Fujifilm is widely considered the king of film simulations and for good reason. Anyone who has owned a Fuji camera over the past decade appreciates the variety of excellent film recipes that can be created in camera and no doubt has their own go-to simulations they love to use. But is there a better way to give your photos a vintage look? In this review of Dehancer Film Emulator, we will find out.
What is Dehancer?
Dehancer Film Emulator is a plugin that works with a variety of film and video editing programs, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One, Affinity Photo, and DaVinci Resolve. It gives the user the ability to quickly and easily apply dozens of different film emulations to their photos, and includes many classic positive and negative films from companies like Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, Ilford, and more. In this review, I will focus on using Dehancer for editing still photos, and for full transparency, I will mention that Dehancer reached out to me and asked for this review. They have had no input in the content or my conclusions, however, and will see this review at the same time as the rest of the Fstoppers community.
A self portrait edited using Kodak Portra 160VC emulation.
User Interface
The Dehancer user interface is extremely simple and easy to navigate. Once the plugin is installed in your preferred program (I used Capture One for all the photos in this review), it is as easy as right-clicking on the photo, selecting “Edit with,” and choosing Dehancer. The Dehancer window will open automatically and give you the ability to apply your preferred emulation and many other adjustments. The interface is very well laid out, and it is easy to preview many emulations as you edit your photo. On the left-hand side of the window, there is a grid of thumbnail previews showing the effects of each film simulation, and by clicking on a thumbnail, the simulation will be applied to your photo. Previewing different emulations is fast and easy.
On the right-hand side of the window, there are more tools to that let you refine your look with options such as color temperature, black point, halation, bloom, vignette, and more. One of my favorite options is the “Film Grain” menu, which lets the user apply grain to an image with a variety of ways to fine tune the look. Grain can be applied as either a positive or negative film, which gives even more refinement options since the positive film grain is much more subtle. Users also have the ability to create a list of favorite presets, which is much easier than searching through the entire library of over sixty.
There are a few things that are missing from the dialog window, however. There is no histogram, which would be a huge benefit, and no ability to adjust basic parameters like exposure, shadows, highlights, contrast, etc. Because of this, I found myself making basic exposure adjustments in Capture One before opening the file in Dehancer, and although it’s not a major issue, it would be easier to adjust these parameters in the plugin directly, even though it is technically a plugin.
Jazz bassist edited using Kodak Portra 160VC emulation.
Real-World Test
I tested Dehancer using images I took at two recent on-location shoots. First, I took some behind-the-scenes photos at a recording session. The session took place at Milkhouse Studies in Huntington, New York, and as the studio was in an old farmhouse, it had lots of interesting photographic opportunities. I then captured images of a concert at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola in New York at a tribute concert dedicated to the centennial of bassist Charles Mingus and used Dehancer presets as part of my editing process.
To be frank, I have never thought of using film simulations for my professional work, as I considered them more or less a novelty to use for fun and family photos. I suppose you can chalk it up to my semi-old-school mentality, but I usually create my own looks when I edit, mostly by color grading, or creating the colors and tones I want in my studio. My experience editing these two batches of images using Dehancer's film emulations has helped me to change my perspective on this matter.
In both instances, I found I could use the simulations to take a wonderful photo and make it look great. I was happy that I didn’t have to spend a ton of time creating a unique look for each image, but with one click, could preview and determine if it was more or less where I wanted to image to go. The ability to further refine each preset was also instrumental in getting the images exactly where I envisioned them and made the entire process fast and rewarding.
Listening back in the control room, Ilford XP2 Super 400 emulation with film grain added.
Is it Time to Ditch Fuji Film Simulations?
Before my fellow Fuji fans get upset, the short answer is obviously no. But, after a few days of testing Dehancer, I came to a few conclusions. Most importantly, I realized I prefer applying the emulations in post over shooting in a simulation mode with one of my Fuji cameras, for a few reasons. First, I appreciate the ability to preview many simulations to see which I prefer over having to choose a simulation in camera before firing the shutter. Second, the workflow is so simple and fast that it didn’t add a burdensome amount of time to my editing process.
I found, however, that the Fuji film looks, especially Reala and Provia, seemed a bit heavy-hand regarding color cast. I didn't find this to be true with Kodak and Agfa presets, and I believe Dehancer has some work to do on their Fuji emulations in particular.
Finally, there will always be times when I want to avoid editing at all and will opt to use Fuji’s exceptional in-camera film simulations. But, having an enormous variety of emulations at my fingertips definitely makes me less apt to use the in-camera options going forward.
Musician listens to the band, edited with Ilford XP2 Super 400 emulation
Conclusion
As I mentioned, I used to think of film simulations as more or less a novelty, but using Dehancer has made me a believer in emulations as part of my professional workflow. In my real-world test that featured some challenging lighting situations, I found the results to be very pleasing and appreciated the ability to easily tweak the photos to create a variety of excellent looks. In the future, I am sure that I will use Dehancer more as part of a well-rounded workflow.
Personally, I find Fujifilm simulations to be more valuable. Not everyone has the luxury, or need to buy additional software and plugins to emulate the film looks that Fujifilm provides straight out of camera. Being able to create the look on the scene is a real time saver. Being to create custom looks is an added bonus. However, this software is far more valuable to those who aren't shooting with Fuji Cameras. I think that it's great that everyone now has the resources to create film looks!
I agree complety
Thanks, Roger. Fuji sims are awesome for sure, but sometimes I find myself fiddling around with them as I shoot instead of focusing on the moment. I like to be able to tweak after the fact. I know you can do this with the Fuji sims too in raw, but this interface was really easy to navigate and try out different looks.
All though I can see the benefit of in-camera Fuji simulations, I’d much rather create my own unique presets for my photos rather than spend any money on presets that might not even suit my photos anyway. Purchasing Capture One was expensive enough as it is and it gives me all the tools I’ll ever need to post process my photos.
Good point, Sam. I do a lot of my own color grading too for my portrait work.
Not a paid promo, just my honest opinion. I agree it's definitely not a replacement for the Fuji, but I like many of the sims as an added bunch of options. Thanks for reading!
Author left out the great Nik Plug-ins sims. Color Effects Pro and Silver Effects Pro have extensive list of a real variety of sims.
Fuji simulations let you see what you want in the camera - way before you get to the computer screen
Some folks actually use it to see the world through their preferred look - very useful to test b&w shots to see if they have enough contrast.
and another very important use is to impose a general theme on a piece of work so that all pictures from a party or a specific trip are viewed as a there, rather than just a jumble of separate photos
Excellent points, thanks Charles. Using a sim as a theme to keep work organized is a great idea.
Back in the day, reminds me of Exposure (formerly Alien Skin). Except Exposure have a histogram and, at minimum, basic adjustments like exposure, contrast, shadow/highlight recovery, curves, etc, etc.
With that said, I see Dehancer have exposure and tonal contrast in the right panel, does that not work as expected?
I did play around with those settings but I got much better results by taking care of exposure and shadow/highlight tweaks in C1 before importing them. If it had a standard exposure control right at the top w /histogram that would be ideal.
Shoot JPEG and RAW so you can have the best of both worlds. I like the look of Fuji sims, especially if using ones other than the defaults the camera comes with, but like having the RAWs in case I want something different.
Hey Dave that's usually what I do too, although I will often tweak the jpegs too if they are close enough to what I want.
the film emulations are built into the camera
you can use them while shooting
you can then ignore them in the final package by working off the raw that is shot concurrently
but if there's anything that gives you a better wysiwyg , it's hiding in B&H's basement
and by the way, there's nothing like shooting with the acros+red filter simulation to see if you have the makings of a good b&w landscape or with mono+green filter to see if there's a worthwhile portrait hiding in your birthday pictures