CinePrint35
User Guide
Designed by Tom Bolles
tombolles.net
rev_070824_OR
INTRODUCTION
CinePrint35 is a film emulation powergrade for Davinci Resolve that was
designed following an extensive camera profiling test led by cinematographer
Tom Bolles on a soundstage in Los Angeles in January of 2023.
The following film stocks were color profiled:
Fuji Eterna Vivid 160T 8543 shot on an Arri 35 BL4s
Kodak Vision3 500T 7219 shot on an Arri SR
Kodak Vision3 250D 7207 shot on an Arri SR
Color charts & skin tones were shot in a controlled environment from -5 stop
through +5 stop exposures on 35mm, 16mm, and various digital cameras.
In addition to neutral lighting, edge of gamut saturation mapping was tested by
lighting with pure red, green, and blue spectral LED lighting.
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INTRODUCTION (cont.)
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INTRODUCTION (cont.)
The 35mm and 16mm footage was developed and scanned in Los Angeles at
Fotokem, the #1 motion picture film lab in the world.
Fotokem does development, scanning, color timing, and film prints for some of
the biggest Hollywood movies shot on celluloid film.
Developing & scanning with Fotokem ensures that the fundamental color science
of these film emulations is based on industry leading film chemistry and
scanning.
Using the sample data from the digital cameras & film scans, new film
emulations were developed using all native tools in Davinci Resolve.
The powergrade format allows the emulations to be fully customizable and
flexible.
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MESSAGE FROM TOM
It has been an incredible experience to see many creators & filmmakers from around the world
find CinePrint16 on YouTube or social media, and choose to use it in their color grading
workflow.
I designed the original CinePrint16 powergrade during the height of the pandemic with
relatively limited resources. Since then, a lot has changed in my life.
With CinePrint35, I decided to use the resources available to me as a cinematographer
working in Los Angeles, and bring unique celluloid color science to other filmmakers around
the world who may not have the same access to film stock, film labs, and film scanning.
In particular, I’m very excited about the Fuji Eterna Vivid 160T emulation. That film stock was
discontinued more than a decade ago in 2013. It is hard to find well-preserved expired stock,
and it has higher development fees due to its age. This emulation allows Fuji’s motion picture
color science to live on with a new generation of filmmakers.
I hope CinePrint35’s emulations bring that special filmic flair to your footage, and I can’t wait to
see what you do with it! Feel free to share your work with me, and mention CinePrint35 in your
video descriptions so this wonderful community can find your work!
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—Tom Bolles
Tutorial / Demo Videos
VIDEO 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGenUZCW9as
This video will show you the following:
- How to correctly set up your project
- How to import the powergrades
- Node tree layout details
- General workflow demonstrated on many different cameras
VIDEO 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv5Q0pNmTrs
This video covers additional details about halation & grain. All clips are Arri Alexa footage.
There is extra information in this user guide that is not covered
in the videos, so I recommend reading further!
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INSTALLATION
The download is a compressed .zip file containing the User Guide .pdf, the .drx PowerGrades,
the .jpg thumbnail images, and the .cube monitoring LUTs.
1. Open the .zip file
2. Move the files to wherever you want them stored.
3. Open Davinci Resolve and go to the Color page
4. In the Gallery tab select the sidebar icon below to show the Still Albums sidebar.
5. Select the PowerGrade 1 stills album.
6. Right click in the gallery window background and select Import.
7. Navigate to where you stored the .drx files and import them.
a. If the files are greyed out, click the options button at the bottom of the import
window, select .drx from the list, and try again.
b. If importing the single file is not working, try importing the entire folder
8. Once imported, the PowerGrade can be applied to the selected shot by middle mouse
button clicking on the thumbnail, or right click -> Apply Grade.
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PROJECT SETTINGS
CinePrint35 is designed for Arri LogC3 as the working color space of the node tree within a
Davinci YRGB Rec.709 project. Footage from other cameras is matched to Arri LogC3 prior to
the emulation.
After creating a new project, do the following:
1. Open your Project Settings
2. Set your project resolution
a. NOTE: If your project resolution is UHD / 4K or higher, you will need to open the
Grain compound node, enable the 4K grain node, and disable the HD grain
node for best accuracy
b. For YouTube specifically, UHD / 4K resolution is recommended, as this forces a
better quality codec & bitrate, resulting in a less compressed stream. This will
improve the appearance of grain.
3. Navigate to the Color Management page
4. Ensure your project is set to the following:
a. Color Science: Davinci YRGB
b. Timeline Color Space: Rec.709 Gamma 2.4
c. Output Color Space: Rec.709 Gamma 2.4
d. 3D Lookup Table Interpolation: Tetrahedral
5. Navigate to the General Options page
6. Deselect ‘Use S-Curve for Contrast’ so that linear contrast is used instead
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MONITOR & SURROUNDINGS
The powergrade is designed for industry standard Rec.709 SDR display viewing.
If you have a colorimeter, make sure your monitor is calibrated to the following standards, and
the bias lighting behind your monitor is set at 6500K color temperature and a dim output level.
Color grading in a bright room, or in excessively warm or colored lighting, is likely to result in
more inconsistent results when viewing your work in other environments & displays.
SDR Reference Monitor Calibration (from Netflix Studios Imaging Guidelines)
● Color Gamut: Rec.709
● White Point: D65
● EOTF: BT.1886 (Gamma 2.4)
● Black Level: 0.05 Nits or lower
● Peak Luminance: 100 nits
● Measured Contrast Ratio: 2000:1
Critical Viewing Environment Guidelines
● The area around the screen should be lit with D65 (6500K temperature) lighting
● The surrounding illumination level in the room should be 5 nits
a. If you have a light meter with spot metering capability, you can verify this by
putting a pure white image on your 100 nit calibrated display, then lighting the
wall behind your monitor to be 4 stops darker than your display on average
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THE NODE TREE
The CinePrint35 node tree affects the image as follows:
● ROW 1:
○ The footage is converted into Arri LogC for camera profiles other than Arri Alexa,
then exposure corrected and white balanced prior to emulation
● ROW 2:
○ The main film emulation elements are applied. This effectively turns the digital
footage into a cineon log film scan
● ROW 3:
○ This is where main grading adjustments are made, as if you were grading a film
scan. Additional nodes can be added here for creative grading.
● ROW 4:
○ The footage is output with the characteristics of a film print, or a simple gamma
transform.
Node operation
Nodes can be enabled and disabled with Command + D (Mac) or Control + D (Windows).
Related adjustments are organized into compound nodes. The contents inside each
compound node can be accessed with Right-Click -> Show Compound Node.
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GRADING WORKFLOW
After applying the PowerGrade for your camera:
1. Adjust exposure with the Offset wheel in the EXP node
2. Adjust white balance with the Offset wheel in the WB node.
3. Adjust contrast in the Contrast node
a. If a low contrast / pastel / high dynamic range look is desired, try enabling the
Pre Con node, then adjusting the normal Contrast node & exposure to
compensate
4. Adjust saturation
5. Customize the look by enabling or disabling certain look option nodes
6. Add your own grading in the Primaries section
a. More nodes can be added in this area / row for additional grading
b. Grading that requires qualifier/keying selection needs to pull source input from
before the grain node for a clean selection
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NODE INFO
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Denoise
Denoising is applied first so that all downstream adjustments are working with clean footage.
Different cameras have different noise patterns, so settings may differ and denoising should
ultimately be set by eye.
For most footage, a Spatial Threshold Chroma value of 4 is all that is needed to remove subtle
color noise
PLAYBACK PERFORMANCE:
Denoising (especially temporal denoising) is the most processing intensive node in the
powergrade. If you need smoother playback, temporarily disabling the denoise node will help.
ToLogC / CST
Using a Color Space Transform (CST), footage is transformed from its original gamma and
color space to match Arri LogC and Alexa Wide Gamut.
For cameras with their own dedicated powergrade option, the conversion is already set and
does not need to be adjusted.
- (However, if you are using a Blackmagic Pocket 4K, there is an additional Pocket 4K
node inside the BMD Film Gen5 powergrade’s “ToLogC” compound node that should
be enabled for maximum conversion accuracy)
For cameras without a dedicated powergrade, the Camera CST powergrade can be used, and
the user can apply their camera’s appropriate gamma and color space in the input fields of the
CST. The Outputs should remain set to Alexa Wide Gamut and Arri LogC3.
If using an older Blackmagic camera, it is recommended to use the BMDgen5 version of the
powergrade and add a CST prior that converts from the appropriate older blackmagic color
space to BMD Film Gen5.
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EXP
Adjust image exposure using the Offset wheel.
This is considered “camera” exposure because it occurs prior to the film emulation.
WB
Adjust white balance using the Offset wheel.
This is considered “camera” white balance because it occurs prior to the film emulation.
Separate “grading” white balance can be done after the film emulation in the primaries section,
yielding a different color response.
Pre Split
Enabling this node adds cool tinted split toning to the shadows upstream of the emulation.
This is often a nice creative adjustment paired with the Fuji 160T’s shadow response.
However, it can also be copied to the same position in the node tree of the 500T & 250D
emulations and adjusted for additional creative look development!
PRE
Lowers pre-emulation contrast, giving a flatter, expanded dynamic range feel. Pre-emulation
saturation can also be adjusted here and will respond in a filmic, more subtractive way.
Post emulation contrast can then be added back in the normal grading Contrast node, while
still maintaining the higher dynamic range look.
Lowering pre contrast while increasing grading Contrast may increase the intensity of grain, so
grain opacity may need to be adjusted depending on the desired look.
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Halation
Halation is added in linear space so it accurately responds according to the original light
intensity levels of the scene. After converting from LogC to Linear, a monochromatic
warm-tinted key of the specular highlights is blurred, and a sharp version of that same key is
subtracted from the blurred version with a Layer Mixer set to Subtract, leaving just the blurred
outline. This image is then gamut limited to avoid clipping. The blur and subtractive edge
detection process is repeated with a non-tinted white version, added to the tinted version, then
this final highlight key is added over the base image with another layer mixer set to Add. The
final composite image is then converted back to LogC.
- The main nodes you may want to customize are labeled in pink.
- Adjust color using the Gain color wheel in the Gain Tint node.
- Adjust threshold using the curve in the Threshold nodes.
- The top Threshold node controls the tinted halation, and the bottom
Threshold node controls the non-tinted white glow
- Adjust halation size in the Blur tab on the +Blur nodes
- When changing blur size, the two +Blur node values should add up to 1.0
for the most natural looking results.
- The -Blur nodes should have a Blur radius of 0.5
- Make sure the chain icon is enabled so the RGB channels are ganged
together when adjusting Blur radius.
- Adjust overall opacity by selecting the overall Halation compound node and
changing Gain in the Keying tab.
If your footage aspect ratio is different from your timeline aspect ratio, halation will bleed over
onto the black bars. You can avoid this by drawing a rectangular power window around your
footage on the Halation compound node.
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Tone & Color
The Tone and Color nodes for each film stock are the foundation of each emulation.
The Tone compound node implements the highlight & shadow rolloff of the film stock, as well
as its 1 dimensional grayscale response for each color channel.
- The 500T emulation has an alternate tone curve inside the compound node. Using this
tone curve adds a warmth to the shadows resulting in a nice split toning effect
The Color compound node implements adjustments to hue, saturation, and luminance to
match the color response of that stock.
The Sat Map node gives high saturation colors a more subtractive color response
Note: for any creative look development adjustments that you want to feel embedded into the
film stock’s look, they should be added in nodes prior to the tone & color nodes to make them
“within” the film
-Green HL
Removes some of the green tint in the highlights that is inherent to the film stock
Gate Wv
Gate weave is implemented using Resolve’s Camera Shake OFX. The scale is set to a
miniscule value so that the image has the slightest jitter on the pixel level, mimicking the
movement of the negative through the film gate. It must be applied prior to grain due to how
the image scaling affects resolution and texture.
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Grain
The resolution of the footage is adjusted using blur as an optical low pass filter, then grain is
added on top.
Adding grain while the footage is in log mimics a log film scan and allows the grain to be
affected by all further adjustments in the pipeline. Grain being dynamically affected by
downstream adjustments makes it feel more realistic and embedded as opposed to overlayed.
Grain needs to be adjusted depending on Project Resolution. Inside the compound node,
there is a grain option for HD, and a grain option for 4K. Only one should be enabled at a time.
Detail & Texture Note: If you are using a camera/profile that has in-camera sharpening, it is
recommended that you turn this down to its lowest setting when shooting.
Saturation, Primaries, Contrast
At this point, the image is essentially a cineon log film scan, so standard grading adjustments
are made in this area.
Primary wheel adjustments to lift, gamma, gain, and offset can be done here.
Log wheel tints can also be made for look customization.
- Under the General Options page of Project Settings, there is the option to use Legacy
log grading ranges and curve. Turning this setting on is recommended for a traditional
film-style cineon log grading feel.
The default look is low contrast, so usually contrast will need to be increased to taste.
HSV
Increases the saturation channel in HSV color space for richer/deeper saturation response.
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Look
Makes subtle primary wheel corrections to balance the tints in the stock.
I recommend leaving this on.
Pastel
Lowers linear contrast and saturates shadows while desaturating highlights.
ShadTone / Tint Curves
Adds an RGB tone curve adjustment to modify the look before output. Turning these on tends
to help correct for odd tints when using the Cineon output option.
They can be used more as a creative look option when using the Print output.
CineonOut
The CineonOut node is an output option that uses a Color Space Transform to convert the
image from Cineon log to Rec.709 Gamma 2.4. The final look mimics a scan of negative film
that has been gamma corrected for viewing. When this output option is enabled, the PrintOut
node must be disabled.
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PrintOut
The PrintOut node is an output option that converts from log to Rec.709 using print film
emulation LUTs. These recreate the color and density response of positive print films meant
for projection in theaters. There is a Kodak 2383 and Fujifilm 3513 option inside the compound
node. Only one of these should be enabled at a time. When a print is being used, the
CineonOut node must be disabled.
Kodak 2383 is the only print film that is still produced, so if you watch a recent movie in
theaters today that is being projected on film, it is a 2383 print.
Warm WP
Sets a white point warmer than D65.
By default, the key output gain is set to 0.5 intensity, which is about 6000K. At full intensity, the
white point becomes 5500K
Dust
The dust node adds dust to the image using Resolve’s Film Damage OFX. The amount and
opacity of dust can be adjusted to taste. Dust can be further minimized by increasing the Dirt
Blur.
The dust algorithm tends to generate a lot of dust near the edge of frame which can feel
unbalanced, so a rectangular mask is added to limit the dust from appearing there. This mask
needs to be readjusted depending on the aspect ratio of your footage.
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GROUPS
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Working with Groups
Resolve’s Group functionality allows for a grade to be applied to many clips simultaneously. To
make a new group, select the desired clips in the clip timeline, then right click and select “Add
into New Group.”
The Node Window will now have 4 tabs indicated by small white dots at the top of the window.
Pre-Clip nodes
- Affect the whole Group. Applied first.
Clip nodes
- Affect only the individual clip currently selected. Applied after Pre-Clip.
Post-Clip nodes
- Affect the whole Group. Applied after Clip.
Timeline nodes
- Affect the entire timeline. Applied after Post-Clip.
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Working with Groups (cont.)
When using CinePrint35 with Resolve’s Group functionality, the PowerGrade should be
applied as follows:
1. Apply the powergrade to the Group Pre-Clip window. Then delete the Gate Weave
node and all nodes after it
2. Next, apply the powergrade to the Group Post-Clip window. Then delete everything
before the Gate Weave node
3. Now, any grading adjustments intended for the entire Group can be made at the group
level, and adjustments intended for a single clip can be made in the Clip window. Clean
qualifier/key selections can be made at the clip level since the selection is before the
application of grain
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Happy Grading!
Tom Bolles
tombolles.net
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