---
title: How to use Emulsion in DaVinci Resolve
source: https://emulsion64.com/howto
---

# Using Emulsion *in DaVinci Resolve.*
Where it goes, how to set it up, how to expose for film, and what every control does. Five minutes to your first look; the rest is here when you need it.

## Install and find it
1. **Mac:** run the Emulsion installer. It puts the plugin in `/Library/OFX/Plugins` and Stock Studio in Applications.
2. **Windows (beta):** run the Windows installer. The plugin goes to `C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins`; Stock Studio and Emulsion Photo are in the Start menu.
3. Restart DaVinci Resolve. On the **Color** page, open **OpenFX → Library** and drag **Emulsion64** onto a node.

Emulsion runs on the GPU. Metal on Mac, Vulkan on Windows. Keep your graphics driver current.

## 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.

## A film look in sixty seconds
1. **Mode:** Film (Print / Scan).
2. **Film Stock:** start with **Kodak Vision3 250D** for daylight or **500T 5219** for tungsten and night. Picking a stock also loads its camera setup: format, scene light and filter.
3. **Print / Output:** **Kodak Vision Color Print 2383** for the classic cinema print.
4. **Exposure:** set the negative's exposure (next section).
5. **Grain:** 1 is the stock as measured. Leave it there and look at it full screen before you decide it's too much or too little.

Bright highlights glow warm (**Halation**), edges sharpen themselves, and colours separate as the layers develop. Those are the film, not effects to switch on. Their strength comes from the stock.

## 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.

## Choosing a stock and a print

### Film Stock (the negative)
- Every stock is built from its maker's published data: curves, spectral sensitivity, dyes, grain and sharpness.
- **Daylight** stocks (250D, 50D, Eterna 250D) want daylight. **Tungsten** stocks (500T, 200T) want tungsten, or an **85** filter in daylight (Camera & Light → Lens Filter).
- **Slide film** (Ektachrome, Velvia, Kodachrome) is its own positive. Pick its matching viewer in Print / Output.

### Print / Output
- **Kodak Vision Color Print 2383:** the cinema release print. Contrasty, deep blacks.
- **Emulsion Print (AP1 Cineon Log):** a wide-latitude print for grading on top.
- **Fujifilm Eterna-CP, Kodak Vision Premier 2393, Eastman Color Print 5384, Technicolor IV dye transfer:** other prints and eras.
- **Digital Scan** (Cineon Log / Linear / ACES): the scanned negative, no print, for your own grade.
- **None (Negative View):** the negative itself, orange mask and all.

## 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.

## Keep your grade, add the film
Set **Mode** to **Texture Only**. Emulsion uses a theoretical stock whose colour and tone are exactly your image, so only the chosen stock's physical texture is added: grain, halation, softness and edge effects. Use it when the colour is already final.

## 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.

## Stock Studio
Press **Open Stock Studio…** in the panel. Start from any stock and reshape its curves, colour, grain and halation, or build a camera and process of your own. Save, then press **Reload Stocks** in Resolve: the new stock appears in the Film Stock menu. If it doesn't, restart Resolve so the menu redraws.

## 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.