Using Emulsion
in DaVinci Resolve.

Where it goes, and what goes in

Emulsion is the film. Put it where film would sit in a real pipeline: after the camera, before the final look.

In the node tree

• Do your "on set" work first, on nodes before Emulsion: balance the shot and set exposure, as a cinematographer would with lights and filters. Emulsion then reacts to that light like film.
• Put Emulsion near the end of the tree, usually the last node, or just before your output transform.
• Want to keep grading after the film? Set Print / Output to Emulsion Print (AP1 Cineon Log). You get a wide-latitude print in log and grade on top of it, as you would a film scan.

Input Space: what your footage is

• Colour-managed project in Resolve 21 (DaVinci YRGB Color Managed or ACES): leave Input Space on Auto. Resolve hands Emulsion the clip already converted, and Emulsion never converts it twice.
• Unmanaged project, or Resolve 20: pick your camera's log in Input Space. ARRI LogC3 and LogC4, Sony S-Log3, RED Log3G10, Canon Log 2 and 3, Panasonic V-Log, Blackmagic Film Gen 5, DJI D-Log, Apple Log and more are all there. You don't need a CST node in front; Emulsion converts with OpenColorIO's ACES config. The note under the stock menus tells you what Emulsion is reading.
• Gamut Compression (on by default) eases colours that film can't respond to, like LED purples and neon, back inside the gamut instead of letting them break.

Output Space: what comes out

• Rec.709 (Display SDR) for a normal SDR delivery. With Print set to Kodak Vision Color Print 2383, that's a finished film look on a monitor.
• Rec.2100 PQ / HLG for HDR. HDR Print White sets how bright the print's clear base shows (the projector lamp). The print itself doesn't change.
• DaVinci Intermediate, ACEScct, ACEScg, Cineon when more grading follows, or your timeline works in that space.

Shoot digital like digital.
Expose film like film.

A sensor clips: past its limit the detail is gone, so you protect highlights. Negative film is an S-curve: shadows sink into the toe, highlights roll into the shoulder. With film, you expose for the shadows.

• On set, expose your camera as usual and protect the highlights. Emulsion can't bring back what the sensor clipped.
• In Emulsion, Exposure (stops) is the negative's exposure, like opening the lens. The print isn't re-timed, so the picture gets brighter or darker the way film does.
• Rate the film slow, as cinematographers do (500T at 400): add about +⅓ stop of Exposure, then bring the brightness back with Printer Lights (Print & Lab), as the lab would. A denser negative means tighter grain and cleaner shadows.
• Printer Lights are the lab's colour timing. 1 point = 0.025 log E. Higher is a denser (darker) print. The red, green and blue lights work backwards: more blue light makes the print warmer, because it forms more yellow dye.

What every section does

Process

Standard is one film. Technicolor Three-Strip simulates the 1935 camera: three films behind colour filters, printed by dye transfer. Pick the film in each record; Registration Error shifts the dye images for authentic colour fringes.

Camera & Light

Film Format sets the gate (Super 8 to IMAX). Smaller formats enlarge grain, softness and halation. Lens puts a real lens design in front of the film, ray-traced at the chosen aperture. Scene Light and Lens Filter give the colour a stock really records under that light and filter. Exposure Time brings in reciprocity for long or very short exposures. Anamorphic Squeeze stretches the film's texture for desqueezed footage. Diffusion is a Pro-Mist style filter.

Development

Push / Pull changes development time: pushing adds contrast, shadow speed and grain. Bleach Bypass keeps silver in the negative (hotter highlights, thinner colour) or in the print (ENR: deeper blacks, desaturated colour); Silver Retained sets how much. Interimage and Edge Effects are the development chemistry behind film's colour separation and natural sharpness.

Grain Detail

Shadow / Midtone / Highlight Grain scale the grain by tone (1 = as measured). Crystal Size scales the crystals. Grain Quality trades accuracy at the finest scale for speed.

Halation Detail

The size and colour of the glow from light reflected off the film base.

Print & Lab

Printer Lights (master and red, green, blue) are the lab's timing. Print Contrast is the print's development. Projection Flare 0 sets the print's black to video black (a transfer); 1 shows it as projected, on the projector's flare floor. Print Saturation scales the print's dyes around neutral.

Expert

The model's own settings. Leave them alone unless you're studying the physics. Reset Section puts them back.

System

Lock Grain freezes the grain for inspecting stills. Seed changes the random grain pattern.

Smooth playback

• Use Resolve's render cache on the Emulsion node, or work on optimized media or proxies.
• Lower Grain Quality while grading; raise it for delivery.
• Lens simulation and Technicolor Three-Strip are the heaviest features. Add them last.

If something looks wrong

Emulsion isn't in the OpenFX list

Restart Resolve after installing. Check the plugin is in the OFX folder above.

Colours look flat, or far too contrasty

The Input Space doesn't match the footage. In an unmanaged project, pick the camera's log. If there's a CST in front of Emulsion, set Input Space to what the CST outputs, or remove the CST.

Too bright or too dark

Set Exposure first (it's the negative), then fine-tune with Printer Lights.

Choppy playback

See Speed above.

Windows: a problem after an update

Create an empty file named nogpu in %APPDATA%\Emulsion\ and restart Resolve. Emulsion then uses its fallback path. Send us the log: %APPDATA%\Emulsion64\emulsion64.log.

Still stuck, or made something you love? Press Send Feedback / Share a Clip… in the panel.