Tool reference

Every section, in the panel’s own words.

This page is generated from the plugin itself — the same text that lives in each control’s tooltip, section by section. It updates when the plugin does. For how to think about the system, read the method.

›Film Tone (Print Curve)

Print Contrast: The print's contrast — a gamma around mid-grey in the log/density domain (≈ a print stock's H&D gamma). 1.0 = neutral; >1 = punchier/denser print, <1 = flatter. Stays scene-referred, so your downstream DRT renders it.
Print Exposure: Scene-linear exposure into the print, in stops (×2^stops) — per-shot balance before the print contrast.
Highlight Desaturation: How much bright colors bleach toward white — the 'path to white' a real film print has (its shoulder drives the dye layers to paper-white, so highlights lose saturation). Without it the print contrast keeps full saturation into the highlights and goes nuclear. 0 = off (raw saturated highlights), ~0.6 = filmic, 1 = strong wash.

›Digital to Negative (Cineon)

Gamut Rolloff: Tames the most saturated colors; mids and skin stay put.
Sat Density: Higher = denser, richer saturated color.
Color Density: Darkens (+) or lifts (-) colors without changing hue or saturation.
Shadow Color: Adds color back into the shadows without lifting brightness.
Milky: Milky shadow lift and desaturation, like print flare.
Print Density (-1 Stop): OPTIONAL, off by default — the pipeline is complete without it. Drops the exposure into the negative by exactly one stop. The darker image is not the point; what you do next is. Grade back up in the nodes UNDERNEATH this one and the negative gets struck with more light, which is what builds density in the image. That is the real-film move: expose the negative generously, then print it down.

›Chromatic Aberration

Strength
Spectrum Spread
Whole-Frame CA
Smear: Streaks the color fringe instead of hard channel edges. 0 = crisp.

›Pro Mist

Strength
Mist Size
Diffusion: Fine softness that takes the digital edge off. 1.00 = the grade's tuned dose.
Grade: Filter strength, like the glass grades. Each grade is a hand-tuned look. Options: 1/8 · 1/4 · 1/2 · 1

›Vignette

Falloff (Stops): Corner light loss, in stops.
Lens Width: Falloff shape: 0 = wide lens, darkening reaches into the frame; 1 = long lens, corners only.
Roundness: 0 = oval that fits the frame, 1 = circular.
Optical (Wide-Open): Extra hard-edged corner darkening from a wide-open lens, in stops.
Edge Warmth: Tints the dimmed edges: + warm, − cool. The centre never tints.
Enable: Lens light falloff toward the corners, applied before halation and the negative.

›Lens Character (Petzval)

Strength
Center Clarity
Clarity Falloff: How quickly the lens effect builds from the clear center toward the edges. 2 is the classic response; lower spreads the transition, higher snaps it toward the corners.
Enable: Petzval lens rendering: the center stays clear; toward the edges, light takes on oriented cat-eye bokeh with a gentle field-curvature falloff. Strongest on bright out-of-focus areas.
Style: Petzval is the full lens model - field curvature and oriented cat-eye bokeh. Classic is the original swirl character: the brightest light in reach takes over, so bokeh rings shift their layout. Field Curvature, Tangential Ratio and Cat Eye apply to Petzval only. Options: Petzval · Classic
Show Chart: Replaces the picture with a lens test chart - a grid with bright discs at the intersections - rendered through the live lens. Lines show where the field bends; discs show what the bokeh does there. Turn off for the image.

›Scene Lean

Amount: Global mix for everything in this section.
Skin Protect: Holds skin OUT of everything else in this section — the sky and foliage moves and the channel lean alike. This is the only skin control here, and that is deliberate: a key can be trusted to leave skin alone across mixed complexions and lighting, but not to move it. Build the look to please skin, then target the rest. 1 = full protection.
Key Softness: Widens EVERY gate that can draw an edge — color dominance, chroma and tone alike. It never weakens a subject that already qualifies: the fully-engaged point stays put and only the falloff opens up. This is the control for a visible band on a gradient, most often a horizon, where the grab runs out too fast. Use View = Key Falloff to see exactly where that risk sits.
Sky Cyan: Pushes blue toward cyan (+) or back toward blue-violet (-). The name is the intent: this is a grab on BLUE, so it reaches a clear sky hard, a hazy one gently, and an overcast or sunset sky barely at all — because those are not blue. If its edge ever shows on a gradient, raise Key Softness.
Sky Depth: Density into the sky (+) or opens it (-). Blue is held back as it darkens, so it reads richer rather than greyer.
Sky Saturation: Chroma of the sky key only. + enriches, - calms. Scales about each pixel's own luma, so brightness holds.
Foliage Yellow: Warm sunlit green (+) or cool cyan-teal (-) — the print move. A grab on GREEN, so it holds through sunlit and shaded foliage and lets go on dry grass, which is really yellow.
Foliage Depth: Density into the greens (+) or opens them (-).
Foliage Saturation: Chroma of the foliage key only. + enriches, - calms.
Red Push: Leans saturated reds toward magenta (+) or orange (-). Finds taillights, red jackets and signage — things far more saturated than skin ever is. Skin Protect keeps faces and lips out of it.
Red Depth: Density into the reds (+) or opens them (-). Red is held back as it darkens, so it deepens rather than greys — the move that stops a blown taillight reading as a flat patch.
Red Saturation: Chroma of the red key only. + enriches, - calms.
Enable: Subject and channel work applied before the negative, so the film renders it rather than it sitting on top. Off by default; every control is neutral at its default.
View: Subject Keys paints what each key has found — red skin, green foliage, blue sky. Key Falloff paints only where a key is HALF on, which is where an edge would form: a thin band there means a visible line is about to be drawn across the subject, a wide band means it rolls in gently. Mirrors the global View combo and clears any other diagnostic when set. Options: Output · Subject Keys · Key Falloff

›Channel Lean

Red toward Green: Leans Red toward Green wherever the two differ. Greys cannot move: the law is built from the difference, so it vanishes on neutrals.
Red toward Blue
Green toward Red
Green toward Blue
Blue toward Red
Blue toward Green
Shadows Strength: Scales the whole lean in the shadows. 1 = uniform.
Mids Strength
Highs Strength
Skin Protect: How strongly the lean holds back on skin. 1 = faces fully protected; 0 = the lean ignores skin and leans faces with everything else.
Enable: On by default and neutral until you dial a law — use it as a one-click A/B of the whole lean.

›Negative

Strength: Blends the whole negative against the untouched image. 1 = the full negative.
Exposure: Scene exposure into the emulsion, in stops.
Push / Pull: Development push (+) or pull (−) — more contrast and layer crossover.
Scene Temp: Mimic a different SHOOTING white balance, before the stock sees it — 'what if this were shot warmer/cooler ON this stock'. + = warm, - = cool. Distinct from Balance (which neutralises upstream) and a downstream cast: this shifts the scene the emulsion then renders, so it interacts with the stock's native balance (a daylight scene on a tungsten stock reads cool). 0 = off.
Scene Tint: Scene white-balance tint, paired with Scene Temp. + = magenta, - = green.
Hue Twist: Rotates the whole palette around the color wheel — a global hue shift in the film's seeing. + and − twist it opposite ways. Chroma-weighted, so it moves the saturated color without shifting neutrals or your white balance (distinct from Scene Temp, which moves the actual white point). 0 = off.
Enable: The film negative — pick a datasheet stock, then shape it with the Response / Neg. Contrast / Dye Crossover / Dye Saturation layers.
Negative: Build My Own = a clean slate: shape the negative yourself with the layers below (your saved negatives load from the My Stocks section). Film Stock = start from a real, datasheet-derived stock. Options: Build My Own · Film Stock
Stock Category: The family shelf: pick a manufacturer/era, then the stock below.
Rendering: The color starting point the stock renders from. Vivid = the stock's full spectral seeing, color separated the way the emulsion really sees it. Natural = that seeing eased back to about a third — a calmer base to grade into, with the stock's tone, balance and grain untouched. Dial character back with Color Response. Options: Natural · Vivid

Neg. Contrast

Contrast: Overall development contrast, relative to the stock's baked gamma. 1 = the stock's native contrast.
Open / Close: Walks the curve's two knees — where the shadow and highlight rolls begin. + closes: the knees move in toward middle grey, the rolls start earlier, and the mids steepen between them. − opens: the knees move out, the straight section extends, and the curve flattens toward linear. 0 = the knees exactly where the stock's datasheet put them. Middle grey never moves. Contrast sets how much contrast; this sets where it lives. Works in both Custom and Auto Per Stock tone.
Datasheet Crossover: How the three dye layers SEPARATE from each other — not how bright the picture is. 0 = a straight-line approximation of the stock's crossover; 1 = its full measured datasheet curves. This cannot change tone or density: it carries only each layer's deviation from the layer mean, is zero at mid grey, and is a no-op wherever the curve is straight, so it acts at toe and shoulder only — which is exactly where real emulsions differ from one another. Tone is chosen above; this is color. Turn on Show Curves to watch it: the dim lines are the stock, the bright lines are the stock plus your Dye Crossover sliders.
Shadow Roll (stops): How many stops the shadow roll takes to complete. At 2 the roll is squeezed so tight it does nothing — the shadows run straight, which is why Build My Own starts there. Wider = a longer, gentler bend into black that reaches further up into the midtones. Stated in stops so it means the same thing at any Contrast or stock gamma. Auto Per Stock overrides this with the stock's own measured toe.
Highlight Roll (stops): How many stops the highlight roll takes to complete. At 2 the roll is squeezed so tight it does nothing — the highlights run straight, which is why Build My Own starts there. Wider = a longer hand-off into the print. Stated in stops so it holds its meaning at any Contrast or stock gamma. Auto Per Stock overrides this with the stock's own measured shoulder.
Black Anchor: Re-anchors where blacks land — a small trim on the black end of the curve. + deeper, − lifted. Rides on top of whatever set the end: your Black Depth in Custom tone, the stock's own datasheet in Auto Per Stock. The knees and middle grey stay put.
White Anchor: Re-anchors where whites land — a small trim on the white end of the curve. + more latitude before the roll completes, − tighter. Rides on top of Custom or Auto Per Stock alike. The knees and middle grey stay put.
Highlight Latitude: Highlight latitude above diffuse white. Auto Per Stock overrides this with the stock's own measured latitude — the slider greys out there.
Black Depth: How deep blacks go. Lower = milkier floor. Auto Per Stock overrides this with the stock's own measured density ceiling — the slider greys out there.
Base Fog: Lifts blacks to a milky, desaturated floor.
Preview Neutral: A/B against the clean slate: while checked, this section renders the Neutral passthrough without touching your sliders or preset. Uncheck to return to your curve.
Show Curve: Draws the negative's characteristic (H&D) tone curve over the image: X = input (shadows left → highlights right), Y = output. The white master carries the tone shape; the three Layer Gamma curves draw as the RGB fan around it — slope IS the fan. Watch Contrast steepen the slope and Open / Close roll the shoulders. This DRAWS INTO THE PICTURE — switch it off before you render.
Tone: Who shapes the characteristic curve. Stock Curve + Preset = the stock's measured curve and layer gammas always drive, and the Tone Preset shapes tone on top of them instead of replacing them — pick a film and you get that film, then choose how it is played. Custom = the four sliders below, yours to dial (defaults = the tuned EMBR curve). Auto Per Stock = the stock's own datasheet drives everything: toe, shoulder, black depth and latitude from its measured curves, and its measured layer crossover at toe and shoulder comes with it. The sliders grey out and the sheet drives. Stocks without curve data fall back to Custom. Options: Custom (Sliders) · Auto Per Stock (Datasheet) · Stock Curve + Preset
Contrast Preset: Authored starting curves, plus the film own. Native Stock Tone Curve hands the curve to the selected stock datasheet — its toe, shoulder, black depth and latitude, measured rather than authored — and greys the four shapers while it drives. Punchy is the default: deep blacks and long, soft rolls into both ends with crisp mids. Film Compressed is gentle, realistic film contrast over a milky fog floor. Open (Legacy) is the earlier, more transparent curve with the floor off. Switching re-seats Shadow Roll, Highlight Roll, Black Depth, Highlight Latitude, Base Fog and Contrast; every slider stays yours afterward. Options: Film Compressed · Open (Legacy) · Punchy · Neutral · Native Stock Tone Curve

Layer Gammas

Red Layer Gamma: The RED record's slope — the cyan-dye layer's line in the fan. Always a multiplier, in every mode: 1 = neutral, on a stock's sheeted slope or on the Build My Own slate alike. Fanning it away from the others IS crossover — watch Show Curve. Mid grey never moves.
Green Layer Gamma: The GREEN record's slope — the magenta-dye layer's line in the fan.
Blue Layer Gamma: The BLUE record's slope — the yellow-dye layer's line in the fan.
Use Stock Gamma Curves: On: the sliders trim the selected film's measured layer slopes. Off: the film's slopes are replaced by the neutral flat slate underneath the SAME sliders — your numbers never move, only the baseline they multiply. 1.0 is neutral either way. The stock's dye, observer and curve are unaffected.

Dye Crossover

Midtone Position: The scene value the crossover pivots around — where all three dyes read neutral. The marker in Show Curves sits at exactly this value (0 = far left / deep shadow, 1 = far right / bright highlight, 0.18 = film middle grey). Lower pulls the crossover into shadows, higher into highlights.
Midtone Hold: How wide a neutral band to hold around the Midtone Position before color fans in. 0 = color starts fanning right at the pivot; higher = a wider protected midtone that stays clean while shadows and highlights still take color. Offset also honours this band.
Shadow Cyan Δ: Cyan (red layer) in the shadows (below the Midtone Position).
Shadow Magenta Δ: Magenta (green layer) in the shadows (below the Midtone Position).
Shadow Yellow Δ: Yellow (blue layer) in the shadows (below the Midtone Position).
Highlight Cyan Δ: Cyan (red layer) in the highlights (above the Midtone Position).
Highlight Magenta Δ: Magenta (green layer) in the highlights (above the Midtone Position).
Highlight Yellow Δ: Yellow (blue layer) in the highlights (above the Midtone Position).
Offset Cyan Δ: Overall Cyan (red layer) cast, applied to shadows + highlights together. Held out of the protected midtone band.
Offset Magenta Δ: Overall Magenta (green layer) cast, applied to shadows + highlights together. Held out of the protected midtone band.
Offset Yellow Δ: Overall Yellow (blue layer) cast, applied to shadows + highlights together. Held out of the protected midtone band.
Enable: A/B this section. Off zeroes the per-dye crossover so you can see the color it adds vs a clean pivot.
Show Curves: Draws the three per-dye color curves (Cyan / Magenta / Yellow) over the image. DIM lines are the selected stock's OWN crossover, before you touch anything; BRIGHT lines are that plus your Shadow / Offset / Highlight deltas — so the gap between them is exactly your contribution. Both ride flat across the Midtone Hold band and meet at the Midtone Position marker. Change stock and your sliders hold while the dim baseline redraws, which shows what your delta does on the new emulsion. On Custom there is no stock crossover, so no dim line is drawn. This DRAWS INTO THE PICTURE — switch it off before you render.

Dye Saturation

Color Response: How the film SEES color before any curve — a datasheet-grounded observer (fit from the stock's real spectral sensitivity curves). 0 = off (your working color, pass-through); 1 = the full seeing, which separates/intensifies color the way the real emulsion does (skin warms, greens deepen); 2 = exaggerated. Usually dialed subtle. Neutrals stay perfectly clean at any value. Applied at capture, before the tone curve.
Neg. Saturation: The saturation of the NEGATIVE itself — the overall color rendition the stock lays down, and the main tame for the datasheet observer's richness. This is the emulsion's own color, distinct from any image/grade saturation downstream. 1 = neutral (Custom pass-through); selecting a stock drops it to ~0.90 so the observer's richness doesn't read over-saturated. Pull down to calm, push past 1 for more. Mids carry it; shadows, highlights, neutrals and skin are protected.
Chroma Rolloff: Softly compresses the MOST saturated colors (neon extremes come down) while leaving the vivid mids their pop - a saturation shoulder, hue held. For when the negative pushes hot colors too far. 0 = off.
Color Weight: How heavy and dense the color renders. 1 = neutral (Custom pass-through, no darkening); selecting a stock sets it to ~1.25 for a little filmic weight so the image doesn't read thin/digital. Push higher for a heavier, denser negative; drop toward 0 for faded and milky. Owns the darkening; adds only a whisper of color. Pair it with Color Richness (right below), which owns the depth of color.
Richness: The depth partner to Color Weight — deepens color (muted and mid colors move first) without the digital 'louder' look. Neutrals and skin protected. Color Weight brings the heaviness; this brings the richness.
Highlight Desaturation: The film shoulder's path-to-white: highlights lose saturation as they brighten and converge toward the STOCK's own white — not a dead neutral — because it's applied under the layer color, which then re-tints them. Hue is held constant (perceptual space), unlike a digital clip that skews reds toward yellow. This is what flatters skin as it brightens toward speculars. 0 = off (pass-through). Spares the mids; engages through the highlights.
Vibrance: + lifts the low-saturation colors, − suppresses them (keeps quiet colors quiet). Neutral and skin protected.

My Stocks

My Stocks: Pick a saved stock to load it. New saves join this list next time Resolve launches. Options: Select a saved stock…

›Primaries

Lift Red
Lift Green
Lift Blue
Gamma Red
Gamma Green
Gamma Blue
Gain Red
Gain Green
Gain Blue
Offset Red
Offset Green
Offset Blue
Enable: Optional Lift / Gamma / Gain / Offset trim — balance the negative, or a final tweak.

›Split Tone

Crossover Amount: Tints shadows and highlights in opposite directions, like cool shadows and warm highlights.
Crossover Hue: The crossover axis — highlights lean toward this hue, shadows toward its opposite.
Desat Protect: Keeps the crossover off desaturated areas: a feathered saturation key gates the split tone, so grays and near-grays hold their neutrality while the tint lands only where the image already carries color. 0 = off, the crossover reaches everything.
Crossover Balance: Skews the split toward one end. 0 = shadows and highlights both. +1 = highlights only; -1 = shadows only. Use it to pull tint off the shadows when they get heavy.
Middle Grey: Moves the shadow/highlight split — the middle-grey pivot for the crossover and hue twists. 0 = photographic mid grey.
Midtone Hold: Protects a band of midtones around middle grey from the crossover and twists. 0 = the split meets at the pivot; up = a wider untouched middle.
Crossover Knee: Shape of the shadow/highlight rolloff. 0 = crisper knee; up = a rounder, more film-like transition into the midtones. Affects the crossover and the hue twists.
Black Neutral: Keeps the shadows neutral, resisting the crossover tint. 0 = only true black stays clean (tint reaches deep); up = more of the shadow range holds neutral, so blacks don't take the color.
Cast Amount: Overall color cast across all tones.
Cast Hue: Which hue the cast leans toward (around the color wheel).
Shadow Hue Twist: Rotates the color already in the shadows; neutrals stay untouched.
Highlight Hue Twist: Rotates the color already in the highlights; neutrals stay untouched.
Skin Preserve: Keeps skin tones out of the cast and crossover moves. 1 = fully spared.
Enable: Split toning — cast, crossover, and hue twists. Independent of the Negative: this keeps working with the Negative off.
View Curves: Show the crossover as a split-tone graph — R/G/B tint vs luma, with the Middle Grey pivot and Midtone Hold band marked. Turns off the other View toggles.

›Halation

Strength
Size (px): Size of the tight core glow. The wide glow is Scatter.
Scatter: Amount of the wide soft outer glow.
Saturation
Enable
View Halation: Isolate the halation contribution in the viewer. Turns off the other View toggles.
Mode: A starting point, not a lock. Gentle = the measured, dense halation the physics gives. Strong = the dialed, bloomier look. Switching re-seats the Halation and Irradiation sliders to that mode's values, and each section's Reset returns to the current mode — every slider stays yours to move afterward. Options: Gentle · Strong

Advanced Halation

Source Exposure: Exposure of the light reaching the film base, in stops. Drives how much energy qualifies to halate before Strength scales the result. 0 = as shot.
Veil: Retired — replaced by Flare Falloff.
Specular Diffusion: Diffuses the energy right at speculars into their immediate surround. 0 = off; the default is the authored bake.
Threshold
Threshold Softness: Softens the Threshold into a gradual fade-in instead of a hard cutoff.
Highlight Flare: Extra flare on raw superwhites like glints and the sun.
Source Response: Halation follows the color of the light. Red-rich sources halate hardest (their light survives the trip to the film base), blue-rich sources barely at all, and the orange core only appears when the source actually carries warm light — a cool overcast scene keeps a quiet, deep-red halo instead of orange rims. 0 = classic color-blind response. Responds to rendered color, so it shows most on practicals, neon and mixed light rather than white-balanced neutrals.
Restrict Spread: Pulls the halo energy in toward its source. 0 = full spread; higher concentrates the glow against the highlight.
Edge Hue: Hue of the halo's faint outer edges. 0 = red; up warms toward orange.
Core Hue: Hue of the halo's bright core. 0 = red; up opens toward yellow.
Core Onset: Exposure point where the core warmth engages. Low = even dimmer sources warm toward the Core Hue; 1 = only the very brightest centres do.

Irradiation

Amount: Strength of the in-emulsion diffusion — the fringe and red softness.
Spread: Overall diffusion size — scales all three channel radii together.
Highlight Weight: 0 = diffuses the whole frame; 1 = highlights only.
Saturation: How much color the irradiation carries — the scattered light only, never the image. 0 makes the bleed neutral, so highlights spread as clean light with no cast. 1 is the color the channel spreads produce on their own. Above 1 pushes the red-amber further. Brightness and reach do not change: this is purely the color of the glow.
Enable
View Irradiation: Isolate the irradiation contribution in the viewer. Turns off the other View toggles.

Channel Spread

Red Spread (px): Red diffusion radius — the red-vs-blue gap sets the fringe color.
Green Spread (px): Green diffusion radius.
Blue Spread (px): Blue diffusion radius.

›Bleach Bypass

Strength: How much of the bleach-bypass look is applied.
Silver Contrast: Contrast of the retained silver layer. Higher = harder.
Density Crunch: Saturated colors gain neutral density — they get DARKER because they're saturated, not louder (subtractive, like real dye). The ENR signature. 0 = off.
Hold Color: Brings the image's own color back under the bleached tone. 0 = pure silver desaturation, 1 = color fully held (contrast only). This is the color control.
Preserve Contrast: Pulls contrast back toward the source while keeping the desaturation.
Enable: Bleach-bypass look — desaturated, high-contrast, gritty.
Stage: Where the silver is retained. Print = shadows crush dense (the ENR grunge look). Negative = highlights carry it, a milky wash. Different film physics, not just a look. Options: Negative · Print

›Printer Lights (prints later — set with the color)

Print Light Red: Red printer-light trim on the negative, in points (1 pt = 0.025 density). + = brighter and warmer.
Print Light Green: Green printer-light trim. + = brighter and greener.
Print Light Blue: Blue printer-light trim. + = brighter and cooler.
Enable: Printer-light RGB trim on the negative. Off = neutral printer lights.
Gang Channels: Trim all three lights together, the way a lab times a print. Relative, so the balance you dialled survives: 25/23/26 taken up 2 points becomes 27/25/28, not 27/27/27. Switching it on captures the current balance.

›Texture Pop

Detail Amount: Master strength over every band. 0 = off — the whole section is an exact no-op.
Tiny: Finest structure, near the pixel — grain-adjacent texture. Every band runs both ways: positive lifts detail at its size, negative REMOVES it (frequency-selective softening; -1 erases the octave).
Fine: Skin pores, fabric weave, hair.
Small: Small features — the scale most readable as 'texture'.
Medium: Facial structure, folds, mid-scale form.
Coarse: Broad shapes — this is where texture becomes dimensionality.
Large: Largest scale: overall depth and separation, not detail.
Low Threshold: Lifts the effect off the LARGEST structures. Raise it to leave broad shapes and lighting alone while smaller detail still pops. A size limit, not a brightness one.
High Threshold: Rolls the effect off the FINEST detail. Lower it to keep the tiniest texture — pores, sensor noise, grain-scale structure — out of the lift. A size limit, not a brightness one.
Preset: Band sets that land correct on selection. Skin favours the fine bands and leaves the large structure alone; Fabric & Detail pushes small and fine; Landscape spreads across the middle; Dimensional weights the coarse and large bands for depth rather than texture. Custom is whatever you dial. Options: Custom · Skin · Fabric & Detail · Landscape · Dimensional

›Film Resolution

Diffusion (px): The soft, diffused side of film — print and scan softness.
Highlight Diffusion: Extra diffusion in the highlights only — the brights bloom into a wider, softer spread while mids and shadows keep the base Diffusion. Film behavior: where light is abundant, it diffuses first. Works even with Diffusion near zero.
Acutance: Film chemical edge effect — lifts apparent sharpness without a digital halo.
Color Split: How much the film's three color layers blur apart at edges — the measured emulsion behavior, where red scatters roughly twice as wide as green and blue. 1 = the measurement. Sub-pixel at 35mm; at 8mm it reads as a red and cyan edge fringe — pull toward 0 for clean achromatic softness at the same overall width. Stocks without a digitized sheet, like the Fuji four, carry none.
Acutance Scale: Width of the edge effect. Wider reads more film; narrower more like a digital sharpen.
Color Edges: Adds colored edge effects at color boundaries; neutral edges stay untouched.
Enable
Level: Hand-tuned resolution renditions: Soft, Standard, Crisp. Options: Soft · Standard · Crisp
View: Isolate one part of the edge effect in the viewer. Acutance = the luma edge bump alone (grey = no effect). Edge Limit = the gate the limiter applies (white = the edge passes, dark = suppressed). Color Edges = what the colored edges add beyond luma (grey = nothing). Turns off the other View toggles. Options: Output · Acutance · Edge Limit · Color Edges

›Grain

Amount
Size (px)
Softness: Particle definition: negative = cautiously sharper crystal, 0–1 = original response, above 1 = broader dye-cloud softness. Does not soften the image; judge at Full-res playback.
Enable
Blend: How grain combines with the image. Density = grain rides the image's own density, the way real emulsion does (the photochemical model). Gentle = tone-modulated; softest at the extremes. Strong = an even offset that survives deep shadows and lifted looks. Emulsion is retired — saved grades using it render as before, but pick one of the other three for new work. Options: Density · Gentle · Strong · Emulsion (retired)

Grain Character

Coarseness: Retired control - kept for saved projects; no longer read.
Crystal Size Spread: Spread of individual crystal SIZES, log-normal, the way a real emulsion is made. 0 = every crystal identical, which is what reads as popcorn once the grain is big enough to see. Where it shows: smaller gauges, lower delivery resolution, larger Size, lower Softness — 16mm at 1080 is where it earns its place. Subtle at 35mm/4K. Buys size VARIETY, not more grain: mean area is held, so Amount is unchanged. Costs render time, so raise it when you can see it.
Saturation: How much dye color the grain carries, 0 = silver mono, 1 = the maximum the dye set can hold (5x the old unit scale). The baseline look sits at 0.60.
Color Follows Dye: Ties each channel's grain to how much of that dye is actually present. A grain is a clump of dye, so a channel carrying no dye can have no grain — a saturated red has almost no cyan, and should show almost no red-channel grain. Without this, all three channels get equal noise regardless of the picture, which puts green and magenta specks inside a red where no such dye exists; those orphan hues are what read as digital noise instead of film. Neutrals hold all three dyes, so they keep their tri-color speckle. Redistributes color between channels, never adds or removes it. 0 = the previous behaviour.
Color Rides Granules: Puts the dye color on the GRANULES instead of spreading it evenly over granules and gaps alike. A real dye cloud is a discrete event: where a crystal developed the spot is both darker AND colored, and where none did you get clear base, which is lighter and neutral. Our grain field is symmetric, so color landed on the gaps too and read as blobs spanning several granules rather than individually colored ones. Mean-preserving, so it cannot tint the image. 0 = the previous behaviour.
Tonal Polarity: The print's ends play favorites with grain: bright areas lose their dark granules (the shoulder crushes them) and dark areas lose their bright granules (the toe does the same). This is that behavior — the tone-driven replacement for the retired global Dark/Light Granules. Mean-corrected, so it cannot shift exposure. 0 = off.
Grain Contrast: Grain contrast — the bite of the granules. 1 = baseline, up = deeper darks and brighter lights, 0 = flat.
Skin Gentleness: Quietens grain over a softly tapered skin-hue range without removing it or changing particle size. 0–1 preserves the original response; 1–3 extends it while retaining texture. Also affects similarly warm materials.
Aspect (Anamorph)
Bleed (Texture Bind, px): Retired control - kept for saved projects; no longer read.

Tonal Balance

Blacks: Grain in the deepest blacks. Film carries almost none here.
Shadows: Grain in the low tones — the peak of the curve on real film.
Mids: Grain in the midtones. Sits just under the shadows, where matched film grain peaks.
Highlights: Grain in the bright tones. Film tapers off here.
Whites: Grain at the very top. Film falls to near-zero here.
Zone View: Diagnostic — lights up one tonal zone so you see where its grain range lands. Options: Off · Blacks · Shadows · Mids · Highlights · Whites
Show Curve: Draws the grain-vs-tone curve (from the 5 zone sliders) as a red line over the image, dipping where Reduce pulls grain down. This DRAWS INTO THE PICTURE — switch it off before you render.

›Dust & Specks

Specks (on the film)

Opacity: How strongly the specks read — their opacity over the image.
Dirt Ratio: How many of the specks are dark dirt vs. bright dust. 0 = all bright sparkle, 1 = all dark dirt.
Dust Count
Dust Size (px)
Occurrence (frames)

›Film Motion

Impact: Master mix over the whole Film FX family.
Enable
Frame Rate (Experimental): Experimental: holds frames to the film's rate so footage steps like a projector. Only ever reduces — at or above your timeline's rate it does nothing. Auto follows Film Format (8mm = 18, others 24). The hold reads playback vs. pause from render behavior, which can vary by system — use When Paused > Live if it ever misbehaves while grading. Options: Off · Auto · 16 fps · 18 fps · 24 fps
When Paused: What the frame-rate cadence does the moment you pause. Auto releases the hold so you can grade the live frame, and re-holds when you play. Live always shows the true frame under the playhead whenever you pause. Hold keeps the stepped frame frozen even while paused, to preview the cadence on a still. (Only matters when Frame Rate is on.) Options: Auto · Live · Hold

Weave

Weave (px): How far the frame weaves in the gate, in px.
Weave V (px)
Weave Period (fr)
Link H V
Auto Zoom

Breathing

Breathing: Slow exposure flicker, like a real film transport.
Breath Period (fr)

Exposure Surge

Exposure Surge: Occasional slow exposure swell — the frames walk progressively brighter over several frames, then dump back. A macro ramp on top of the per-frame flicker, like stray light building on the transport. 0 = off.
Surge Occurrence (fr): Average frames between exposure surges. Higher = rarer and more spread out.

›Film Gate

Enable
Perforations: Draw the sprocket-hole perforations. Independent of the Gate Format and Preset — turn perfs off for a clean gate without changing the frame aspect.
Preset: A scan look, stamped into the sliders below — then tune from there. Picking one turns the gate on. Options: Custom · Full Aperture · Cropped · Overscan
Gate Format: Masks the frame to the chosen format's gate aspect, and sets the perforation count + per-gauge size. Options: 8mm (1.33) · Super 16 (1.66) · 35mm 4-perf (1.37) · 35mm 3-perf (1.78) · 35mm 2-perf (2.39) · VistaVision 8-perf (1.50) · 65mm 5-perf (2.20)

Frame & Aperture

Frame Size: Scales the framed image within the frame — smaller leaves a wider black border around it. 1 = fills the gate.
Corner Radius (px): Rounds the gate corners. 0 = sharp.
Border (px): How far the black gate edge sits in from the frame — the border width.
Edge Irregularity: Film-like raggedness on the frame boundary — very subtle by design: broad undulation fixed to the strip plus a fine per-frame boil. 0 = a clean straight edge.
Edge Softness (px): How soft the gate edge transition is.
Highlight Bleed (px): How far bright highlights halate PAST the gate edge into the black border (darks don't). Scales by film format — the tuned value is the widest; dial down toward 0.

Framelines

Film Scan (Framelines): The full scan look — the frames above and below peek in past the gate, split by black framelines. 0 = plain matte.
Frameline Gap (px): Thickness of the black bar between frames on the strip.

Perforations

Perf Position: Where the perforation sits across the left border. 0.5 = border center; 1 = on the frame edge; above 1 = onto the image, like a real 8mm scan.
Perf Width: Scales the perforation width over the format's default. 1 = accurate for the selected Perf Format.
Perf Height: Scales the perforation height over the format's default. 1 = accurate for the selected Perf Format.

Edge Glow

Edge Glow: Warm light-pipe glow along the gate edge — the film base carrying light at the frame border.
Glow Spill: How much of the perf glow spills onto the picture beside it — a separate control from the perf rim itself. 0 = none.
Glow Width: How wide the glow spreads. Low = a tight bright rim on the edge (like a real light-pipe); high = a wide soft wash into the frame.
Glow Flicker: Per-frame flicker on the edge glow — a light leak that breathes frame to frame. 0 = steady.
Glow Spike Freq: How often the glow randomly flares — 0 = never, up = more frequent leak spikes.
Glow Spike Peak: How strong the random flares get when they hit.
Glow Roughness: How imperfect the glow is — 0 hugs the frame edge cleanly, up makes it wander off the line, vary in width, and pool unevenly like a real light leak.

›Film Print (Highlight Shoulder)

Rolloff
Knee (lin)
Enable

›Views

False Color Source: What the False Color view measures. Input = the linearized source in your mapped color space (look-independent clip check). Output = the final image under the look. Options: Input (clip check) · Output (under look)
Overlay Desqueeze: If desqueezed overlays look stretched or cut off, set your clip's squeeze factor. Only affects the drawn diagnostic views - never the image. Options: Auto · 1.33x · 1.5x · 1.66x · 1.79x · 2x