film Pack simulates the colour
and grain of some of the most popular emulsions ever produced. Some favorites include Fuji Velvia™ and
Kodak Kodachrome™ 64.
DxO Film Pack sells for $99 or if you are in the UK £59, this is a very reasonable price, considering the flexibility and quality that this product offers.
DxO Film Pack has one main window (see figure 1 below) where all the major settings can be altered. This includes a big preview window which gives the user of a 100% actual pixels view where grain is accurately shown, or a zoom to fit preview- this shows the whole image and reflects the changes to colour and contrast, but doesn't show the impact of the grain.
(Figure 1)
As you can see from figure 1, the interface of DxO Film Pack is very simple and easy to navigate, all of the main settings are down the right hand side of the window and grouped into 4 main areas: Preview Size, Colour Rendition Profiles, Colour Modes and Film Grain.
Perhaps the nicest aspect of Film Pack is that the settings are fully tweakable by the user, so if you like the colours that Kodachrome™ 200 provides, but dislike the grain, you can either turn the grain off or choose the grain pattern from another emulsion.
Film Pack has a total of 28 different film emulsions to choose from, of these 28 there are 12 colour positive, 5 colour negative, 9 black and white and 2 cross processed emulsions to choose from. These include most of the popular films such as, Kodachrome™ 25, 64 and 200 as well as Fuji Velvia™, Ilford HP5 Plus™ 400 and many others. A notable omission however is that there is no Ilford Delta™ 3200- a personal favourite of mine.
In use DxO Film Pack is remarkably simple to operate, simply select the type of film you want, either colour positive, colour negative, black and white or cross processed. This then gives you access to one of the many films available. Once you have selected you emulsion of choice you can the alter the contrast and saturation of the effect. There is also a ʻspecialsʼ option which includes settings for various toning effects. These include Sepia, Toning Gold, Toning Selenium and a couple of others. The last options relate to the film grain of the image. Here you can choose the grain that will appear on the final image. This can be either the ʻcorrectʼ grain for your current emulsion (such as T-Max™ 3200) or that of any of the film effects, opening up a whole host of creative effects.
DxO Film Pack at work:
In the example below we will change a colour image of a Mazda RX7 into a moody and contrasty black and
white image making use of several of the controls that DxO Film Pack has on offer.
(Figure 2)
In Figure 2 I have selected the Kodak T-Max™ 3200 option, and as you can see this has turned the image from colour to black and white. It has done this using a ʻprofileʼ of T-Max™ 3200 so that the tones are displayed in a realistic manner, behaving similarly to the actual film.
This is pleasing enough image as it stands, and better than the colour version, however I feel that it could do with a bit more ʻpunchʼ. Selecting ʻmedium contrastʼ will solve this. Start image
(Figure 3)
Figure 3 now looks much more contrasty, and much more how I had imagined the image when I took it in the camera. Itʼs now got some real ʻpunchʼ to it.
Lastly I want to make use of the grain editing function that is built into DxO Film Pack. I like the grain that ™ax™ 3200 has, but fancy making it even stronger.
(Figure 4)
Figure 4 shows a 100% view of the image with the default grain for Kodak T-Max™ 3200. Itʼs very realistic and unlike adding grain in other editing packages it actually uses the luminance information to judge where to apply the grain. Thus giving it an even more lifelike result where the shadows and highlights are treated differently to one and other. I think the effect is very lifelike, but think it could be even more extreme, Figure 5 (below) shows the result of setting the intensity to 162 and the grain size to 5.85.
(Figure 5)
This is much more like it and what I had envisioned all along. Thanks to the flexibility of control in DxO Film Pack and the realism of the effect I was able to take a digital image and make it look as if it was shot of film-excellent.
Interesting review. I have
Interesting review. I have not tried that film pack.
I do use exposure 2, but that is a lot more expensive..however, the results are decent. One point to remember, its hard to judge how accurate these simulations are. And whilst you can get the simlar grain structure, and colours as well as response on mono to colours and tones, you wont get the real life latitude, or dynamic range of the real stuff, depending of course on what you use. Still, these software packages are worth a look, esp for long since retired films.
Yeh it's neat, I tried it against Provia 100F
slides that I have it seemed fairly accurate. More exactly I have shots I took with the Dynax 5 50mm 1.7 using Provia 100F. I took additional shots from same spot and adjacent with the A700.
So just for fun I tried the Provia 100F setting against the A700 shots and it fairly closely approximates them. Of course a lab processed the slideshots, I don't know what scanner they used or if they raised/lowered contrast/saturation additionally etc. But anyway I'd say the general look is about 90% the same.
Lack of Sony support from DXO
I used to like DXO's main software package, but since upgrading from the KM 7D to A700 DXO left me in the dark.
6+ months later, there is still no A700 (or any other Sony apart from A100) support in their main product. DXO do not seem that bothered about supporting Sony cameras (many other cameras released after the A700 from Nikon and Canon have support).
The filmpack was a pretty good add-on, but not something that I'd pay for personally as a standalone package. You can get similar effects in Lightroom (if you download presets from the web).
Sorry I can't be positive about DXO, but I'm just obviously hacked off and hope other Sony users vote with their feet.
Support is lacking for DxO Optics true
I feel similar to how you do about that. I think others also perhaps feel much the same regarding DxO Optics pro. There was some forum discussion of that here if it's of interest DxO: Still no change, no new Sony Cameras.
I think Film Pack is neat for what it is though.
I like how with software applications such as Noise Ninja or PTLens you can submit results to help get your equipment supported. I wonder if renting the lenses from say, alphalensrentals.com, would help them add more support :-D. It's probably man hours that cost the most, though you'd think by this point they'd have the processed streamlined somewhat.
Interesting response so far.
Hi all,
There's a couple of interesting replies so far. Interesting to see other's points of view on this,
Barry, It's like Eric says, DxO film pack gets around 90-95% accurte as far as representing film, and it seems to do a pretty good job with the tonal renditions too. I agree that it's won't help increase the dynamic range of the image, but it does mean that if you have been raised on Kodachrome 25 for example, you can buy a DSLR and get results that are very similar to what you are used to. As far as dynamic range goes, there is nothing to stop you applying the effect to a HDR image... more hassle yes, but the results can speak for themselves.
Springtide, I agree completely with what you have said about the main part of DxO and their as yet continued lack of 'mass' support for the Alpha mount. It would be really cool to see support for classics like the 70-210 mm beercan and 50 mm 1.4 and 1.7, perhaps they will get round to bulking out their list of supported cameras and lenses now that Sony Alpha is becoming a much bigger player in the field of DSLR? Also as Eric says, for what it offers, Film Pack is neat, and shouldn't be dismissed just because of the lack of interest in Alpha mount cameras in the main imaging package.
As always YMMV,
Andrew
I have not used this one,
I have not used this one, but have tried a few. To date exposure 2 seems to be about the best one.
And this is for print, not just playing about with web shots. Yes to a point, the colour responses, and grain pattern are close to some emulsions. For mono, the way colours are produced as grey tones, is also present, and appears fairly accurate. I did a few prints with high ISO b&w ilford and kodak emulation, and they are good.
However, you cannot replicate the DR of a shot, nor the way that film responds exactly. Bottom line is, the linear response of digital, cannot show the non linear response of the medium itself. Whilst you can pull up the shadows etc, its still a different beast, using the real stuff. I will be getting my rolls of processed FP4 back shortly, and I can assure you, whilst the software I have is decent, and not bad..using the real stuff is really in a different league. For starters the huge latitude of that particular film, is rather astonishing to digital shooters, are beats anything digital I have seen hands down. Thus you dont get the practical benefits of the real stuff, just a somewhat similar look. Even digital conversions to mono, lack the graduations of the real medium, I can spot these in print, so its a 2nd best solution.
Not to pour cold water on these film packs etc, they are worthy of attention, and some films, like you say are just plain gone for good. Not sure which films are done in this software, there are good things to be had here, esp for areas such as skintones..they can greatly aid pp for some. I will still use what I have its pretty good, just not as good as the real stuff!