CineStill has just launched a revolutionary set of tools that redefines the film-to-digital workflow: the CS Negative+ Convert Tools, powered by its cutting-edge SpectraCOLOR™ technology. These free tools offer photographers a faster, more accurate way to convert color film negatives into vibrant digital positives that stay true to the analog essence.
The CS Negative+ Convert Tools uniquely benefit from SpectraCOLOR™, a breakthrough in color science developed over three years to align the unique spectral characteristics of C-41 color negative film with modern digital camera sensors. Inspired by the sensitometric curves of traditional RA-4 darkroom prints and motion-picture cinema projection, this technology ensures that digitized negatives retain the rich colors, contrast, and dynamic range that film photographers cherish. By addressing the limitations of conventional scanning—such as hue shifts, clipped highlights, and muddy tones—SpectraCOLOR™ delivers results that stand up against professional lab outputs, all while simplifying the process.
Designed to work with Adobe Photoshop, all versions of Lightroom (including Lightroom Mobile, which is free for cloud-shared photos or standard formats like JPEG, TIFF, HEIF, and DNG/ProRAW), and Adobe Camera Raw for Bridge, these tools integrate directly into the presets panel for a non-destructive workflow. Photographers can maintain full access to native editing controls and preserve all original raw file data, making the conversion process both intuitive and flexible. Whether digitizing a single frame or an entire roll, the tools streamline the workflow, reducing the need for time-consuming color corrections while delivering professional-grade results.
SpectraCOLOR™ tackles a core challenge in film digitization: the mismatch between analog film’s color science—designed for darkroom printing—and the digital sensors used in camera scanning. Traditional methods often fail to capture the full depth of a negative’s color data, even with high-CRI light sources. By calibrating light and processing algorithms to the specific dye-density curves of color negative film, SpectraCOLOR™ produces digital positives that reflect the film’s intended vibrancy and natural beauty.
CineStill’s commitment to accessibility shines through in this release. The CS Negative+ Convert Tools are available at no cost, making high-fidelity film scanning attainable for photographers of all levels. Building on the success of their earlier Instagram filters—used millions of times before Meta discontinued the Spark AR platform in early 2025—these tools offer a more robust and accurate solution for converting and sharing film images. When paired with CineStill’s CS-LITE or the enhanced CS-LiteBrite+ (which includes a Color Negative Calibration Sheet), the tools elevate the scanning process, offering a seamless bridge between analog capture and digital editing.
This launch is part of CineStill’s decade-long mission to advance analog photography. Since 2012, the company has pioneered solutions to make film more accessible, from innovative film stocks to workflow tools that demystify the analog process. The CS Negative+ Convert Tools mark a significant milestone, empowering photographers to achieve true-to-film results with ease, whether they’re new to camera scanning or refining an established workflow.
Looking ahead, CineStill is developing next-generation hardware to fully harness SpectraCOLOR™ technology, promising even greater control over the scanning process. While details are forthcoming, this hardware is designed for photographers who demand the highest quality from their film scans, further bridging the gap between analog and digital.
The CS Negative+ Convert Tools are available for free download, and anyone shooting with color film should be interested in giving them a try. With these tools, CineStill is not only simplifying film digitization but also redefining its potential, ensuring that the soul of analog photography thrives in the digital age.
First of all there is nothing 'revolutionary' about this software. Reading through this article and what is on the website link it looks possibly OK for free but for acuraracy it does not look as good as existing software like 'Negative Lab Pro' which has more settings and control. Negative Lab Pro also has built in settings for Kodak, Fuji, Cine-D and Cine-T films. I am not seeing mention of that for SpectraCOLOR. For accuracy the samples posted of scans in this articulated look pretty dreadful.
We are excited to share these tools with our community! Our goal was to keep it simple and FREE while maximizing compatibility, consistency and fidelity. The main differences between CS Negative+ Convert with SpectraColor and other great software like NLP is the core way it handles the conversion process, in to purest and most non-destructive way possible. Most other software is designed to be automated but in our opinion, because of this it ends up doing too much digitally (needing to “analyze” each image individually, heavily shifting color curves to get usable results) to be considered a true-to-film conversion. Our approach handles the color and other adjustments when inverting at the raw level, maintaining the highest fidelity image possible for continued customized edits in RAW without exporting. This approach is to gives the photographer a start point that more accurately represents the way the film actually would look in the darkroom process. The idea is that, just like in the darkroom and with professional lab scanners, the color and contrast of your image should be determined by the film chosen and the print curve intended for that film. The conversion should be consistent for all film types and you should not need to adjust anything besides exposure and color balance to get an image that matches the intended look of the film. From there you can lift and apply your setting to any other negative for consistent results. You can then continue to fine tune each image using the basic (exposure and color balance) settings using native Lightroom tools.
Which all sounds good but I am yet to see a single example anywhere I have looked, that is accurate to the original film stock used? I will give it a go to compare with NLP but at present it looks like this will require more work afterwards than NLP to get it to look accurate.
Look, those are just presets. Presets are designed for certain film stock, carefully developed by the book, very certain type of backing light and optimal negative density. if the negative checks all those boxes, the preset might be all you need for inversion. And CineStill should be very upfront about that.
If the manual says, “Select the preset, and if the image doesn’t look right, start tweaking exposure, temperature, and tint,” —well, that’s the most dreaded, time-killing nightmare a film photographer can face. You can talk about advanced color science and “film look” to your heart content - but it doesn’t change the facts on the ground: only a very small fraction of negatives will pass this conversion with flying colors (pun intended). https://medium.com/@vladstesttarget/bec76639e762?source=friends_link&sk=...
If you don’t want to use these because they don’t suit your workflow and you don’t want to choose your density and color balance yourself, that is totally fine. These are intended to be an alternative for photographers who want to control the look of the their film in a more traditional way instead of allowing automated software to make the decisions for them. In the darkroom, which is what these tools are based on, with the RA4 process (what color print film is designed for) you use the same paper and chemistry for all films. That’s what these are doing. You may be missing the point here and what a straight conversion is.
So far there are a lot of photographers sharing good results on Instagram. Density and color balance do indeed need to be set manually but the same is true in the darkroom and with a professional lab scanner, or with digital photography for that matter if you want control of that. But fear not, you can use the WB select tool to get you close. Remember, these tools are designed to be honest and accurate conversions of the film you shot as if it were printed in the darkroom and to give the photographer control instead of an automated approximation.
Also, I might add that this is just one of many options. NLP is awesome but is a totally different approach than this. If you love NLP, maybe this is not for you.