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Review: Dehancer Film Emulation
This is a review about Dehancer, an advanced film emulation application, available for multiple photography and videography post-processing and editing platforms. A link to my YouTube review is at the end of this article.
These options include plug ins for DaVinci Resolve, Baselight, Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere, Assimilate SCRATCH, Vega Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Capture One Pro and Affinity. It is also available for iOS on the iPhone and iPad, a Desktop version, and online version. So pretty much all bases are covered. This review mainly looks at the Lightroom version.
Pricing as available for individual or business subscriptions, as well as lifetime purchase. Most of these are multi-seat, so you can enable multiple versions, for example iOS, Lightroom and DaVinci Resolve.
As a disclaimer - I was given a Dehancer licence key for free to do this review, however Dehancer stated that they wanted and honest and impartial review. Installation, and adding Dehancer as a plug in is simple - just follow the instructions.
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Editing/Post-processing Workflow
Workflow is similar to when editing LIghtroom photos in Photoshop, you need to right click, edit in, and then edit in dehancer lightroom. You then have 3 options to edit with lightroom adjustments, a copy, or original. I usually use the first option. For first time use, the application will prompt to download the film packs, and activation is required to remove the watermark.
On the left hand side of the user interface is the list of films. This is a very extensive list, with film stocks including the popular Cinestill 800T, and loads of Agfa, Fuji (including Velvia and Provia), Ilford, Kodak (including Gold and Portra), Konica, Polaroid, and more. I quite often use Kodak Portra and Fuji Velvia lightroom presets, so I was very keen to see what Dehancer could do. 'No film' can also be selected, useful for workflows such as adding halation or bloom to a digital looking photo. I found the film emulations to be very accurate to the film counterparts (as long as the white balance is set correctly).
A limitation of this plug-in workflow, is that you cannot batch process, which can be a pain for a portrait session where I may have a large number of photos I want to process with a similar look. However, you can save a film look as a preset, and re-apply that to subsequent photos. The dehancer desktop version (which I've not yet reviewed) does have options for batch workflows and copy/pasting edits.
The main portion of the display is the image area, with a histogram below. On the right hand side, are the various post processing panels.
The Source Panel allows for selection of the colour profile. I usually use sRGB throughout my photo post processing workflow. The source panel also allows for control of exposure, colour temperature and tint (which are pretty important as a baseline for accurate film looks). Defringe allows for the reduction of chromatic aberrations.
The Film Profile is another location where you can select the film type. Push/Pull EV allows you to vary color-contrast look of a scene within a selected film profile.
Film Developer tool allows to make your own development recipe depending on the source material, shooting conditions and creative tasks. This is more of a film chemical simulator. These include contrast boost, gamma correction, colour separation, and color boost. These tools are generally not required if you are happy with any of the film type looks, but allows for more creative control for expert users.
The Film Compression tool emulates the film-like compressed tonal range. It lets the user fine-tune the redistribution of the highlights for a more analogue look. The Expand tool provides a separate manual control for black and white points in relation to the output color space. This is quite a critical step in post processing, and should be one of the first modules that are used when editing in dehancer. Maybe it should be positioned closer to the top of the list.
The Color Mode option can be useful to handle unwanted color shift or oversaturation. In the Luma mode Expand affects only the luminance component of an image, but does not affect its color, so the changes in contrast have no effect on the saturation. Whilst I expect most dehancer users will be using a digital workflow, there is a print module for selection of print paper profiles and relevant settings.
The Subtractive CMY Color Head module is based upon the analogue color correction tool integrated in photo enlargers. This includes adjustments for Yellow — Blue, Magenta — Green, Cyan — Red, Shadows, midtones, and highlights adjustment.
Dehancer has a powerful Film Grain section, based on analogue characteristics of film. There are plenty of presets, which can then be adjusted Personally, being a digital person, I like the film looks, but like to remove grain and noise, so personally I'm likely to have this module deactivated.
Halation is a useful mode, to recreate looks such as Cinestill 800T with red or orange halation around bright spots. This effect is pronounced on film with the remjet layer removed. I usually use a photoshop action for halation, so I was very interested to see what could be achieved. Out of the box settings were pretty good, and much faster to obtain than using photoshop. Moving to the Halation module, there is a wide range of presets available, or you can custom make your own halation. Source Limiter defines the minimum light source brightness that is able to produce halation. The brightness of the source footage is going to affect the level of this setting. Background Gain sets the range of the background tones on which halation becomes visible. Default value allows halation to appear on most backgrounds. Smoothness controls the distribution of the halation effect between the large and small sources, visually smoothing smaller halation details. This is a setting you might need to come back to after changing other settings. Local Diffusion defines how far the light spreads in an emulated film emulsion. The higher the value, the larger the size of the halos. Global Diffusion controls the degree of the secondary glare produced by scattered light. This is a more global effect that affects mostly low-contrast midtones and also enhances the primary halation.
Amplify affects the sensitivity of a simulated film emulsion to the scattered light. Increasing the Amplify value makes the effect more pronounced and shifts the halation toward yellow hues.
Hue modifies the sensitivity of the green layer of a simulated film emulsion to the scattered light. This can be varied between a green/orange to deep red. I would like to see an option for full hue control, but I can understand that Dehancer try to keep their product realistic to how film works. Blue Compensation counterbalances this effect of cool backgrounds reducing the halation effect. Impact is more of an ‘opacity’ function, as it controls the overall transparency of the superimposed effect. Mask Mode enables a preview showing where in the image the halation has been applied.
If I'm being fussy, I would like to see brush masking here so that I have more control over where the halation is applied. Instead, I have to rely on global adjustments for this control, which is OK, but not completely optimal. I would also like to see full hue adjustment, so that the halation can be any colour.
Bloom controls the light diffusion around bright light objects, with an impressive range of different sliders for controlling this effect. Bloom is also useful for controlling the look of the halation module.
The Film Damage module is useful for adding dust, hairs, or scratches to photos for that classic old analogue look. The refresh button can change around the location of these, so keep clicking unto you are happy. Light leaks are maybe something that could be added in future versions.
The Overscan module allows for the addition of film areas outside of the film gate area, with multiple date type presets.
Vignette allows for adjustment of the film vignette, including size, feather, aspect ratio, and quite usefully X and Y position. The latter isn't available in lightroom. I really like this module.
At the top of the display, are buttons for before/after, 1 to 1 pixel display, turning the histogram on and off, and displaying brightness clipping. Settings include selecting the GPU device, keyboard shortcuts, and a link to manuals.
Finally, we have an option to set the Output colour profile. Again, I've selected sRGB here. Clicking apply sends the saved photo back to lightroom.
I have also tested Dehancer in DaVinci Resolve for video editing. It is easy to install (just follow the instructions), and Dehancer is added as a node in the Color module. Dehancer provide very good instructions on where Dehancer should be placed in the node structure. I have successfully used Dehancer to add Halation to a video. I personally think it has the edge over DaVinci Resolve Studio's (the paid version) Halation module, and is far better than the Halation module in the free Spektrafilm. Dehancer also has far more film type options than Spektrafilm.
Conclusion
I can see Dehancer being very useful for photographers who like to post process with different analogue film looks, and want far more control than what is available with lightroom presets. The film emulations are very accurate. Dehancer is also useful for adding halation, blooming, and more advanced vignette control on digital looking photos as well. It is also possible to install, and test, with watermark, before purchasing to see if it suits your workflow.
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