Setup
Installing EMBR.
A one-time setup, a few minutes. Done in this order, everything lands on its own — the PowerGrades find their DCTLs automatically. No node-by-node setup, ever.
1 — Install
On Mac
Open EMBR Installer (Mac).dmg from your purchase — it’s also always at dl.embr.jvke.us. Run the EMBR Installer and paste the key from your purchase email. It downloads your edition, installs the plugin and every EMBR DCTL, activates your license, and offers to import the PowerGrades — one pass, nothing to place by hand.
Trying first? The same installer has a Trial button — no key needed.
Then launch DaVinci Resolve.
Upgrading from 1.0? You’ll see two EMBR entries in the OpenFX list — pick the one with the version in its name. Your old plugin stays installed so old projects keep rendering exactly as graded.
2 — Activate your license
If you used the installer with your key, this is already done — the watermark is gone the first time Resolve opens.
To activate by hand instead: on any clip, add EMBR Film FX Pro from the OpenFX panel, open its License section, and paste the key from your purchase email. One time per machine; the watermark lifts immediately.
3 — Import the PowerGrades
The installer offers this at the end — “Install them for me” imports the EMBR album into Resolve’s gallery on its own. Prefer doing it by hand? It also reveals the files, and the manual path is:
Color page → Gallery → PowerGrades album → right-click → Import → open the POWERGRADES folder.
Select only the .dpx files (select-all of them is fine), then Import. That’s the whole step — each still carries its grade with it.
Why not everything? Each grade is a pair: the .dpx you can see and a .drx sidecar it loads automatically. Selecting both imports every grade twice. The .drx files just stay in the folder.
Where everything lives
Two ways to run it — same order either way.
The simple way — everything on the clip
Apply the grade, then drag your camera’s CST onto the first node. One clip, one chain, done.
The group way — set it once, grade all night
Group your clips by camera. The CST normalizes every clip in the group once; the look lives once at the group level; the clip stage stays pure per-shot correction — change the look all you want, your balances never move. (Shared nodes work too, if that’s your style — same order, same idea.)
One rule either way: your CST comes before every EMBR node.
Bonus — why the tree is shaped like this
This isn’t a software convention. It’s the photochemical pipeline, drawn sideways — with one advantage film never had: you can shape the image as if it was shot that way in the first place, then run the look pipeline.
The clip stage is time travel to the set. Balance runs before the negative forms — so correcting here isn’t fixing a print, it’s standing on set before the exposure: trimming the light and color of each shot so the negative receives the most ideal scene it can. (The lab’s per-shot printer-light trims exist in EMBR too — that’s Printer Points, downstream of the negative — but the clip stage happens before film ever sees light.)
The group stage is the scene on a stock. Films mix emulsions — a faster stock for the night work, a different speed for the day exteriors. One negative decision covering many shots: that’s the group’s post-clip stage, where the negative you built and the look live once per scene.
The timeline is the print. However many stocks the negative mixes, everything prints to one positive stock — one print emulation at the end of the timeline, constant across the whole film. That constancy is what makes mixed scenes feel like one movie. The further downstream, the fewer decisions.
Grade in that order and the placement rules disappear — you’re shooting, developing, and printing.
Two project settings that matter
Color space. Inside EMBR Film FX, set Input Color Space to match your timeline — DaVinci Wide Gamut, ACEScct, ARRI LogC3, ARRI LogC4, or Linear. It’s a manual setting; the plugin doesn’t detect your timeline color space automatically.
The DCTLs are designed for DaVinci Wide Gamut / DaVinci Intermediate exclusively. Shooting something else? The included CST PowerGrades cover nine cameras, named by camera in the PowerGrades album: find your camera’s name, then click and drag that still directly onto the node where you want the conversion to live — the CST lands on that node and nothing else changes. Ideally that’s your group’s pre-clip stage, so every clip from that camera is covered once, ahead of all EMBR nodes. No groups? Apply CLIP LEVEL CORRECT first, then drag the CST onto the front of the chain.
LUT interpolation. Project Settings → Color Management → 3D lookup table interpolation → Tetrahedral. One dropdown; it keeps print-LUT gradients smooth instead of banded.
If something looks off
The grade applies but the image barely changes — the PowerGrade was imported before the DCTLs were in place, so its DCTL nodes came in empty. Confirm the EMBR folder is in the LUT folder (Project Settings → Color Management → Open LUT Folder shows you the exact one), restart Resolve, then re-import the PowerGrade — re-applying the old import won’t fill the empty nodes.
A node shows an error — Resolve can’t find that node’s DCTL right now. Usually the EMBR folder was moved or renamed, or Resolve hasn’t been relaunched since install. Restore the folder exactly as shipped, restart Resolve, and the node comes back on its own — the grade doesn’t need re-importing.
Grain looks coarse or wrong during playback — check the viewer’s playback resolution. EMBR’s grain is generated at full resolution; Half and Quarter playback downscale it and it stops looking like grain. Judge texture at Full res — renders are always full res regardless.
A watermark on the image — the plugin isn’t activated on this machine yet. Paste your key in the plugin’s License section.
Lost your key or the download — your order page keeps everything: the installer, your license key, and your invoices. Log in with your purchase email at embr.jvke.us/signin and it sends you a sign-in link. No password, no account to create.
Still stuck? Email jake@jvke.us — include a screenshot of your node tree and the LUT folder.