Film is Fun

Film Emulation
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How to Install

I. Lightroom Classic
1. Navigate to the Develop tab on the top right.
2. Click the + in the top left of the Presets tab.
3. Click Import Presets…
4. Navigate to the Lightroom Presets folder.
5. Select all, and click Import.

II. Lightroom
1. Navigate to View > Presets.
2. Click “∙∙∙” on the top right of the Presets tab.
3. Click Import Presets…
4. Navigate to the Lightroom Presets folder.
5. Select all, and click Import.
6. You can see them now under the Yours tab in the preset tab.

III. Camera Raw (in Photoshop)

1. Copy and past the Lightroom Presets folder to:
• Mac – Library > Application Support > Adobe > CameraRaw >
Settings > Adobe > Presets
• Windows – “C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\
Adobe\CameraRaw\Settings
2. Open Camera Raw within Photoshop (Command+Shift+A)
3. Click the preset Icon on the right of the Camera raw screen ->
4. You should see the presets under their respective stock.
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 I. Photoshop (actions)
1. In Photoshop, navigate to Window > Actions.The Actions box will pop
up.
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2. Click the three line menu Icon on the top right in the action box,
then click Load Actions…
3. Navigate into the Photoshop Actions folder.
4. Select the .atn files and click Open
5. You should see the folders and the actions within those folders in the

Using the Presets

These presets are designed to work on all digital images, but will work best when
the image was properly exposed and white balanced.

To apply the preset, all you have to do is hover over the preset name, and then click
on it.

I. Basic Panel
• White Balance – each preset has a built in white balance, but if your
original image was white balance incorrectly you can correct it here.

• Tone – There are no built in tone adjustments, so here is where you can
play around to get your desired exposure and contrast to your image.

• Presence – You can decrease Texture to soften the image further, and can
decrease Clarity to get a blooming e!ect.

II. Tone Curve

• Luminance Curve – The tone curve is adjusted to soften the highlight
rollo!. Something that film excels at that digital lacks is the ability to
preserve detail in the highlights. Digital image highlights can clip more
quickly than film, so this added rollo! gives the appearance of a more
gradual transition.

• Optional e!ect – mirror the points and positions to the shadow end of
the curve. Sometimes film scanners will boost the
shadows on underexposed film, so this mimics that
e!ect.
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 III. Color Mixer
• This is where the majority of the film look is established. The hue,
saturation, and luminance values have been precisely tweaked to
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transform the digital sensor color rendition into how film would render the
same image.

• Each preset has slight di!erences to these values. When scanning film,
most professional scanners assess each frame individually, then apply
custom exposure and color corrects. Also, di!erent brand scanners have
di!erent ways of assessing film. Because of this, there is no “one” uniform
look. The same film scanned across di!erent scanners will be similar, but
will have slight di!erences.

• Each preset is almost like a di!erent scanner type; all have the same base
characteristics of film, but with some stylistic di!erences.

IV. Color Grading

• Certain colors are pushed into the shadows, midtones and highlights. The
values have been calibrated against reference film photos to accurately
emulate the qualities found in the film stock.

• The values are slightly tweaked depending on the preset.

V. Lens Corrections
• The Remove Chromatic Aberration has been ticked on. This is
especially important if you are adding halation. Both phenomena are
noticeable at areas of high contrast, and it could look weird if this e!ect
was stacked.

VI. E!ects - Grain

The grain overlay is applied on a luminance mask on the mask tab. The bright
highlights are excluded from the grain layer, which is more accurate to what real
film would show. If the grain was not added to a luminance mask, even the blown
out areas would have grain on top. This doesn’t happen with real film.

The grain amounts in this preset are calibrated for a 24MP camera (6000x4000
pixels) to match the size and density present in a 35mm frame. If your digital image
is bigger or smaller than this size, the grain you see will not be accurate to what film
would depict.
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 • Amount – this slider a!ects the opacity of the grain layer.
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• Size – this slider a!ects the size of the individual pieces of grain. Adjust
this slider if your digital image is a di!erent size than 6000x4000. There is
a film reference photo in this download which you can look at to see the
true size of the film grain.

• Roughness – This slider a!ects the uniformity of the individual grains.

Adding Halation
Halation is a characteristic inherently associated with film. It can be seen in the
form of a reddish orange glow in highlights and areas of high contrast. This
phenomena isn’t present in digital images, as it is cause by bounce light exposing
the reverse side of film frame.

Unfortunately, this e!ect can’t be created that well in Lightroom, so we’ll have to
head over to Photoshop to make this happen.

I. Photoshop Action
1. After you have applied the preset and made your creative adjustments in
Lightroom, right click on the photo in the bottom carousel and click Edit in
> Edit in Adobe Photoshop.

2. Open the Actions box in Photoshop.

3. Open the dropdown Color Negative Halation folder.

4. Select Halation and hit the Play button at the bottom of the
Actions box.

5. Now you should see the Halation e!ect on your image.

II. Adjusting Halation E!ect

• The parameters have been set to mimic what would normally appear. To
see what halation is being added, hit the eye icon next to the On/O!
Toggle layer. This will show you before and after of the halation e!ect.
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 • An alternative way of viewing the halation is to disable your original image.
This will show you a black image with orange halation blobs. These blobs
are what is being overlaid on your image.
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• If the halation glow e!ect is appearing on parts you do not want to see it
on, select the white mask layer next to the On/O! Toggle, and begin to
erase the image. The erase brush should already be selected, and I find it
easiest to erase when the black and orange view mode it on, as shown in
the previous step.

• Under the Smart Filters layer, you can double click Gaussian Blur and
Threshold to adjust the halation quality. They are both set to what film
halation would resemble, but you can adjust to get a more intense e!ect.

• Gaussian Blur – Increase the pixel radius to bloom the halation.

• Threshold – Slide the white cursor at the bottom of the Threshold popup
window to adjust the luminance range of what the halation e!ect will be

Adding Film Blur

Digital images are often thought of as being super crisp and sharp. While film
photographs can also be very crisp, often they will have a softer feel to them.
Adding grain on top of a digital image might lead to the grain not feeling very
authentic. This is where film blur comes in.

Like the halation, the most accurate way to add film blur is via photoshop, so
install the photoshop film blur actions.

*Add film blur before doing any Lightroom adjustments*

If you add the film blur after using the preset, the grain will be all blurred out

The film blur comes in three separate strengths: low, medium, and high

Install and use like how you would the halation action.

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